TOKYOGRAPHICS

Nirvana film is not in California but in Ome, on the western edge of Tokyo. In the village streets rub shoulders with Audrey Hepburn John Wayne and Charlie Chaplin with Toshiro Mifune. Sure they do from the movie posters, the ads "retro" hand painted.

The author of these great posters is Noboru Kubo, who lived on a small block of a film and from school was mesmerized by the huge posters of movie stars. At 16 he became a draftsman apprentice in an advertising agency in town, but only six months left to clean the floor of the office. Stubborn, he continued to sketch their ideas in their personal notebook and got his first chance when negotiating to paint posters for a local cinema in exchange of materials. Thus, at 18 (1959), Kubo painted signs Ome three theaters. It rained the orders of the artist's preferred genre, the films "chamber" (film B katana fights with) those who also likes Tarantino.

At the time of the rise of Japanese cinema (years 50 to 60), directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurozawa productions that transcended national boundaries, which surpassed the 7,000 rooms. In those years, a sign painted Kubo per day in high season, you charge up to three movies a week. The decline began in the 70, which were reduced to less than half the advancement of television. Ome flashlight ran out in 1973, when he blew out his last room. He then had to change the less glamorous divas by clients as politicians and merchants of the neighborhood. His revenge came after twenty years when the local art festival and again rescued him shone in his film brush.

At 66, he was commissioned about 30 pieces a year and spent about a week each. Daily use charcoal and natural pigments (doroenogu) of five colors (red, yellow, blue, white and black) are ground up and mixed with a natural fixative (nigawa), a gelatinous substance that results from boiling whale bones and other animals . Because it is a technique with organic materials, most of the posters in the city of Ome are exposed to deteriorating environmental agents and although he knows that will disappear little by little, he prefers to express its vibrant style dating from the Edo period (1603-1868).

"Modern Japan is still creative," he says, "but it is extremely difficult to find people that interest you paint with rudimentary materials and stop using their sophisticated computers to do their drawings." He claims to be a professional simple learned to paint "a little better" than average. "We value things when we start to lose," he remarks Kubo, who would like the digital generation of designers to become aware of it.

Metropolis The cover of this week was an illustration I did from a photo of the artist and although I was wanting to spend more time, I think my mouse touches manage to convey some of his charisma.

Some 3,000 posters that he has painted the teacher can be seen by taking the JR Chuo line leaving Tokyo to ferry in Tachikawa and Ome. In total 1 hour and 20 minutes. Also displayed in the pages of "Japanese Movie Billboards, Retro Art from a Century of Cinema", a book edited by DH Publishing Inc .