On Monday we went to see the film Tatsumi based on Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s memoir A Drifting Life and five of his short stories. This is the fabulous poster for the film (here in postcard format):
The animation style of the film is beautiful and very close to Tatsumi’s original manga. If you’re not familiar with Tatsumi’s manga (or gekiga) it’s brilliant but unutterably sad, since the characters featured in it are always entirely without hope or chance of salvation.
Me and Phil have found the time to watch a few films this week, including the silent films Wings and Murnau’s Sunrise, both of which are commonly credited with having won best picture awards at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929 – they actually won awards for ‘Outstanding Picture, Production’ and ‘Unique and Artistic Production’ respectively. Both films have very traditional plots but are technically innovative, Sunrise in particular. I’m always amazed by just how innovative the early film makers were willing to be.
I also received a very exciting delivery this week – linocut printing supplies! I’m going to be putting these into action asap:) I think a Clara Bow print may be in order.
