Clark Features Japanese Film Series

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - The "Four Seasons in Japan: A Cycle of Film Classics" film series at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute takes a turn through the years with a sampling of classic work from four Japanese masters of cinema who made the postwar era a golden age of film in Japan.

Films, screened on Fridays at 4, are in Japanese with English subtitles. Admission to the films is free.

Kenji Mizoguchi's celebrated tale "Ugetsu" (1953, 96 minutes), on June 12, follows a 16th-century potter who leaves home to sell his wares in the midst of a civil war, and is captivated by a ghost princess.

On June 19, catch "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" (1960, 110 minutes), by Mikio Naruse. This modern story examines the life of a woman who ascends (and descends) the stairs to the Ginza bar, where she is a female companion to businessmen, in a niche between geisha and prostitute.

On June 26, Yasujiro Ozu's valedictory film "An Autumn Afternoon" (1962, 112 minutes) recapitulates his customary themes, with a widower marrying off his daughter as the modern postwar world supplants traditional Japanese ways.


"Ran" (1985, 160 minutes) will be shown on July 3. Akira Kurasawa's culminating masterpiece adapts King Lear to a mythical samurai past with pageantry and passion, mounting some of the most spectacular battle scenes ever filmed.

Seasonal change and depictions of the natural world have formed a core in the repertoire of Japanese artists throughout the ages. The exhibition "Through the Seasons: Japanese Art in Nature" brings together screens and scrolls from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and displays them with contemporary ceramics, each work emphasizing the inspirational role of nature in Japanese art.

Drawn from both public institutions and private collections, many of these works have never before been exhibited. "Through the Seasons" will be on view in Stone Hill Center's galleries June 7 through Oct. 18.

The Clark is located at 225 South St. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 to 5; daily during the summer. Admission is free through May 31. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit clarkart.edu.
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Williamstown Planning Board Narrowing in on Subdivision Bylaw Changes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board late last month discussed specific features of what it plans to pass as a new subdivision control bylaw this year.
 
The board long has discussed the complex set of regulations as being out of date and cumbersome to both potential developers and the board itself, which has needed to hear requests for waivers of outdated rules for the handful of residential subdivisions that have been proposed in town in recent years.
 
This spring, the town engaged consultants from Northampton's Dodson and Flinker Landscape Architecture and Planning to go through the existing bylaw, compare it to more contemporary regulations in other communities and help craft a revised bylaw.
 
Unlike the zoning bylaw, where amendments require approval of town meeting, the subdivision control bylaw is a creation of the Planning Board, which can make changes on its own after a public hearing process it hopes to complete this year.
 
At a special Planning Board meeting on May 26, Dillon Sussman of Dodson and Flinker and his colleagues walked the board through a dozen different decision points that the board must resolve — either by leaving the bylaw as is or making a change — and offered suggestions based on best practices.
 
All of the issues are technical and ranged from the fundamental, like how the bylaw will define types of subdivisions, to the highly specific, like what turning radii will be required in new streets that are constructed to serve planned developments.
 
One example of a topic that came up in the recent approval of a four-home subdivision off Summer Street is stormwater management.
 
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