This year's Fall Film Series will kick off with a one-night special screening at the Michigan Theater for the film, "I Was Born, But..." (Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita). In addition to the main feature, Roscoe Arbuckle's 1918 slapstick silent film, "The Cook," will also be screened.
Main Feature: Ozu's first masterpiece. Yoshii, an office clerk, moves with his family to his boss’ neighborhood in the Tokyo suburbs. Though his two sons, Ryoichi and Kenji, are initially reluctant to go to school because of a bully and his gang, they eventually turn the tables to take his place. One day, the two brothers visit their new "friend," Taro, who also happens to be the son of their father’s boss, Iwasaki. There, they chance upon a home movie filmed by Iwasaki, in which their father is playing a fool. The boys are shocked to witness their usually strict and patriarchal father appearing in such subservience to his boss. Billed as a “comedy of embarrassments,” I Was Born, But… shows the effects of depression on the rapidly modernizing urban space of Japan, along with a curious class-consciousness. (100 min, 35 mm, 1932.) Admission charged: $15 for adults; $7 for Michigan Theater members/students/seniors/veterans.
LIVE music performance by Little Bang Theory (I Was Born, But...) and Stephen Warner (The Cook).
