Nuberu bagu
Encyclopedia
The Japanese New Wave, or , is the term for a group of Japan
ese filmmakers emerging from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. The term also refers to their work, in a loose creative movement within Japanese film, from a similar time period.
Unlike the French
nouvelle vague, the Japanese movement initially began within the studios, albeit with young, and previously little-known filmmakers
. The term was first coined within the studios (and in the media) as a Japanese version of the French New Wave
movement. Nonetheless, the Japanese New Wave filmmakers drew from some of the same international influences that inspired their French colleagues, and as the term stuck, the seemingly artificial movement surrounding it began to rapidly develop into a critical and increasingly independent film movement.
One distinction in the French movement was its roots with the journal Cahiers du Cinéma
; as many future filmmakers began their careers as critics and cinema deconstruction
ists, it would become apparent that new kinds of film theory
(most prominently, auteur theory
) were emerging with them.
The Japanese movement developed at roughly the same time (with several important 1950s precursor films), but arose as more of a movement devoted to questioning, analyzing, critiquing and (at times) upsetting social conventions.
One Japanese filmmaker who did emerge from a background akin to his French colleagues was Nagisa Oshima
, who had been a leftist activist and an analytical film critic before being hired by a studio. Oshima's earliest films (1959–60) could be seen as direct outgrowths of opinions voiced in his earlier published analysis. Cruel Story of Youth
, Oshima's landmark second film (one of four he directed in 1959 and 1960) saw an international release very immediately in the wake of Jean-Luc Godard
's Breathless and François Truffaut
's The 400 Blows
.
, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Koreyoshi Kurahara
, Yasuzo Masumura
, Masahiro Shinoda
, Nagisa Oshima
, Yoshishige Yoshida
and Shohei Imamura
. Certain other filmmakers who had already launched careers - Seijun Suzuki
, Ko Nakahira
and Kaneto Shindo
also came to be occasionally associated with the movement.
Working separately, they explored a number of ideas previously not often seen in more traditional Japanese cinema: social outcasts as protagonists (including criminals or delinquents
), uninhibited sexuality, changing roles of women in society, racism and the position of ethnic minorities in Japan, and the critique of (or deconstruction of) social structures and assumptions. Protagonists like Tome from Imamura's The Insect Woman
(1963) or the adolescent delinquents of Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth
(1960) represented rebellion
, but also gave domestic and international audiences a glimpse into lives that would otherwise likely escape cinematic attention.
's career existed almost entirely outside of the studio system. Hani moved into feature filmmaking from an earlier career in documentary film
, and favored non-actors and improvisation
when possible. The documentaries Hani had made during the 1950s (1954's Children in the Classroom, and 1956's Children Who Draw) had introduced a style of cinema verite
documentary to Japan, and were of great interest to other filmmakers.
Hani's 1961 feature debut, Bad Boys was based upon the actual experiences of the disaffected youth seen in a reformatory
; Hani felt that casting the same youth as actors would lend his film authenticity, blurring the lines between fiction and documentary in the process.
Hani would go on to complete several other features through the 1960s - among them the Antonioni-like She and He (1963
), Song of Bwana Toshi (1965
), which dramatizes a spiritually and psychologically-themed journey to East Africa
undertaken by a Japanese engineer facing family difficulties, and Nanami, The Inferno of First Love
(1968
). Hani, who was one of few true independents within the movement (and was - for this reason - one of its real cornerstones) would later retreat from feature filmmaking, primarily out of disillusionment:
Many of Hani's subsequent nature films were shot in Africa
, an area he first explored in the Song of Bwana Toshi. Though fiction, the feature film presaged Hani's later professional moves, and - in its theme of a man's attempt to "find himself," it stands as one of the more personally revelatory examples of Japanese New Wave filmmaking, revealing the direct human ambitions situated underneath the styles closer to the movement's surface.
, Shohei Imamura
became one of the more famous of the Japanese New Wave filmmakers. Imamura's work was less overtly political than Oshima or several filmmakers who emerged later in the 1960s. Nevertheless, Imamura in many ways became a standard-bearer for the Japanese New Wave: through his very last feature (Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
, 2001), Imamura never lost interest in his trademark characters and settings.
