Japanese Cinema Eclectics

FILM: Strange Fruit (Kurutta Kajitu)
Directed by Koh Nakahira, Written by Shintaro Ishihara with Yujiro Ishihara, Masahiko Tsugawa, Mie Kitahara, Masumi Okada. 1956, 86 mins.

Afterparty organized by TUJ Wakai Project, with live music and performances

Language: Introduction by Donald Richie in English
Film in Japanese with English subtitles
(film to be followed by a Q&A moderated by Donald Richie)
Japanese Cinema Eclectics official site

About the Film: Crazed Fruit (Kurutta Kajitsu)

Original Story and screenplay by Shintaro Ishihara. Photographed by Shigeyoshi Mine. Art Direction by Takashi matsuyama. Music by Toru Takemitsu. Directed by Ko Nakahira. With Yujiro Ishihara, Masahiko Tsugawa, Mie Kitahara, Masumi Okada.1956, 86min.

"Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking."
-Criterion Collection-

A single showing of a seminal film of the 1950s in Japan, the one that heralded the later youth cults and has been described as "an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation." With its bold subject matter, its sultry sex, and its radical editing, it ushered in the Japanese "new wave" films of the 1960s.
-Donald Richie-

Donald Richie

Named by TIME magazine, "the dean of Japan's art critics," and acknowledged as the foremost authority on Japanese cinema, Donald Richie has also written widely - some forty books in all - on other aspects of the country and its people. The Inland Sea has been called a classic and its film version has won prizes at international film festivals as well as the National Geographic Earth Award. His Public People, Private People has been called "unforgettable" by Tom Wolfe and of his two collections of essays, A Lateral View and Partial Views, Susan Sontag has said: "Donald Richie writes about Japan with an unrivaled range, acuity, and wit."

Richie has lived in Japan for most of his life. Arriving on New Year's Day, 1947, he worked as feature-writer and film critic for The Pacific Stars and Stripes. After graduating from Columbia University in 1953, he returned to Japan as film citic for The Japan Times. He has written for Newsweek, The Nation, Variety, The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and all major films magazines. In addition he presented the first retrospective of the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu at the 1962 Berlin Film Festival and has since acted as guest director of the Telluride Film Festival, and served on the juries at the Hawaii, Lacarno, Thessaloniki, and Kerala Festivals. In addition to writing a column for The Japan Times, lecturing around the world, and continuing to lend his distinctive voice to Japanese studies, Donald Richie teaches film at Temple Universityfs Japan Campus.

Presented by the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus in Association with SuperDeluxe