Show Notes
It is week five of the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman, which means we are now halfway through! Fittingly for the halfway point, though how could the filmmakers have known, we get three films in which Zatoichi must refrain from violence (but doesn't). Kazuo Miyagawa is once again behind the camera in the beautifully shot Zatoichi's Vengeance (Tokuzō Tanaka, 1966), in which Ichi meets a blind priest who tells him he's a bad guy what because of all the killing. The great Kaneto Shindo pens the script for Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (Kazuo Ikehiro, 1966) in which Ichi takes a sabbatical from killing to go on a pilgrimage of repentance, then immediately kills a man and is stalked by a horse, leading to a fight with some sort of metaphor for imperialism. And lastly Zatoichi's Cane Sword (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1967) is an origin story for Ichi's sword, in which the apprentice of its maker tells Ichi the sword will shatter if it is used to kill any more people (or presumably cut any more Go boards in half), so Ichi gets a real job and tries harder not to kill anyone than in either of the previous two films.
More from Lost in Criterion
Sometimes years of doing the podcast align in fun ways and we get to talk about David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981) in October without moving anything around. Scanners is a smorgasbord of body horror effects that starts with a bang and keeps going. But it's also a Parallax View-esque political thriller with murderous psychics. That is to say, it's great.
Pat is a huge fan of the Beatles, which he inherits from his dad, and which he this week fails to pass on to his own children. Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964) is a movie those kids should like; it's fun and funny, it's The Beatles just on the cusp of being THE BEATLES. Popular as anything already, but not quite bigger than Jesus yet. The film is an interesting look at how that popularity is a prison for four guys in their early 20s.
Georges Franju's homage to/remake of Louis Feuillade's 1916 serial, Judex (1963) is a dreamy tale of revenge full of contrivance and illogic and every single frame is a masterpiece. Encountering films like this is biggest reward of doing the podcast.
Howard Hawks directs this grand western in which Montgomery Cliff maybe introduces Hollywood to The Method and John Wayne learns to act. It's a story about greed and America but it's not an open critique because it would be bad if we said America is bad. If nothing else John Wayne would quit the production.
Since first watching Taste of Cherry way back at Spine 45, we have looked forward to each Abbas Kiarostami the Criterion Collection has shown us. Color us intrigued when we found out that Like Someone In Love (2012) was made in Japan. Unfortunately, Pat maybe gets a little hung up on the fact that much of what the characters in this movie do don't really make sense within Japanese culture. Aside from that, it's a fantastic film.