I was not familiar with jidaigeki but I’ve seen a few of them without knowing it. It’s possible that what I’m going to say about this film only makes sense in western genres and not in jidaigeki but, given that I’ve only a few of these films, I have no idea.
Tag: 1962
Cleo de 5 a 7 (1962, Agnes Varda)
I can only imagine what it would have been like to see this in theatres in Canada or the US when it finally made it over. This is an insane film, a real time experience a newly successful model trying to come to terms with her biopsy, with a myriad of film techniques with no …
Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) by John Updike
This is a collection of Updike’s short stories and I feel like it might be his first collection. They range in length and quality but, on the whole, I think they are worthwhile if you like Updike as a writer.
Carnival of Souls (1962, Herk Harvey)
This is one of those movies where, if you cast your mind back, you can imagine it would have been scary, as there wasn’t much like it in 1962. But now, with fifty plus years in between, it’s hard to look at it as much more than an eerie curiosity, full of great lighting and …
Surfin’ Safari (1962) by The Beach Boys
I listened to the Beach Boys a lot growing up, along with a lot of other music from this period. I had some Greatest Hits tapes and such, I believe. So when I discovered actually interesting music, the Beach Boys went the way of nearly all oldies bands and artists I listened to – I …
Modern Sounds in Country and Wester Music, Volume Two (1962) by Ray Charles
Ray Charles’ radical reinterpretations of country standards sound so dated now it’s really hard to appreciate them both for their radical boundary-breaking (black performers didn’t perform white music much at all at the time) and for the way in which Charles reinvigorated soul music with a new source of inspiration and a new avenue down …
Boccacio ’70 (1962, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli, Luchino Visconti)
This is a collection of four roughly 50 minute long films (just three in the US theatrical edition) poking fun at the sexual mores of 1960s Italy (which is why there’s “’70” in the title???) in tribute to Decameron by Boccacio, a 14th century set of tales considered one of the early Italian literary masterpieces. …
The Best of RPM and Kent Recordings (2011) by BB King
This disc compiles some of King’s A-sides for both the RPM and Kent labels throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.
Two Classic Albums from Gordon Jenkins (2000)
In my quest to hear the sources of nearly everything, sometimes I stumble upon stuff that I really shouldn’t have, music that is just not for me. This twofer is one of those things; it’s a compilation that pairs a compilation (seriously) with what appears to be a release for orchestra.
Epitaph by Charles Mingus, conducted by Gunther Schuller, Live at Walt Disney Concert Hall, May 16, 2007
What the hell do we do with Epitaph?
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1962) edited by Donald Kagan
This particular Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is an old sampler of theories about the decline of the Roman Empire that I think was part of a class my father took in university. It was assembled in 1962, but the first issue with it is that many of the books and articles it …
The Twilight Zone (1999) by Bernard Herrmann, performed by Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely
Though not the composer of The Twilight Zone‘s most iconic theme, Herrmann composed music for both the overall show and individual episodes. This album collects the scores for seven of those episodes and includes a couple other pieces Herrmann did for the show.
Fahrenheit 451 [et al.] (1995) by Bernard Hermann, performed by Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely
This is another Bernard Hermann compilation, a kind of scattershot one.
All Fall Down (1962, John Frankenheimer)
This film is one of those over-baked Tennessee Williams-esque portraits of a family barely keeping it together, with an over-bearing mother (naturally), a drunk father (naturally) and a golden boy who isn’t quite so golden (naturally). We’ve seen this before, even if the story isn’t quite the same.
The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark (1997) by Grant Green
This set compiles the first three albums Grant recorded with pianist Sonny Clark before the band was expanded to a quintet later in 1962. Interestingly, none of these albums were released until 1980 (in Japan) which, given the quality of the music, it’s really hard to understand.
String Quartet; So You Want to Write a Fugue; Shostakovitch; Poulenc (1997 Compilation)
I really like Gould’s quartet. I know it’s not the most forward-thinking piece for the time, but I think it’s among the second tier of its era and I really don’t mind listening to it. The fugue-song thing is a different story: I like it but it’s almost too clever. I like that it seems …
Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 / Brahms: Symphony No. 3 (1988) by Wiener Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
In 2013, I wrote the following: At first this seemed to me like an arbitrary combination (something which I generally dislike) but for some reason the two works seem to mesh well together, and it’s not just because they were written within five years of each other. They seem (at least on my first listens) …
Complete Organ Works (2003) by Maurice Durufle, performed by Friedhelm Flamme
The pipe organ must be one of the seriously neglected instruments of 20th century “classical” music, at least from the perspective of us musical naifs. I mean, even though there are plenty of notable organ and organ-centric compositions, very few of those have actually made it into mass awareness. The little bit of organ music …