Imamura had once been an assistant of Yasujiro Ozu
, and had - in his youth - developed an antipathy towards Ozu's (and Kenji Mizoguchi
's) finely crafted aestheticism, finding it to be a bit too tailored to approved senses of "Japanese" film. Imamura's preference was for people whose lives were messier and for settings less lovely: amateur pornographers, barmaids, an elderly one-time prostitute, murderers, unemployed salarymen, an obsessive-compulsive doctor, and a lecherous, alcoholic monk were a few of many of his protagonists.
Imamura stated this on a number of occasions:
Imamura continued:
In integrating such a social view into a creative stance, Imamura - in an oblique fashion - does reflect the humanist formalism of earlier filmmakers - Ozu
, and Kurosawa
(whose Drunken Angel
he cited as a primary inspiration), even when the episodic construction seems more akin to the global (and Japanese) New Wave.
Thus, where Oshima would seem to strive for a radical break between old and new in Japanese cinema, figures like Imamura (and Seijun Suzuki) instead took older ideologies (and older, little-explored tangents), and helped create a Japanese New Wave that instead stood as an inevitable evolution in a dynamic cinema.
was among the most prolific Japanese New Wave filmmakers, and - by virtue of having had several internationally successful films (notably 1960's Cruel Story of Youth
, 1976's In the Realm of the Senses
and 1983's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
), became one of the most famous filmmakers associated with the movement.
Certain films - in particular Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, Night and Fog in Japan
(1960), and his later Death by Hanging
(1968) - did generate enormous controversy
(Night and Fog in Japan was pulled from theatres one week into its release), they also provoked debate
, or - in some instances - became unexpected commercial successes. Violence at Noon (1966) received a nomination for the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Oshima's structural and political restlessness and willingness to disrupt cinematic formulas drew comparisons to Jean-Luc Godard
- the two filmmakers emerged globally almost simultaneously, both were interested in altering the form and processes of cinema
, both came from backgrounds as critics, both challenged definitions of cinema as entertainment by inserting their own political perspectives into their work. Oshima elaborated upon the comparison:
Oshima varied his style dramatically to serve the needs of specific films - long takes in Night and Fog in Japan (1960), a blizzard of quick jump cuts in Violence at Noon (1966), nearly neo-realistic in Boy (Shonen, 1969), or a raw exploration of American b-movie sensibilities in Cruel Story of Youth. Again and again, Oshima introduced a critical stance that would transgress social norms by exploring why certain dysfunctions are tolerated - witness the familial dysfunctions of Boy and 1971's The Ceremony or the examinations of racism in Death by Hanging and Three Resurrected Drunkards (both 1968), and why some are not, at least openly - the entanglements of sex, power and violence explicitly depicted in In the Realm of the Senses (1976), or gay undercurrents located within samurai
culture (a well-documented subject in publications, but not in film) in 1999's otherwise atypically serene Taboo (Gohatto).
's connections with the Japanese New Wave were more by association than by any actual endorsement of the term. Suzuki had begun his career as a mainstream director of low-budget genre
films like Underworld Beauty
and Kanto Wanderer
for Nikkatsu
studios.
As noted by Japanese film critic Tadao Sato
, Suzuki did also represent a certain tradition in Japanese film: energizing normally conventional or even traditional styles with discreet infusions of unorthodox irreverence. In Sato's assessment, Suzuki's precursors in some ways were Sadao Yamanaka
and Mansaku Itami, whose unconventional humor reinvented period film during the 1930s.
Suzuki's stature as an influence upon the New Wave was cemented with two developments: the desire to enliven the formulaic screenplays he was given by Nikkatsu (a deliberately overripe pop-art stylishness introduced in 1963's Youth of the Beast
and Kanto Wanderer, both key, transitional films for Suzuki), and his 1968 dismissal from Nikkatsu.
In the wake of Kanto Wanderer, Suzuki's developing sense of style grew ever more surreal
:
This made clear Suzuki's anarchic approach to cinema, which coincided nicely with other developments during the 1960s. 1965's Tattooed Life
took Yakuza
formulas to comic-book extremes, with a deliberate and unreal heightening of melodrama
and wildly anti-realistic violence, played for humor or for style (using strobe effects
and glass floors to break down perspective
expectations during one notable scene). Beginning with this film, and continuing through Fighting Elegy
and Tokyo Drifter
(both from 1966) an accelerating move away from narrative
, and towards greater spontaneity, enhanced with occasional Brecht
ian touches, became evident in Suzuki's work, though such elements were used in ways quite different from other filmmakers of the New Wave.
