When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Director: Mikio Naruse Mikio Naruse

Overview

Filmmaker Mikio Naruse takes a characteristic dour look at life in When A Woman Ascends the Stairs. The central character is a barmaid, who works day and night to avoid being thrown out into the street. She knows that, if she loses her job, the only profession open to her is the World's Oldest. But when the worst happens, the barmaid learns to live with herself while compromising her values. The film's original title was Onna Ga Kaidan O Agaru Toki.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/19/2007
UPC:	0715515022521
Original Release:	1960
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Time:	1:51:00
Sales rank:	17,459

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer; Optional dolby digital 3.0 soundtrack, preserving the original perspecta simulated stereo effects; Audio commentary by Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie, author of A Hundred Years of Japanese Film; New video interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai; Theatrical trailer; New and improved English subtitle translation; Plus: A booklet featuring essays by Phillip Lopate, Catherine Russell, Audi Bock, and Hideko Takamine

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hideko Takamine	Keiko Yashiro
Masayuki Mori	Nobuhiko Fujisaki
Daisuke Kato	Matsukichi Sekine
Keiko Awaji	Yuri
Reiko Dan	Junko Inchihashi
Tatsuya Nakadai	Kenichi Komatsu, the bartender
Ganjiro Nakamura	Goda
Eitaro Ozawa	Minobe

Technical Credits

Ryuzo Kikushima

Mikio Naruse	Director
Ryuzo Kikushima	Producer,Screenwriter
Toshiro Mayuzumi	Score Composer

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- When a Woman Ascends the Stairs: The Criterion Collection
1. Mama [9:19]
2. Lilac Bar [3:01]
3. Yuri's Place [4:18]
4. A New Job [4:27]
5. Night's End [4:53]
6. A Good Husband [8:10]
7. Not Like Mama [1:55]
8. Potential Patron [3:07]
9. Bar For Sale [4:08]
10. Yuri's Plan [3:03]
11. Subscription Book [3:34]
12. "Bound to Fail" [4:22]
13. Fortune-Teller [1:55]
14. Mama's Breakdown [4:06]
15. The Proprietress Visits [3:13]
16. Junko House-Sits [2:59]
17. Family Burdens [8:53]
18. Back to Work [2:36]
19. Marriage Proposal/A Brother's Needs [6:48]
20. Changes [2:42]
21. Mrs. Sekine [3:01]
22. Drunk [5:20]
23. No Regrets [6:38]
24. Komatsu [4:35]
25. A Departure and a Return [4:02]
1. Color Bars [:00]
1. Color Bars [:00]

Menu

Disc #1 -- When a Woman Ascends the Stairs: The Criterion Collection
   Play the Movie
   Chapters
   Commentary
      Off / On
      Index
         Mizu Shobai/Economy of Storytelling
         The Naruse Family/A Tough Director
         Method
         Patronage
         Women's Options/Money
         Attitudes Toward Marraige/Not a Woman's Picture
         Reiko Dan
         Syntax
         Tradition/Autobiography
         Autobiography(Cont.)/Suicide
         A Pictaresque Story
         Financial Brutality
         Changing Perceptions of Poverty
         The Ginza
         Sets
         Style/Ganjiro Nakamura
         Milieu/Hideko Takamine
         Voice-Over
         Daisuke Kato/Heroines
         Love/Parallels
         Melodrama
         Mono no Aware/Chasteness
         A Kind of Happiness
         Emotionality
         "The Right Thing"
   Tatsuya Nakadai
      Play
   Trailer
   Audio Options
      Dolby Digital Mono 1.0
      Dolby Digital Perspecta 3.0
   Subtitles
      On
      Off

Editorial Reviews

Mikio Naruseis unjustifiably but perhaps understandably less well-known than more Westernized colleagues like Kurosawa, due to his restrained, often somber style, which the director of Rashomon (1951) described as being "like a great river with a calm surface, and a raging current in its depths." Keiko (Hideko Takamine), a bar hostess in the Ginza district, a strong and dignified woman, bears the buffeting of her life with just such a calm surface. A widow, now at the age of 30, she casts about for a means of survival, unwilling to make her life easier by turning to prostitution, like her co-workers, out of respect for the memory of her husband. A compassionate account of the wrenching vicissitudes of the life of a woman far superior to her surroundings, it achieves its considerable power through Naruse's stoic, unblinking camera work, juxtaposing the poise of his heroine against the frenetic atmosphere of the bar and its frantically moneygrubbing owners. Takamine, Naruse's favorite actress, gives a performance of great depth, nuance, and delicacy, and Tatsuya Nakadai has a sharp turn as a comic bartender.

All Movie Guide - Michael Costello