Description: The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. Rhapsody in August is a 1991 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa based on the novel Nabe no naka by Kiyoko Murata. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Rhapsody in August is one of only three sole-directed Kurosawa movies to feature a female lead, and the first in nearly half a century. The others are The Most Beautiful (1944) and No Regrets for Our Youth (1946). However, Kurosawa also directed most of the female-led Uma (1941), on which he was credited as assistant director. Kurosawa told Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1990: I have not filmed shockingly realistic scenes which would prove to be unbearable and yet would not explain in and of themselves the horror of the drama. What I would like to convey is the type of wounds the atomic bomb left in the heart of our people, and how they gradually began to heal. The film marked Sachiko Murase's last feature appearance. The role of Clark was originally offered to Gene Hackman, who declined due to health reasons. Richard Gere volunteered for the role after reading the screenplay, but Kurosawa was initially reluctant to cast Gere due to his age and image. Other than Murase and Gere, most of the cast were child actors. Two of the child actors had previously appeared in Dreams. Rhapsody in August received mixed reviews on its release in 1991. Roger Ebert wrote that the film was viewed as a disappointment at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, was "not one of [Kurosawa's] great films," and was part of a shift in Kurosawa's style toward more fanciful imagery. Some critics made much of the fact that the film centered on the film's depiction of the atomic bombing as a war crime while omitting details of Japanese war crimes in the Pacific War. When Rhapsody premiered at Cannes, one journalist even cried out at a press conference, "Why was the bomb dropped in the first place?" Others at Cannes, especially Americans, were outraged at the lack of mention of Japanese atrocities during the war.[13][14] Kevin Thomas and Desson Howe specifically criticized Kurosawa's failure to mention Pearl Harbor despite the American relatives in the family being from Hawaii. At the Tokyo Film Festival, critics of Japanese militarism said Kurosawa had ignored the historical facts leading up to the bomb. Japanese cultural critic Inuhiko Yomota commented: "Many critics, myself included, thought Kurosawa chauvinistic in his portrayal of the Japanese as victims of the war, while ignoring the brutal actions of the Japanese and whitewashing them with cheap humanist sentiment." Kurosawa's response was that wars are between governments, not people, and denied any anti-American agenda. Vincent Canby of The New York Times argued that the film's message was targeted toward a Japanese audience rather than a Western audience, describing Kurosawa's message as being: "if Japanese, those of the children's parents' generation, are so convinced that Americans are unforgiving, it also means that the same Japanese are equally implacable." The significance of Clark's apology to Kane is controversial. It can be narrowly interpreted as an apology for being inconsiderate of Kane's feelings when urging her to visit her brother in Hawaii, but can also be more broadly interpreted as an apology for the death of Kane's husband, and by extension, an apology for the bomb on behalf of Americans. In 1990, shortly before the film's release, St. Paul, Minnesota mayor James Schiebel visited Nagasaki and learned that there was no sculpture in the Peace Park from the United States, a point mentioned in the film. Rhapsody in August was screened in St. Paul in 1991 as part of the efforts to raise funds for the Constellation Earth sculpture, which was donated to the Peace Park and formally unveiled in September 1992. CAST: Sachiko Murase as Kane (The Grandmother) Hisashi Igawa as Tadao (Kane's Son) Narumi Kayashima as Machiko (Tadao's Wife) Tomoko Otakara as Tami (Tadao's Daughter) Mitsunori Isaki as Shinjiro (Tadao's Son) Toshie Negishi as Yoshie (Kane's Daughter) Hidetaka Yoshioka as Tateo (Yoshie's Son) Choichiro Kawarazaki as Noboru (Yoshie's Husband) Mieko Suzuki as Minako (Yoshie's Daughter) Richard Gere as Clark (Kane's Nephew) CREW: DIRECTOR Akira Kurosawa PRODUCER Hisao Kurosawa WRITERS Akira Kurosawa Ishirō Honda ORIGINAL WRITER Kiyoko Murata EDITOR Akira Kurosawa CINEMATOGRAPHY Takao Saitō Shôji Ueda PRODUCTION DESIGN Yoshirô Muraki COMPOSER Shinichirô Ikebe COSTUME DESIGN Kazuko Kurosawa

Description: A reader tells a sad story to a listener, who only knocks in response. Ohio Impromptu is a "playlet" by Samuel Beckett. Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and struggled with the piece for nine months before it was ready. It was first performed on 9 May 1981 at the Stadium II Theater; Alan Schneider directed with David Warrilow as "Reader" and Rand Mitchell as "Listener". "It is the first Beckett play to present a Doppelgänger on stage, another Beckett pair, but this time seen as mirror images; it belongs to Beckett’s ghost period, where phantoms that echo the haunting quality of memory and nostalgia in his work are seen or described on stage." CAST: Jeremy Irons - Reader / Listener CREW: DIRECTOR Charles Sturridge WRITER Samuel Beckett