Silver Wheel
Ginrin
Japan
1955
12 Min
Color
Japanese, English
Synopsis
It was in fact a PR film, but a relatively avant-garde one at that. It was highly praised by some in the art world and about ten years ago, when the Pompidou Center did a retrospective on the 1950s Japanese avant-garde, the commissioner in fact asked to show it. The people involved at the time split up and looked for it, but the company that made it had gone under and no one knew where it was, even though it was pretty valuable. I think the piece of musique concrete composed by Takemitsu was probably the first ever used in a film in Japan. For that reason, it was priceless and it’s a shame the negative is lost. —Toshio Matsumoto, translated by Aaron Gerow
Director
Toshio Matsumoto
Toshio Matsumoto (born March 25, 1932) is a Japanese film director and video artist. He was born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan and graduated from Tokyo University in 1955.
His first short was Ginrin, which he made in 1955, however his most famous film is Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no soretsu). Funeral Parade of Roses influenced Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange heavily. The film was a retelling of Oedipus Rex, featuring a transsexual (portrayed by Peter) trying to move up in the world of the Japanese gay bars.
Matsumoto has published many books of photography and is currently a professor and Dean of Arts at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. He was also the President of the Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences. —Wikipedia
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