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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2014 |
Early Japanese Cinema |
| Film Title |
KAMIYA JIHEI |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[Jihei, il mercante di carta] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[Jihei, the Paper Dealer] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
|
| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
September 1911 |
| Production Co. |
M. Pathe, Tokyo |
| Director |
? |
| Format |
|
Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
|
16 |
| |
|
|
| Footage |
|
Time |
| 718 ft. |
|
12 |
| Archive Source |
Theatre Museum, Waseda University |
| |
|
| Print Notes |
senza did./no titles |
| Program Notes |
Kamiya Jihei is a screen adaptation of one of the most famous Joruri (Bunraku puppet theatre scripts) written by Monzaemon Chikamatsu, The Love Suicides at Amijima (Shinju Ten no Ami-jima). Premiered in January 1721, it was later adapted into a Kabuki play.
Jihei, a paper dealer in Osaka, gets to know a courtesan, Koharu, and they fall in love. Jihei’s wife Osan learns of the affair and writes a letter to Koharu, asking her to give him up. In consideration for his wife, Koharu breaks up with Jihei by making up a lie. Osan finds out that Koharu is thinking of killing herself and tries to save her. However, after Osan is forcibly brought back to her parents’ house, Jihei and Koharu commit suicide together at a temple in Amijima.
This M. Pathe film was released in September 1911, but was re-released in 1912 as a Nikkatsu film owing to a shortage of films available for theatrical release. – Hiroshi Komatsu
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