Flicker Alley

[andyli]

It’s funny people’s first reaction towards a set called The Art of Benshi is finding it annoying and asking if it could be turned off.

[domino harvey]

I mean, it is really annoying, at least based on the Mizoguchi ones I’ve seen. I doubt many people make it to the end without switching tracks or muting and reading the subtitles, descriptions of it don’t really give perspective on what it’s like to sit through something so counterintuitive to how we traditionally watch films

I will point out that Flicker Alley did pick the far superior of the two Mizoguchi features in this style to restore here, so that’s great news for everyone

[mteller]

Sadly, doesn't look like the 70's score for A Page of Madness is included. Oh well.

[kindaikun]

I may be missing something but does it state anywhere whether the benshi narration is in English or Japanese? Or does it vary with each feature?

It mentions English SDH subtitles which would generally imply English audio, yet at the bottom it also lists: "Language: Japanese"

I got the chance to watch some silents with benshi narration in Japan ("I was born but..."), but I'm not sure how well it would work in English.

[domino harvey]

The Mizoguchi ones were in Japanese and subtitled on the Japanese DVDs, and there weren’t intertitles (or they weren’t subbed if there were, can’t recall exactly) so you needed the subs for the spoken narration otherwise you’d be completely lost on the plot

[Lowry_Sam]

Flicker Alley's product description on its website is more detailed than the initial blurb I saw. It states:

23 audio presentations across nine different titles, The Art of the Benshi features 11 different benshi with newly recorded performances ...With multiple benshi performances and historically inspired musical performances on every film, audiences can fully experience the degree to which different performers transform and deepen the moviegoing experience.

And then

THE FULL LIST OF BENSHI PERFORMERS IS AS FOLLOWS:
Bunazawa Ken’ichi - Sweetie
Kataoka Ichirō - Orochi, A Page of Madness, Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba
Murayama Kenji - Captain January
Mutō Kenji - Brownie's Little Venus
Oda Takatora - Our Pet
Ōmori Kumiko - The Water Magician, Captain January, Blood-Spattered Takadanobaba
Sakamoto Raikō - The Water Magician
Sawato Midori - Orochi, The Water Magician, Our Pet
Yamashiro Hideyuki - Orochi, Darling of New York
Yamauchi Nanako - A Page of Madness, Darling of New York
Yamazaki Vanilla - Brownie's Little Venus

So it looks like most (though not all) have 2 Benshi options and at least from the Youtube sample for A Page Of Madness, one is in English (the other probably Japanese?), not exactly Criterion's Brand Upon The Brain, but some options. But with 23 "23 audio presentations" across 9 films, it doesn't sound like there's much more than 1 musical option for each, which is too bad. There were a number of scores composed for A Page Of Madness alone: Teinosuke Kinugasa, Muraoka Minoru, In The Nursery, Aonno Jiken Ensemble, Alloy Orchestra, plus several live improvisational performances.

I must have misremembered seeing it for the first time with a few intertitles. The clip on Youtube has scenes that segue much more seemlessly & rapidly into one another, whereas I remember them broken up much more. I am certain that the print I saw did not have blue tinting like the clip. Anyone know if some prints were ever struck up that added intertitles to account for lack of benshi? Wikipedia/Google says no.