On today’s episode we discuss Summer Clouds (1958) and Scattered Clouds (1967). Summer Clouds centers on a family of farmers dealing with the complications wrought by both legal and social changes. Scattered Clouds is Naruse’s final film and it chronicles a doomed romance of two well-intentioned people who share an unspeakable tragedy. We are presenting this discussion to you in conjunction with the screenings of these films that are set to take place in New York at Metrograph on June 28 and 29. With regard to home viewing, Scattered Clouds is available on Criterion Channel.
Discussion of Summer Clouds starts at (2:06) and discussion of Scattered Clouds starts at (42:37)
Our latest episodes on Naruse’s films are being released in conjunction with the retrospective in New York that Japan Society and Metrograph are hosting – “Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us.” The retrospective is also set to travel to Berkeley, where BAMPFA will be hosting the series from July 3 to December 21, 2025. We include the links to the retrospective schedules below:
- New York’s Mikio Naruse retrospective - Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us
- Metrograph Schedule - https://metrograph.com/category/mikio-naruse/
- Berkeley’s Mikio Naruse retrospective at BAMPFA - https://bampfa.org/program/mikio-naruse-auteur-salaryman
- A Mikio Naruse Companion by Dan Sallitt - https://mikionaruse.wordpress.com/
- “Caught: Mikio Naruse” by Chris Fujiwara - https://www.filmcomment.com/article/caught-mikio-naruse/
- Mikio Naruse: A Master of Japanese Cinema by Audie Bock - https://www.worldcat.org/title/17227763
Hosted by Aret Frost and Tony Huang (@Tghuang)
Consultant: Ryan Swen (@swen_ryan)
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