S/D: Nagisa Oshima, renegade filmmaker

Due to scarcity of discs, I've only seen Cruel Story of Youth, Boy and Gohatto, all recommended esp the first two, and Max Mon Amour (not so much). There's a comprehensive Lincoln Center retro now, to be followed by a multi-city tour.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006729.html

http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/oshima/program.html

It's gonna be tricky with the October baseball, but I'd like to get to Night and Fog in Japan, In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief is really fried and good.

Basically its a doc/fiction mash-up like WR: Mysteries of The Organism, only with less decapitations.

I really liked Taboo. In the Realm of the Senses is a snore though.

Rosenbaum declares the retro the NYFF highlight:

http://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=200808&id=21140

Where Oshima differs most strikingly from an antisentimental, leftist provocateur like Buñuel is in the relative absence of humanism in his work. (Boy, a mainly sympathetic look at a lonely ten-year-old con artist, is a rare exception.) If The Sun’s Burial (1960)—an early shocker about rival street gangs in an Osaka slum—was partly inspired by Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (1950), as the British DVD’s liner notes maintain, the notion of Oshima showing any tenderness toward his doomed punks, as Buñuel does toward Jaibo, is unthinkable—even if Oshima is no less outraged by corpses being dumped like garbage. And the repeated occurrences of sexual assault (mainly rape) in Cruel Story of Youth, The Sun’s Burial, Violence at Noon (1966), Sing a Song of Sex (1967), Death by Hanging, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1968), The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970), Empire of Passion, and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence—usually committed by his protagonists and often seen as acts of rebellion against the Japanese state (a view at least contested in Death by Hanging)—suggest that, with the possible exception of In the Realm of the Senses, feminism and nonviolence are not exactly hallmarks of his leftist positions....

merry christmas mr lawrence is great, though bowie might put you off. also, one of the greatest ever film soundtracks (composed by ryuichi sakamoto who also stars)

between its relentless cutting and moral quicksand, Violence at Noon is exhausting on first look. Apparently Kino put out a DVD in '02 that's out of print.

saw Taboo this weekend – great kitsch.

have only seen in the realm..., which i liked lots. the rare erotic-obsession movie that manages to be actually erotic and obsessive. feels really crazy by the end.

The 'renegade' thing is correct, yes. He is my fave of all the big Japanese auteurs, really all schizo and critical and at war with anybody and himself, almost irrationally so...but he doesn't forget to make his films look good at the same time.

'Ceremony' is another must see.

Would love to see so many more of his, esp 'Night and Fog in Japan', its kinda right he takes the title from a Resnais doc.

I think I have to choose btwn The Ceremony & The Man Who Left His Will on Film this Sunday, cuz I'm not sure I can take two of his back-to-back.

Don't know about 'The man who left his will' but 'The Ceremony' has quite a lot of stuff about baseball (had to read the notes about it). Don't know if that helps..

!

yeah, the baseball-related pain was notable. Oahima's melodramas are unhinged and exhausting but never risible.

I didn't know going in that Death by Hanging was a black comedy.

Anyway, this retro is touring Minneapolis, Vancouver, Cambridge, Seattle, Berkeley, D.C. and Rochester.

also, the Cinematheque Ontario's essay on the series (w/ recommendations at end):

http://www.cinemathequeontario.ca/programme.aspx?programmeId=228&page=1

I didn't like Diary of a Shinjuku Thief very much just cuz I don't like the late '60s 'political' Godards it approximates all that well either.

Oshima's dramas tend to walk the line -- I think that wedding in 'Ceremony' is something Haneke is totally capable of doing, and happens to also be an overtly political film in the way it tries to portray a dissatisfaction in the direction Japan followed post-WWII right?

Oshima is much funnier (on purpose) than Haneke.

I am pressed to find any occasions where Haneke tried to infuse any of his films with humour!

Anyway, picked up 'Night and Fog...' DVD on a sale. It turns out to be a bit like 'Ceremony' but centered on a single wedding. DVDs seem to cause distractions, yet to finish, but so far so great.

Night and Fog in Japan has some amazing lighting & compositions, but I felt lost a lot re the postwar radical politics. I'd like to watch it w/out subtitles. (also the quick lateral pans wore me down)

DItto. Frustrating and kinda irritating overall.

Oshima retro at the NFT in September. Watching Diary of a Shinjuku Thief and one more.

Is Empire of Passion worth a watch?

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief drained me => this was great.

