Production
Director Seijun Suzuki was ostensibly terminated from his contract with Nikkatsu Studios in 1968 for making "movies that make no sense and no money" and subsequently blacklisted. In the proceeding years he met frequently with his crew at his home in developing ideas for new projects. This resulted in Zigeunerweisen and Kagero-za—the first two films in what would become Suzuki's Taishō Roman Trilogy. Suzuki felt that action films were falling out of favour and wanted to create a new type of film. Writer Yōzō Tanaka lived close by and visited Suzuki regularly where they infrequently discussed the film during games of Go. The story was based on Hyakken Uchida's novel, Disk of Sarasate. It was felt to be too short and was expanded from their conversations. For example, when Tanaka's uncle died during that time, he noticed that his cremated bones were pink. This was incorporated into the screenplay.
Suzuki's de facto blacklisting ended with the release of his critically and commercially unsuccessful 1977 film A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness. The money to finance Zigeunerweisen only became available in 1979 when Suzuki met then–theatre producer Genjiro Arato. Thus it became their first fully independently produced film. It was shot on location in Japan.
Read more about this topic: Zigeunerweisen (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)