A Page of Madness

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The Japanese silent film is set in a psychiatric hospital. Although edited into an increasingly disturbing torrent of images, the film loosely follows the story of the hospital caretaker, whose wife is a patient there. One day, their daughter arrives to tell her mother about her engagement. This sets a multitude of storylines and flashbacks in motion, gradually piecing together the family history and revealing, for example, why the mother was committed and why the daughter knows nothing about her father’s work as a caretaker.

A PAGE OF MADNESS (Kurutta ippēji, literally “A Page That Has Gone Mad”) was considered lost for almost 50 years until it was rediscovered in Kinugasa’s warehouse in 1971. The film was created by the avant-garde group of Japanese artists known as “Shinkankaku-ha” (“School of New Perception”), who sought to move beyond naturalistic representation. In Japan in the 1920s, film screenings were accompanied not only by musical accompaniment but also by live narration performed by a benshi (弁士).

Live accompaniment: ELAINE BRENNAN | piano

Irish musician Elaine Brennan graduated with distinction from Trinity College Dublin and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London as a classical accompanist and chamber musician. Silent Film Magazine named her one of the world’s leading silent film musicians. She composes in real time at the piano, improvising live soundtracks for classic silent films, archival footage, experimental films, and ephemeral films. She has also created spontaneous soundscapes for spoken-word performances and literary readings. In addition, she performs in exhibitions in dialogue with visual art, including a “musical live response” to Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly painting series at the National Gallery of Australia. (Viennale)