Shohei Imamura RIP

From the BBC

Those 3 features in his 1997-2001 'comeback' were excellent, but I'm still most astounded by Pigs and Battleships and The Pornographers.

Frequent Imamura star Ken Ogata has died.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006804.html

have to get to a couple of these docs, showing in NY/LA.

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-shohei-imamura-in-nyc-la

So want to see A Man Vanishes!

Went to Karayuki-San, the Making of a Prostitute last night... matter-of-factly scorching.

has anyone seen 'the profound desire of the gods'? i heard it was incredible.

Just did... the horny retarded girl bothered me by the third hour, but certainly it's got lots to grapple with. Via Glenn Kenny, a cross between God's Little Acre and Local Hero, seasoned with sadism.

I watched Imamura’s Pigs and Battleships, which is scabrous, cynical, absurd, and somewhat humorous. I haven’t seen anything like it. The narrative is degrading but is also hopeful and humanistic. The Kinta and especially Haruka characters carry the film. He is comically dumb and she is smart.

*Haruko

It is shot at 235:1 in relatively low contrast black and white, which is beautiful, with very soft, richly detailed mid tones. (That is also what I really liked about the digital photography in Cuaron’s Roma).

The violent hotel room scene with Haruko being raped by the three American soldiers spirals from a view above out into space, and then slows down again and spins back to reveal another tableau, with her lying on the bed and the soldiers showering to “I’ve Been Working On the Railroad”. It is genius.

and the companion scene of Kinta in the tiled bathroom stall from above

I haven't seen Pigs and Battleships, but I've seen several others that I've liked.
One of the disconnects I have with his movies is his treatment of "the lower-class" (which is always heavily demarcated). In interviews, he said that he admires these characters for their vitality and vulgarity, but often (or mostly) they're also depicted as thoughtless and cruel, almost at a bestial level (which you get from the very title of Insect Woman. I guess he's one of many filmmakers whose films are more ambivalent than their interview statements.

The Insect Woman is another fantastic Imamura film. Apparently his original title for it was Entomological Chronicle of Japan. Both Pigs and Battleships and The Insect Woman are about strong women in a chaotic world looking out for themselves and trying to gain a foothold in a patriarchal society.

Dennis Lim describes the film as representing a society that has recently and rapidly transitioned from feudal to industrial. I liked his description of the compositions: “In The Insect Woman, city streets are always crowded, and the cluttered interior tableaux often look like rude distensions of Ozu’s tatami-mat compositions: too many people jammed into the frame, limbs splayed, sprawled in all directions.”

he was an apprentice to Ozu

Yeah it's so gritty and pragmatic! Must have been pretty daring at the time.

Intentions of Murder is the third of the 3-film Imamura DVD set issued by Criterion as “Pigs, Pimps and Prostitutes”

All of the films are great - (Pigs and Battleships, The Insect Woman, and Intentions of Murder). They each feature women in lower class environments who persevere in a world that devalues them. The characters are not idealized at all but seem very real, and the performances by Jitsuko Yoshimura, Sachiko Hidari, and Masumi Harukawa are all astonishingly steady and matter-of-fact.

^Yes, this is a really good observation!

The Pornographers was also pretty amazing, and in the same milieu, although it seemed a little more drawn out.

I love Imamura's films, they seem to reject the post-war Japanese narratives and aesthetics and are completely original

one of my favorite directors. on the other hand, i find mizoguchi, ozu and imamura works more enoyable than kurosawa

I can see that.

had a week off and spent it going through the imamura box from 2015 at the rate of one film a day. not convinced i enjoyed a lot of it though tbh. black rain not included, disappointingly.

Ballad of Narayama though. two things, a) the lead woman had her front teeth removed for the role, which is dedication and b) the scene where the local outsider sees another couple having sex and goes and has sex with a dog, something i was amazed to see made the trailers for the film.

box set bought for £28, now priced at £400+ on amazon

I've liked all of his films up to Vengeance Is Mine from 1979, which is too nihilistic

Maybe, but that’s probably my favorite of his for whatever reason.

Black Rain, one of his later films about the delayed effects of the bombing of Hiroshima on a family, is pretty good

It is good! Not to be confused with US movie of the same name.

Do people like Dr. Unagi? Too lazy to scroll up and see#zingproblems

Ha, also too lazy to get title right and not mashup two different films. Dr. Akagi, “Doctor Liver.”

The next film on my Imamura list is The Eel (Unagi) from 1997, which I think is the only film ever to share the Cannes Palme d'Or (with Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry).

Dr. Akagi from 1998 is included in my Kanopy subscription, so I will watch that too

(I see the shared Palme d'Or also happened in 1993 with Farewell My Concubine and The Piano)