This hit a pinnacle with 1967's Branded to Kill
, an elliptical
, fragmented dive into allegory
, satire
and stylishness, built around a yakuza with a boiled rice fetish. The film was regarded as "incomprehensible" by Nikkatsu, who sacked him (he didn't complete another feature for 9 years), but the largely non-narrative film plays like a compendum of global New Wave styles, absent the politics in most ways, though Suzuki's irreverence towards social convention is very clear, and the film's cult status grew at home and (ultimately) internationally.
Teshigahara - who was the son of a famed ikebana
master (Sofu Teshigahara
), began his career with a number of avant-garde
shorts, including Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Inochi (1958), Tokyo 1958 and Jose Torres (part 1) (1959); he had studied art at the Tokyo Art Institute. He launched his feature career a few years later, frequently collaborating with avant-garde novelist Kōbō Abe
, making a name for himself with the self-financed independent Pitfall (1962), which he described as a "documentary fantasy", and subsequently winning the jury prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival
for Woman in the Dunes
.
Both films, along with the subsequent The Face of Another (1966) and The Man Without a Map (1968) were co-scripted with Abe; in all four the search for self-definition in personal identity and for one's purpose in life is the driving theme, albeit related in allegorical fashion. In 1971, Teshigahara completed an additional feature, Summer Soldiers, which was scripted by John Nathan (translator for Yukio Mishima
and Kenzaburo Oe
), and focused on two American soldiers AWOL from the Vietnam War, and their attempt to hide in Japan.
Teshigahara would later retreat from filmmaking; after the retirement and death of his father he would take over his father's school, eventually becoming grandmaster. After completing Summer Soldiers in 1971, Teshigahara would not make another film for 12 years, re-emerging with a minimalistic documentary about architect Antonio Gaudi.
and became grand master of an Ikebana
school), or into international co-productions (Oshima).
In the face of such difficulties, a few of the key figures of the Japanese New Wave were still able to make notable films - Oshima's 1976 film In the Realm of the Senses
became internationally infamous in its blend of historical drama and aspects of pornography
(drawn from an actual historical incident), and - after a return to filmmaking Teshigahara won acclaim for his experimentalistic
documentary Antonio Gaudi
(1984) and the features Rikyu
(1989) and Princess Goh (1992). Shohei Imamura eventually became one of only four filmmakers to win the Palme d'Or
at the Cannes Film Festival
for multiple films - The Ballad of Narayama
(1983), and The Eel
, in 1991.
1957
1958
1959
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1971
1972
1973
1974
1976
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese filmmakers emerging from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. The term also refers to their work, in a loose creative movement within Japanese film, from a similar time period.
History
David Desser in his Eros plus Massacre places the marginal comment:
“Superficial comparisons between the Japanese New Wave cinema and the French New Wave, typically to imply greater integrity to the latter, have served the cultural cliché that the Japanese are merely great imitators, that they do nothing original. (...) To see the Japanese New Wave as an imitation of the French New Wave (an impossibility since they arose simultaneously) fails to see the Japanese context out of which the movement arose. (...) While the Japanese New Wave did draw benefits from the French New Wave, mainly in the form of a handy journalistic label which could be applied to it (the “nuberu bagu” from the Japanese pronunciation of the French term), it nevertheless possesses a high degree of integrity and specificity.”
Unlike the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
nouvelle vague, the Japanese movement initially began within the studios, albeit with young, and previously little-known filmmakers
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. The term was first coined within the studios (and in the media) as a Japanese version of the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
movement. Nonetheless, the Japanese New Wave filmmakers drew from some of the same international influences that inspired their French colleagues, and as the term stuck, the seemingly artificial movement surrounding it began to rapidly develop into a critical and increasingly independent film movement.
One distinction in the French movement was its roots with the journal Cahiers du Cinéma
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...
; as many future filmmakers began their careers as critics and cinema deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
ists, it would become apparent that new kinds of film theory
Film theory
Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...
(most prominently, auteur theory
Auteur theory
In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur"...
