The critical establishment was clearly not prepared to accept a woman’s prison film featuring former prostitutes recovering from venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and estranged lovers. With its cat fights, hysterical tantrums, film noir lighting, and dramatic music, White Beast is indicative of the new influences of the Hollywood psychological thriller on Naruse. Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) initiated a cycle of women’s prison movies in the United States that may or may not have been shown in Japan, but the stylistics of White Beast draw on the same paranoid woman’s films and film noir conventions that preceded the American cycle.
Akira Kurosawa
Angel of Darkness Collection
Criterion Collection
Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa
Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir
Eclipse Series 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties
Eclipse Series 26: Silent Naruse
Eclipse Series 28: The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara
Godzilla Collection
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Tora-san
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