Roslindale Monogatari

We visited the Peabody Essex Museum to see its exhibit on Summer in New England (closing this week). While there, we discovered a Boston artist we had never heard of -- Allen Rohan Crite (around 96 years old and still living in Boston). Only three paintings were shown -- so I looked for more online: http://www.phillipscollection.org/american_art/artwork/Crite-Parade_Hammond+.htm http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/crite1.html http://www.howard.edu/library/Art@Howard/HUCollection/Crite1.htm http://americanart.si.edu/images/1971/1971.447.18_1b.jpg http://americanart.si.edu/images/1977/1977.45_1b.jpg http://www.tfaoi.com/am/16am/16am50.jpg About the artist: http://www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/alum/2000/03.html

Zoluschka / Cinderella (Nadezhda Kosheverova & Mikhail Shapiro, 1947) thanks to Galina Amazingly Yanina Zhejmo, the young-looking heroine of this film was in her late 30s when this was made (she was a veteran of the silent era). (She and both directors seem to have been colleagues/proteges of Kozintsev and Trauberg). Not quite a full musical, but with a few songs -- this is a very nice, lighthearted adaptation of Cinderella. Okaasan / Mother (Mikio Naruse, 1952) Sadness and joy alternate in this story of a hard-working mother (played by the great Kinuyo Tanaka), as seen through the eyes of one of her daughters (Kyoko Kagawa). Uwasa no onna / literally Woman of Gossip (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954) My second most favorite Mizoguchi film of the year (after "Crucified Lovers" and ahead of "Sansho). The most obscure of Mizoguchi's films of the 50s -- without even a standard English title (but usually clunkily mis-called "Woman of the Rumor". Kinuyo Tanaka is the...