Mikio Naruse: The Auteur as Salaryman
Through December 21
A giant of classic Japanese cinema, Mikio Naruse (1905–1969) chronicled the lives and struggles of ordinary people in beautifully rendered pictures that captured the transformation of Japanese society from the 1930s through the 1960s.
“[F]ew artists in the history of cinema have displayed as much command of every component of the filmmaking process as Naruse,” writes Dan Sallitt in A Mikio Naruse Companion. “As a writer of dialogue, a builder of narrative structure, an overseer of performance and behavior, a composer of images, an architect of editing continuity — Naruse can be described in each category as a master.”
Don’t miss the rare opportunity to see these exceptional films, all via imported 35mm prints, on the big screen.
Floating Clouds
Directed by Mikio Naruse, 1955
This epic story of wartime lovers separated by a wretched peace is a richly evocative portrait of postwar Tokyo and an endlessly fascinating character study. It is revered in Japan as the ultimate masterpiece of Mikio Naruse’s career and a high point for star Hideko Takamine.
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983
4K Digital Restoration
Andrei Tarkovsky’s breathtaking journey through the ruined but magical spaces of Tuscany follows a Russian man who feels the longing for home, closure, and the absolute that the film’s title describes. “Not so much a movie as a place to inhabit for two hours” (J. Hoberman).
Directed by Edmund Goulding, 1947 Introduction and Post-Screening Discussion: Eddie Muller
4K Digital Restoration
“Wildly unpredictable circus and penthouse noir with gorgeous scumbag Tyrone Power, at the height of his doomed charms. . . . After viewing this picaresque and cathartic film, you will never again misuse the word ‘geek’” (Guy Maddin).
The Count of the Old Town
Directed by Edvin Adolphson, Sigurd Wallén, 1935
Digital Restoration
A freewheeling comedy about a gang of ruffians on an all-day bender in Stockholm's Old Town, featuring an eighteen-year-old Ingrid Bergman.
Flowing
Directed by Mikio Naruse, 1956
It’s hard to find a more impressive trio of actresses than Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Isuzu Yamada. Mikio Naruse’s tale of geishas in decline is “a tangle of subtle relationships. . . . Quietly brilliant filmmaking” (Village Voice).
STAFF PICK
Featuring three of Japan’s greatest golden age actresses, Naruse’s chronicle of the twilight of a traditional Geisha house is not to be missed. —Kate MacKay, Film Curator
A Photographic Memory
Directed by Rachel Elizabeth Seed, 2024
Introduction: Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards
A New York Times Critic’s Pick, A Photographic Memory is an intimate portrait of filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s trailblazing mother, Sheila Turner Seed, who was a vibrant and pioneering journalist, photographer, and filmmaker. “Vividly introspective . . . sumptuous” (Carlos Aguilar, Variety).
Series: Special Screenings 2025
The Sacrifice
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986
4K Digital Restoration
A retired actor and his family find themselves on a remote Baltic island when word arrives of nuclear war in Andrei Tarkovsky’s elegiac final film. “An epic vision. . . . Spiritual mastery. . . . A work of genius” (David Robinson, The Times).
Series: Andrei Tarkovsky: Voyages in Time
The Long Goodbye
Directed by Robert Altman, 1973
35mm Archival Print
Updating Raymond Chandler’s noir pulp for the psychedelic 1970s, Leigh Brackett and Robert Altman pitch a bewildered and bereft Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) into a murder mystery involving a sun-dried siren (Nina van Pallandt) and her washed-out Ernest Hemingway-esque author husband (Sterling Hayden).
Series: Robert Altman at 100
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If you have any questions about accessibility or need accommodations to attend a film screening, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-1412 (Wed–Sun, 11 AM–7 PM) as soon as you can. Advance notice helps us fulfill your request.
Berkeley Art Museum
and Pacific Film Archive
2120 Oxford St.
Berkeley, CA 94720
