Once again I’d like to thank Chris Fujiwara for his tremendous contribution to the video essay for Night of the Demon. Chris, who lives in Japan, took an unprecedented part in conceptualizing the video, sending me multiple drafts of his narration which he even organized into a shooting script with notes on relevant clips from the film. When we were planning the video, we had initially toyed with the idea of incorporating original footage into the film, built around the themes of text and writing as both dead and living entities. Chris went so far as to film footage of the grave of one of his favorite directors, Mikio Naruse. We ended up not incorporating the video or any original footage, as Night of the Demon possesses its own distinct look and feel (enhanced further by Chris’ voiceover) and any additional footage was likely to detract from its power. But I thought it worthwhile to post the footage of Chris and his family’s visit to the Naruse grave, in case anyone wished to pay their virtual respects to this great, still underappreciated master of cinema:

Also be sure to check out “A Visit to Naruse’s Grave” – a photo essay by Film Forum director of repertory programming Bruce Goldstein, published on the occasion of the Naruse retrospective at Film Forum.