Oct 22, 2022·edited Oct 23, 2022Liked by Dr. Kathleen Waller
My hometown was a cultural desert, particularly when I was growing up, and my parents were never interested in (and never encouraged my sister and I to go to) museums, concerts, etc. So I'm mostly self-educated in that respect.
To this day, though I listen to music daily, concert-going is not really my thing. I became a movie buff when I was in college, and art is a more recent passion.
What a great piece! I had no idea about all the cinema houses in Tokyo. Do you speak Japanese or are you able to see subtitled films frequently? There's a great poem by PK Leung (Ye Si) that takes place within a Japanese cinema, but I'll show you this later. :)
Also, I guess the 'cultural desert' maybe impacted you in a different way; do you think it gave you more of a drive to learn through film?
Tokyo is a moviegoer paradise, though now rather less so, what with several small indie theaters closing and the spread of the dreaded soulless corporate multiplexes.
I speak Japanese but I watch relatively few Japanese films. Let's be honest, recent Japanese cinema is not what it used to be.
The great thing about movie theaters in Japan is that all foreign films are shown in their original version with Japanese subtitles. My reading skills are not great when it comes to books or articles (those damned Chinese characters), but I can usually follow the subtitles. The only exceptions are some of those French movies where they talk talk talk,.
To answer your question, I fell in love with films because Pisa, where I went to college, is a small boring town with nothing to do and little campus activity (actually there isn't a campus like you have in the US). On the other hand, there is (or used to be... we are talking about more than 30 years ago) a wonderful cineclub that showed four different movies every day. You paid to get in, not to watch a particular title, so if you had enough stamina, you could watch all four movies (my best was three). That's how I got a film education.
My hometown was a cultural desert, particularly when I was growing up, and my parents were never interested in (and never encouraged my sister and I to go to) museums, concerts, etc. So I'm mostly self-educated in that respect.
To this day, though I listen to music daily, concert-going is not really my thing. I became a movie buff when I was in college, and art is a more recent passion.
This is a piece I wrote about Tokyo cinemas. https://giannisimone.substack.com/p/the-last-picture-show?s=w
What a great piece! I had no idea about all the cinema houses in Tokyo. Do you speak Japanese or are you able to see subtitled films frequently? There's a great poem by PK Leung (Ye Si) that takes place within a Japanese cinema, but I'll show you this later. :)
Also, I guess the 'cultural desert' maybe impacted you in a different way; do you think it gave you more of a drive to learn through film?
Tokyo is a moviegoer paradise, though now rather less so, what with several small indie theaters closing and the spread of the dreaded soulless corporate multiplexes.
I speak Japanese but I watch relatively few Japanese films. Let's be honest, recent Japanese cinema is not what it used to be.
The great thing about movie theaters in Japan is that all foreign films are shown in their original version with Japanese subtitles. My reading skills are not great when it comes to books or articles (those damned Chinese characters), but I can usually follow the subtitles. The only exceptions are some of those French movies where they talk talk talk,.
To answer your question, I fell in love with films because Pisa, where I went to college, is a small boring town with nothing to do and little campus activity (actually there isn't a campus like you have in the US). On the other hand, there is (or used to be... we are talking about more than 30 years ago) a wonderful cineclub that showed four different movies every day. You paid to get in, not to watch a particular title, so if you had enough stamina, you could watch all four movies (my best was three). That's how I got a film education.
Club 47 / Club Passim has amazing musical tradition and history. Betsy Siggins (https://www.bennionkearny.com/betsy-siggins-club-47-bob-dylan-and-joan-baez/) was there for it all and helps run Folk New England (https://folknewengland.org/).