Did the decent thing and posted a thread on ILB about it:

Best bookshop scenes on film

Coming In May

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence out from Criterion this week... A lot of it is POW camp-camp, but lawd a'mighty, Ryuichi Sakamoto looked like one of the most beautiful men to ever walk the earth (and wrote a good score too).

http://www.genjipress.com/img/dvd/2009/B00022VMJE-01.jpg

the interviews on the criterion in the realm of the senses are p entertaining; lol @ a story by an asst director abt auditioning a young actor for the lead who after being unable to get it up suggests "i might be able to get an erection if oshima fondles it"

http://www.asahi.com/obituaries/update/0115/TKY201301150349.html

Seems that he has died today, of pneumonia, at the age of 80.

He was a great filmmaker. RIP.

RIP.

'In the Realm of the Senses' was one of the Scala in Kings Cross' regular rep bankers; I saw it there on a double bill with '9 1/2 Weeks', of all things

Sad news, but a full life!

damn, rip

Was watching Double Suicide: Japanese Summer just last week.

What a run of his films, with In the Realm of the Senses to come too:

1967 Sing a Song of Sex (A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs)
1967 Double Suicide: Japanese Summer
1968 Death by Hanging
1968 Three Resurrected Drunkards
1969 Diary of a Shinjuku Thief
1969 Boy
1970 Man Who Left His Will On Film
1971 The Ceremony

ok I have yet to see Three Resurrected Drunkards but how tell me how it can't be anything less than great w/this synopsis:

A trio of bumbling young men frolic at the beach. While they swim, their clothes are stolen and replaced with new outfits. Donning these, they are mistaken for undocumented Koreans and end up on the run from comically outraged authorities. A cutting commentary on Japan’s treatment of its Korean immigrants, this is Nagisa Oshima at both his most politically engaged and madcap.

it's bananas, but not one of my favorites.

merry christmas mr lawrence is great (...) also, one of the greatest ever film soundtracks

― rio (r1o natsume), Mittwoch, 1. Oktober 2008 15:58 (4 years ago)

^bears repeating

damn, really need to watch more of his stuff. there's about a dozen of his films on hulu+ fyi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjrF4YATAvc

For all of you who were once boys or girls, we include you in our prayers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0L_z02oXw

RIP. Watched Cruel Story of Youth tonight in tribute.

His Obit, v slight, has this factoid:

Oshima gave up directing to become a popular talkshow host on Japanese television

lol

seeing he had done nothing since gohatto at the turn of the century, i assumed he was too old/unwell to make films

Knew he had a stroke so knew not to expect anything.

Must've been a treat. Imagine coming back tired week at work blah blah...and there is Nagisa Oshima to erm entertain you for an hour or two by slipping in a few Marxisms and interviewing Japanese porn stars.

Beats Jonathan fkn Ross, that's for sure.

I liked his appearances as a judge on Iron Chef.

apparently he had his first stroke before Gohatto

can't get this out of my head so it shouldn't be out of yours too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G0AqFp1_eM

I love this track, i thought I was tripping when I saw the movie. Apparently it was a big hit at the time, the band were called The Folk Crusaders, the lyrics are nuts too.

lol, so this starred The Folk Crusaders. Forget A Hard Day's Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYgYEwTRLgc

magnificent repertory film program is screening restorations of Death by Hanging, Diary of a Shinjuki Thief, Boy, The Man Who Left His Will On Film, and The Ceremony at the end of may

Which should I see? All of them??

Where is that? got a webpage?

I'd see all of them. If you had to catch a couple and haven't seen any I'd say Boy and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief.

I know Boy (hey it has a kid, so that's easier somehow) and ceremony (its around a wedding and has more easy-ish satire and a couple of laughs) are the ones most highly regarded but you've got to bone up for the other ones so go for Shinjuku..

yes, you should see all of them; those are probably his best films. shinjuku thief is very "difficult," depending a lot on understanding the historical moment in japan.

death by hanging was a relevation when i saw it, back in college.

revelation

I saw a couple of the more 'famous' ones then saw Death by Hanging and that's where this guy just became someone I needed to see almost anything by. Even things like Dear Summer Sister where the context is hard to grasp -- and Oshima has said he doesn't really mind if a non-Japanese audience is able to follow it.