) were emerging with them.
The Japanese movement developed at roughly the same time (with several important 1950s precursor films), but arose as more of a movement devoted to questioning, analyzing, critiquing and (at times) upsetting social conventions.
One Japanese filmmaker who did emerge from a background akin to his French colleagues was Nagisa Oshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
, who had been a leftist activist and an analytical film critic before being hired by a studio. Oshima's earliest films (1959–60) could be seen as direct outgrowths of opinions voiced in his earlier published analysis. Cruel Story of Youth
Cruel Story Of Youth
, was the second film directed by Nagisa Oshima.Oshima, who was only 28 at the time, made extensive use of hand-held cameras and location shooting, and the results drew comparisons to the French nouvelle vague filmmakers emerging at around the same time; the film became one of the primary films in...
, Oshima's landmark second film (one of four he directed in 1959 and 1960) saw an international release very immediately in the wake of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's Breathless and François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows is a 1959 French film directed by François Truffaut. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. The story revolves around Antoine Doinel, an ordinary adolescent in Paris, who is thought by his parents and teachers...
.
Key names
Directors initially associated with the Japanese New Wave included Susumu HaniSusumu Hani
is a Japanese film director, and one of the most prominent representatives of the 1960s Japanese New Wave. Born in Tokyo, he has directed both documentaries and feature films....
, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Koreyoshi Kurahara
Koreyoshi Kurahara
was a Japanese screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for directing Antarctica , which won several awards and was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival...
, Yasuzo Masumura
Yasuzo Masumura
was a Japanese film director.Masumura was born in Kōfu on Honshū. After dropping out of a law course at the University of Tokyo he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei studio, later returning to university to study philosophy; he graduated in 1949...
, Masahiro Shinoda
Masahiro Shinoda
is a Japanese film director, originally associated with the Shochiku Studio, who came to prominence as part of the Japanese New Wave in the 1960s.-Career:...
, Nagisa Oshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
, Yoshishige Yoshida
Yoshishige Yoshida
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Career:Graduating from Tokyo University, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and debuted as a director in 1960 with Rokudenashi...
and Shohei Imamura
Shohei Imamura
was a Japanese film director. Imamura was the first Japanese director to win two Palme d'Or awards.His eldest son Daisuke Tengan is also a script writer and film director, and worked on the screenplays to Imamura's filmsThe Eel , Dr...
. Certain other filmmakers who had already launched careers - Seijun Suzuki
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
, Ko Nakahira
Ko Nakahira
- Filmography as assistant director :* Ojōsan shachō, lit. "Madame Company President" - Filmography as director :* Kurutta kajitsu * Gyūnyū-ya furanki * Bitoku no yoromeki * Kurenai no tsubasa)...
and Kaneto Shindo
Kaneto Shindo
, Hiroshima, Japan) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His best known films include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note.Shindō has often made films dealing with Hiroshima or the atomic bomb...
also came to be occasionally associated with the movement.
Working separately, they explored a number of ideas previously not often seen in more traditional Japanese cinema: social outcasts as protagonists (including criminals or delinquents
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
), uninhibited sexuality, changing roles of women in society, racism and the position of ethnic minorities in Japan, and the critique of (or deconstruction of) social structures and assumptions. Protagonists like Tome from Imamura's The Insect Woman
The Insect Woman
is a 1963 film directed by Japanese director Shōhei Imamura. It was entered into the 14th Berlin International Film Festival where Sachiko Hidari won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.-Plot:...
(1963) or the adolescent delinquents of Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth
Cruel Story Of Youth
, was the second film directed by Nagisa Oshima.Oshima, who was only 28 at the time, made extensive use of hand-held cameras and location shooting, and the results drew comparisons to the French nouvelle vague filmmakers emerging at around the same time; the film became one of the primary films in...
(1960) represented rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
, but also gave domestic and international audiences a glimpse into lives that would otherwise likely escape cinematic attention.
Susumu Hani
Apart from other Japanese New Wave filmmakers, Susumu HaniSusumu Hani
is a Japanese film director, and one of the most prominent representatives of the 1960s Japanese New Wave. Born in Tokyo, he has directed both documentaries and feature films....
