A Page of Madness

A Page of Madness
The poster features a Japanese style happy-face mask. The title appears at bottom.
Promotional release poster
Directed byTeinosuke Kinugasa
Written by
Produced byTeinosuke Kinugasa
Starring
CinematographyKōhei Sugiyama [ja]
Eiji Tsuburaya[1]
Music byMinoru Muraoka ("New Sound" version)
Production
companies
  • Kinugasa Motion Picture League[1]
  • National Film Art Company
Release dates
  • July 10, 1926 (1926-07-10) (Japan)
  • April 27, 1975 (1975-04-27) ("New Sound" version)
Running time
71 minutes[2]
CountryJapan
A Page of Madness (1926) by Teinosuke Kinugasa

A Page of Madness (狂った一頁, Kurutta Ichipēji) is a 1926 Japanese silent experimental horror film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Lost for 45 years until it was rediscovered by Kinugasa in his storehouse in 1971,[3][4] the film is the product of an avant-garde group of artists in Japan known as the Shinkankakuha (or School of New Perceptions) who tried to overcome naturalistic representation.[5][6][7] The film is set in a mental institution in contemporary Japan.

Yasunari Kawabata, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, was credited on the film with the original story. He is often cited as the screenwriter,[8] and a version of the scenario is printed in his complete works, but the scenario is now considered a collaboration between him, Kinugasa, Banko Sawada, and Minoru Inuzuka.[9] Eiji Tsuburaya is credited as an assistant cameraman.[10]

  1. ^ a b Ragone 2014, p. 192.
  2. ^ "A Page of Madness". Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  3. ^ Sharp, Jasper (7 March 2002). "Midnight Eye feature: A Page of Madness". Midnight Eye. Archived from the original on 20 April 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2007.
  4. ^ Gerow 2008, p. 42.
  5. ^ Gerow 2008, p. 12.
  6. ^ Gardner, William O. (Spring 2004). "New Perceptions: Kinugasa Teinosuke's Films and Japanese Modernism". Cinema Journal. 43 (3): 59–78. doi:10.1353/cj.2004.0017. S2CID 55444732. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  7. ^ Lewinsky, Mariann (1997). Eine Verrückte Seite: Stummfilm und filmische Avantgarde in Japan. Chronos. p. 59. ISBN 3-905312-28-X.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference OC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Gerow 2008, pp. 26–33.
  10. ^ Ryfle 1998, p. 44.