A Page of Madness

(Kurutta ippêji, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Japan 1926, 59 min., 35mm, Japanese intertitles w/subtitles)

After Bedlam | Silent Tuesdays. A brilliant avant-garde exploration of the helplessness felt by an insane person’s loved ones, this film tells of a man who works as a janitor in the insane asylum where his wife is a patient. Using a battery of expressionistic visual devices, Kinugasa shifts between lyric “sanity” and visual shock, building the story around the janitor’s attempt to help his wife to escape—except she wants to remain in her ‘home.’ An undisputed masterpiece of Japanese cinema, this film was considered lost for many years until a single nitrate copy was discovered by the director in 1970, from which this print derives. Live piano by Philip C. Carli. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.