's career existed almost entirely outside of the studio system. Hani moved into feature filmmaking from an earlier career in documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, and favored non-actors and improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
when possible. The documentaries Hani had made during the 1950s (1954's Children in the Classroom, and 1956's Children Who Draw) had introduced a style of cinema verite
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
documentary to Japan, and were of great interest to other filmmakers.
Hani's 1961 feature debut, Bad Boys was based upon the actual experiences of the disaffected youth seen in a reformatory
Reformatory
Reformatory is a term that has had varied meanings within the penal system, depending on the jurisdiction and the era. It may refer to a youth detention center, or an adult correctional facility. The term is still in popular use for adult facilities throughout the United States, although most...
; Hani felt that casting the same youth as actors would lend his film authenticity, blurring the lines between fiction and documentary in the process.
Hani would go on to complete several other features through the 1960s - among them the Antonioni-like She and He (1963
1963 in film
The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
), Song of Bwana Toshi (1965
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
), which dramatizes a spiritually and psychologically-themed journey to East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
undertaken by a Japanese engineer facing family difficulties, and Nanami, The Inferno of First Love
Hatsukoi Jigokuhen
Hatsukoi Jigokuhen is a 1968 film directed by Susumu Hani and co-scripted by him with Shūji Terayama. It is one of Hani's best known works. In the West, it is known as Nanami, The Inferno of First Love or as Nanami, First Love. The movie focuses on the pain of emerging from adolescence...
(1968
1968 in film
The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
). Hani, who was one of few true independents within the movement (and was - for this reason - one of its real cornerstones) would later retreat from feature filmmaking, primarily out of disillusionment:
I do not admire people, though I admire many persons. But I don't like what society does to persons. It perverts them. Yet, I don't want to attack societySocietyA society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. I am not that kind of person. What I would like to do is ignore it. Or better, show something else. This is what I have done in my pictures, including the animal ones
Many of Hani's subsequent nature films were shot in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, an area he first explored in the Song of Bwana Toshi. Though fiction, the feature film presaged Hani's later professional moves, and - in its theme of a man's attempt to "find himself," it stands as one of the more personally revelatory examples of Japanese New Wave filmmaking, revealing the direct human ambitions situated underneath the styles closer to the movement's surface.
Shohei Imamura
Alongside Nagisa OshimaNagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
, Shohei Imamura
Shohei Imamura
was a Japanese film director. Imamura was the first Japanese director to win two Palme d'Or awards.His eldest son Daisuke Tengan is also a script writer and film director, and worked on the screenplays to Imamura's filmsThe Eel , Dr...
became one of the more famous of the Japanese New Wave filmmakers. Imamura's work was less overtly political than Oshima or several filmmakers who emerged later in the 1960s. Nevertheless, Imamura in many ways became a standard-bearer for the Japanese New Wave: through his very last feature (Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
is a 2001 Japanese film by director Shōhei Imamura. This was Imamura's last feature film. It was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.- Plot :...
, 2001), Imamura never lost interest in his trademark characters and settings.
Imamura had once been an assistant of Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, and had - in his youth - developed an antipathy towards Ozu's (and Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
's) finely crafted aestheticism, finding it to be a bit too tailored to approved senses of "Japanese" film. Imamura's preference was for people whose lives were messier and for settings less lovely: amateur pornographers, barmaids, an elderly one-time prostitute, murderers, unemployed salarymen, an obsessive-compulsive doctor, and a lecherous, alcoholic monk were a few of many of his protagonists.
Imamura stated this on a number of occasions:
If my films are messy, it is probably because I don't like too perfect a cinema. The audience must not admire the technical aspects of my filmmaking, as they would a computer or the laws of physics.
Imamura continued:
I love all the characters in my films, even the loutish and frivolous ones. I want every one of my shots to express this love. I'm interested in people, strong, greedy, humorous, deceitful people who are very human in their qualities and their failings.
In integrating such a social view into a creative stance, Imamura - in an oblique fashion - does reflect the humanist formalism of earlier filmmakers - Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, and Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
(whose Drunken Angel
Drunken Angel
is a 1948 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is notable for being the first of sixteen film collaborations between director Kurosawa and actor Toshirō Mifune.- Plot :...
he cited as a primary inspiration), even when the episodic construction seems more akin to the global (and Japanese) New Wave.