Which is fine.

only seen 'death by hanging' and 'boy' of those five but really liked em both, esp. the former

havent seen Shinjuku or Will (i think). Maybe if im not moving apartments at the end of May i'll trip over.

only seen 'death by hanging' and 'in the realm of the senses'. loved both especially the latter.

okay so basically I should just see all of them

xyzzzzzz check out http://ihousephilly.org/calendar/the-ceremony

tbh I haven't even had that much experience w/ non-Kurosawa Japanese film ("Good Morning", "Woman In The Dunes", "House", "Branded to Kill", a few others maybe) but everything I've seen I have really, REALLY loved

'in the realm of the senses' is m/l garbage, 'death by hanging' one of the best movies ever made

It doesn't make any sense not to like 'In the Realm of the Senses'.

tbh I haven't even had that much experience w/ non-Kurosawa Japanese film ("Good Morning", "Woman In The Dunes", "House", "Branded to Kill", a few others maybe) but everything I've seen I have really, REALLY loved

― gybe horses (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't be surprised if you end up feeling there are gaps and need more context.

i think that's mostly true of shinjuku thief... although that film is confusing not only for its now-obscure (to non-japanese at least) political references but because of its discordant and heretogenous texture ... "action theater" is mixed with docudrama mixed with melodrama etc. it's nuts and not easy to like.

"death by hanging" probably demands some knowledge of the mistreatment of koreans in japanese society, but the exposure of official hypocrisy and the formal game-playing is easy enough to grasp if you've experienced anything like godard (although i won't join the folks who claim that oshima was "copying" godard--if anything i think they were on an equal plane).

"boy" is probably the most, erm, accessible of these films, although that's a weird word to use for a film that's so existentially unsettling. but if i had to show someone one oshima film it'd probably be that one. (although my favorite oshima might be the totally zany "three resurrected drunkards," in which--spoiler alert--nearly an entire reel is repeated to discombobulating effect.)

I just bought this http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/720-eclipse-series-21-oshima-s-outlaw-sixties

and I'm excited to see it.

Actually, I have an interest in Zainichi Koreans and didn't know about Death by Hanging. I've read some history on Zainichi Koreans and Korean-Japanese political relations so it'll be interesting to see it from that perspective.

Amateurist, are you Japanese?

the screenings always have both fliers w/ an article about the film and also someone usu does a brief introduction before the screening

A few of his films are about the treatment of Koreans in Japan as 2nd class citizens. A sympton of what is wrong thing.

some ppl are really bothered by the rape scenes in his work (many in films i haven't seen).

i've heard a lot of inappropriate (uncomfortable?) laughter at some of the rape scenes. the depiction of sexuality in oshima or indeed many japanese films is never simple. in oshima there will be seemingly misogynst elements side by side with stuff that could be interpreted as feminist (much as in godard). i think you have to view it through the prism of psychoanalysis, probably--the idea of contradictory and eruptive sexualities as being a kind of disruptive force in society. imamura also tackles these ideas with a more obviously feminist slant.

F♯ A♯ (∞) -- no i am not japanese at all!

The marxism is the other layer, i.e. capitalism has destroyed certain expressions of sexuality, so he depicts certain extremes as a claim back move.

floored by Death by Hanging but ambivalent about Sing a Song of Sex and Three Resurrected Drunkards... until that final sequence, and that final shot. Both remind me of initial encounters with certain Godard movies, often w/o a lot of context that isn't necessary but helps.

Heading into that Radiance box :)

Looks really good

Somewhat related as two v political filmmakers

https://www.ica.art/films/in-focus-adachi-masao-film-politics-revolution

Both Revolution +1 and Escape were hurried, cheap budget, but nevertheless really moving on a politics that has collapsed in different ways with consequences that are there for all to see = Gaza.

+1 had this shattered family angle, the scene where the would be assassin looks on at his mother cleaning the courtyard outside their house and imagines them having a nice conversation around eating out together will remain with me for a long time.

Interesting to read the old posts on this thread while I go through the set. Didn't feel any Godard at all in Death By Hanging - what a total masterpiece btw - but Diary Of A Shinjuku Thief def has that 60's Godard vibe of trying to cram in as many different things you're interested in as possible at high speed. Dunno if Oshima is less suited to this mode or if I lack the cultural context...

merry christmas mr lawrence is great, though bowie might put you off. also, one of the greatest ever film soundtracks (composed by ryuichi sakamoto who also stars)

So after all this time, having only seen the occasional still from it, I finally saw this, and at a one-off big screen showing at my local Alamo to boot. I get its uneven reputation, but I admire the end results nonetheless -- I think Bowie holds his own and I was kinda amazed Sakamoto was cast strictly because Oshima saw a photo of him during his YMO days and thought he'd be good for the part. And he was and delivered THAT score as well; hearing it on a full theater sound system was a trip. But I'm mildly surprised I hadn't realized or known beforehand that this was also the big screen debut of Beat Takeshi!