Comments on: When A Woman Ascends The Stairs (Japan 1960)

By: Nomura #1: Stakeout (Harikomi, Japan 1958) | The Case for Global Film

Nomura #1: Stakeout (Harikomi, Japan 1958) | The Case for Global Film — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 16:47:15 +0000

[…] often remembered for her roles in Naruse Mikio’s melodramas such as Floating Clouds and When A Women Ascends the Stairs (1960). This is Sadako, a housewife married to an older businessman and […]

By: Rona Murray

Rona Murray — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:44:00 +0000

Okay, boys – did you notice there was a WOMAN at the centre of this film. I kept thinking of ‘The Women’ whilst watching – but I’m not sure why. (Aside: Meg Ryan in the remake – who else is upset?) Instead of the ‘twisted sister’ play of the earlier Hollywood film (and subsequent) – I thought it delicately explored that combination of bonding and rivalry that women understand, especially in desperate economic circumstances. To live your live in such a compromised way – and still retain dignity. I felt that was her triumph. I agree, it evoked its era, for us now, brilliantly – and a real ability to use sillence and quiet that we all wish was more understood!

By: Roy Stafford

Roy Stafford — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:50:00 +0000

Thanks for this, TomI couldn't get your YouTube link to work, but I did find what I think is the opening to Ichikawa's film. It makes me want to see the whole thing (although I was momentarily shocked by the shot through the clouds that seemed to echo Triumph of the Will).Trying to remember 1960 and my childhood sense of the world 'out there', Japan did not really figure apart from the war stories. Hong Kong was the emergent economy. Everything new I had as a child was 'Made in Hong Kong'. I think the first Japanese product I bought was probably a cassette recorder in the early 1970s.I'm tempted now to go back to Suzuki Seijun films like Branded to Kill to see how he depicts the cityscape and bars.

By: Tom Vincent

Tom Vincent — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 22:09:00 +0000

I enjoyed ’When a Woman Ascends the Stairs’ a lot too.My favourite piece of film from that era, when Japan’s economy turned a corner and the ‘economic miracle’ became a reality, is the first ten minutes of Kon Ichikawa’s ‘Tokyo Olympiad’, from 1964. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYfjWgMjMkwI find the crowd fascinating. What must it have felt like for that generation, to have gone from devastation to this so quickly? Of course there’s a lot of nostalgia for those times in Japan now, just like there’s some nostalgia for the war in ‘When a Woman Ascends the Stairs’. Most of the salaryman ‘snack’ bars in Tokyo now still keep that modernist European ‘afficionado’ look, and play 50s jazz or nostalgic postwar enka music. Back to Naruse, I didn’t expect the voiceover, or the jazz score and titles from him. I’d only seen his 1950s films. Not sure what to make of this, but it seems to beckon some of Japan’s new wave, while looking back at the same time. Not bad for an unassuming studio guy.