Ugetsu (Blu-ray)

Kenji Mizoguchi’s tragic ghost story, one of the indisputable classics of world cinema.

Having refined his craft in the silent era, Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho the Bailiff) was an elder statesman of Japanese cinema—fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other younger directors – by the time he made Ugetsu.

With this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers whose pursuit of fame and fortune leads them far astray from their loyal wives. Moving between the terrestrial and the otherworldly, Ugetsu reveals essential truths about the ravages of war, the plight of women, and the pride of men.

• New 4K digital restoration undertaken by The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary by filmmaker, critic, and festival programmer Tony Rayns
• Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975), a 150-minute documentary by Kaneto Shindo
• Two Worlds Intertwined, a 2005 appreciation of Ugetsu by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda
• Process and Production, a 2005 interview with Tokuzo Tanaka, first assistant director on Ugetsu
• Interview from 1992 with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa
• Trailers
• An essay by film critic Phillip Lopate and three short stories that influenced Mizoguchi in making the film