Thus, where Oshima would seem to strive for a radical break between old and new in Japanese cinema, figures like Imamura (and Seijun Suzuki) instead took older ideologies (and older, little-explored tangents), and helped create a Japanese New Wave that instead stood as an inevitable evolution in a dynamic cinema.
Nagisa Oshima
Nagisa OshimaNagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
was among the most prolific Japanese New Wave filmmakers, and - by virtue of having had several internationally successful films (notably 1960's Cruel Story of Youth
Cruel Story Of Youth
, was the second film directed by Nagisa Oshima.Oshima, who was only 28 at the time, made extensive use of hand-held cameras and location shooting, and the results drew comparisons to the French nouvelle vague filmmakers emerging at around the same time; the film became one of the primary films in...
, 1976's In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses
is a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
and 1983's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a 1983 film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring Jack Thompson, David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yuya Uchida, and Takeshi Kitano.It was written by Oshima and Paul Mayersberg and based on Laurens van der Post's experiences...
), became one of the most famous filmmakers associated with the movement.
Certain films - in particular Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, Night and Fog in Japan
Night and Fog in Japan
is a 1960 film from Japanese director Nagisa Oshima. It is an intensely political film- both in subject matter and in thematic concerns such as political memory and the interpersonal dynamics of social movements.- Plot :In 1960, uninvited guests interrupt the wedding ceremony between Nozawa, a...
(1960), and his later Death by Hanging
Death by Hanging
is a 1968 film directed by Nagisa Oshima, acclaimed for its innovative Brechtian techniques and complex treatments of guilt and consciousness, justice, and the persecution of ethnic Koreans in Japan.- Plot synopsis :...
(1968) - did generate enormous controversy
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
(Night and Fog in Japan was pulled from theatres one week into its release), they also provoked debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
, or - in some instances - became unexpected commercial successes. Violence at Noon (1966) received a nomination for the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Oshima's structural and political restlessness and willingness to disrupt cinematic formulas drew comparisons to Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
- the two filmmakers emerged globally almost simultaneously, both were interested in altering the form and processes of cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, both came from backgrounds as critics, both challenged definitions of cinema as entertainment by inserting their own political perspectives into their work. Oshima elaborated upon the comparison:
I don't agree specifically with any of his positions, but I agree with his general attitude in confronting political themesTheme (literature)A theme is a broad, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,...
seriously in film.
Oshima varied his style dramatically to serve the needs of specific films - long takes in Night and Fog in Japan (1960), a blizzard of quick jump cuts in Violence at Noon (1966), nearly neo-realistic in Boy (Shonen, 1969), or a raw exploration of American b-movie sensibilities in Cruel Story of Youth. Again and again, Oshima introduced a critical stance that would transgress social norms by exploring why certain dysfunctions are tolerated - witness the familial dysfunctions of Boy and 1971's The Ceremony or the examinations of racism in Death by Hanging and Three Resurrected Drunkards (both 1968), and why some are not, at least openly - the entanglements of sex, power and violence explicitly depicted in In the Realm of the Senses (1976), or gay undercurrents located within samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
culture (a well-documented subject in publications, but not in film) in 1999's otherwise atypically serene Taboo (Gohatto).
Seijun Suzuki
Seijun SuzukiSeijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
's connections with the Japanese New Wave were more by association than by any actual endorsement of the term. Suzuki had begun his career as a mainstream director of low-budget genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
films like Underworld Beauty
Underworld Beauty
is a 1958 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki. It marked Suzuki's first CinemaScope film and was also the first to be credited to his assumed name, Seijun Suzuki.-External links:* at the Japanese Movie Database...
and Kanto Wanderer
Kanto Wanderer
is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Akira Kobayashi, Chieko Matsubara, Daizaburo Hirata and Hiroko Itō. It was a programme picture produced by the Nikkatsu Company to fill out the second half of a double bill with Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman...
for Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
studios.
As noted by Japanese film critic Tadao Sato
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
, Suzuki did also represent a certain tradition in Japanese film: energizing normally conventional or even traditional styles with discreet infusions of unorthodox irreverence. In Sato's assessment, Suzuki's precursors in some ways were Sadao Yamanaka
Sadao Yamanaka
was a Japanese film director and writer who directed 24 films during a seven-year period in the 1930s. He was a contemporary of Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi and one of the primary figures in the development of the jidaigeki, or historical film. Yamanaka died of dysentary in...
and Mansaku Itami, whose unconventional humor reinvented period film during the 1930s.
