The First and Only Film of the New Sensation Film League

There have been a lot of screenings in the department recently. Tonight is a brand new 35mm screening of the Japanese 1926 experimental silent film "A Page of Madness". Four musicians, including Chicago-based director/musician Tatsu Aoki and Jonathan Chen, will accompany the show live, with instruments: shamisen, bass, violin, keyboard, Japanese drum taiko, narimono. Aoki said that he doesn't like the accompaniment of silent films from scratch, and likes to leave room for silence from time to time and breathe time. And such a bizarre movie is more suitable for the accompanist to play his own style. If it is Ozu's comedy, the room for development is limited. If some new attempts are made, the audience will find it strange and inconsistent with the tone of the film.

Michael Raine, a British professor who studies Japanese cinema, gave a previous introduction, followed by a question-and-answer segment.

The film claimed to be "the first work of the New Sensation Film Alliance", but it became the last film due to excessive investment and poor box office. This alliance, including the writer Kawabata Yasunari (this is the script he wrote). Director Kinikasa Tsunosuke was known for playing female characters in the very early days of Japanese films when there were no actresses. The film did not use "intertitle" at that time, which was a braver approach in the silent film era, and was deeply influenced by German films and Murnau's "The Last Laugh". But it was explained by Tokugawa Musei, the most famous orator of the time. What we are watching today is of course the uncommented version.

The director was in debt and hid the negatives in order to prevent the creditors from asking for negatives. The director later re-edited it. In the 1970s films were rediscovered and re-released, but without funding for 35mm, they made 16mm. The existing version is about 20 minutes shorter than the original version, making the original ambiguous and confusing narrative more elusive.

However, advertised as a pioneer/experiment, the clarity of the storyline is not very important, and was judged by later reviewers as an example of resistance to transparent narrative (narrative transparency).

Modernism, avant-garde, neo-sensation... These words, concepts and their implied spirit are reflected in the film. There are traces of influence from French Impressionism and German Expressive Attention to Film. The wheels are reminiscent of Abel Gance's "La Roue"; its quick montage cuts have both Jean Epstein and Eisenstein rhythms.

The mask scene is pretty amazing. Inspired by Japanese Noh. Among them, the alcoholic/wife-abusing seaman/cleaner wears the "old god" unique to Noh. mask/masking, triggering discussions on subjectivity.

Other keywords: intermediality, pure film movement.

Recently, I have been reading about the "New Sensation School", Japanese writers such as Yokomitsu Toshiichi and Tanizaki Junichiro have an opinion on Shanghai's "New Sensation School" writers such as Mu Shiying, Liu Naou, Shi Zhe The influence of Cun et al. is not small. New feeling literature + film, very sensual.

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