Suzuki's stature as an influence upon the New Wave was cemented with two developments: the desire to enliven the formulaic screenplays he was given by Nikkatsu (a deliberately overripe pop-art stylishness introduced in 1963's Youth of the Beast
Youth of the Beast
is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki. Much of the film is set in Tokyo.-External links:* * at the Japanese Movie Database...
and Kanto Wanderer, both key, transitional films for Suzuki), and his 1968 dismissal from Nikkatsu.
In the wake of Kanto Wanderer, Suzuki's developing sense of style grew ever more surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
:
What is standing there isn't really there. It's just something reflected in our eyes. When it is demolished, the consciousness that it is, or was, first begins to form.
This made clear Suzuki's anarchic approach to cinema, which coincided nicely with other developments during the 1960s. 1965's Tattooed Life
Tattooed Life
is a 1965 yakuza action movie directed by Seijun Suzuki. The film stars Hideki Takahashi as "Silver Fox" Tetsu. The story follows the flight of yakuza hitman Tetsu and his younger, artistic brother Kenji after the latter kills a yakuza boss in a double cross. The pair is pursued by the yakuza and...
took Yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
formulas to comic-book extremes, with a deliberate and unreal heightening of melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
and wildly anti-realistic violence, played for humor or for style (using strobe effects
Strobe light
A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope...
and glass floors to break down perspective
Perspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
expectations during one notable scene). Beginning with this film, and continuing through Fighting Elegy
Fighting Elegy
is a 1966 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki. Filmmaker Kaneto Shindō adapted the script from the novel by Takashi Suzuki. The film has also screened under the titles Violence Elegy, Elegy to Violence, Elegy for a Quarrel and The Born Fighter at various film festivals and...
and Tokyo Drifter
Tokyo Drifter
is a 1966 yakuza action film directed by Seijun Suzuki. The story follows Tetsuya Watari as the reformed yakuza hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu who is forced to roam Japan avoiding execution by rival gangs.-Plot:...
(both from 1966) an accelerating move away from narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
, and towards greater spontaneity, enhanced with occasional Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
ian touches, became evident in Suzuki's work, though such elements were used in ways quite different from other filmmakers of the New Wave.
This hit a pinnacle with 1967's Branded to Kill
Branded to Kill
is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko Ogawa. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu Company, originally released in a double bill with Shōgorō Nishimura's Burning Nature. The story follows Goro...
, an elliptical
Elliptical construction
In linguistics, ellipsis or elliptical construction refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements.-Overview:...
, fragmented dive into allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
, satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
and stylishness, built around a yakuza with a boiled rice fetish. The film was regarded as "incomprehensible" by Nikkatsu, who sacked him (he didn't complete another feature for 9 years), but the largely non-narrative film plays like a compendum of global New Wave styles, absent the politics in most ways, though Suzuki's irreverence towards social convention is very clear, and the film's cult status grew at home and (ultimately) internationally.
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Other filmmakers - notably Hiroshi Teshigahara - favored more experimental or allegorical terrain. Alongside Hani, Teshigahara worked as an independent (excepting The Man Without a Map), apart from the studio system entirely.Teshigahara - who was the son of a famed ikebana
Ikebana
is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as .-Etymology:"Ikebana" is from the Japanese and . Possible translations include "giving life to flowers" and "arranging flowers".- Approach :...
master (Sofu Teshigahara
Sofu Teshigahara
Sōfu Teshigahara was the founder of the Sōgetsu School of Ikebana flower arranging.Born in Tokyo, he first learned flower arranging from his father who had studied many styles of the different schools...
), began his career with a number of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
shorts, including Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Inochi (1958), Tokyo 1958 and Jose Torres (part 1) (1959); he had studied art at the Tokyo Art Institute. He launched his feature career a few years later, frequently collaborating with avant-garde novelist Kōbō Abe
Kobo Abe
, pseudonym of was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities....
, making a name for himself with the self-financed independent Pitfall (1962), which he described as a "documentary fantasy", and subsequently winning the jury prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
for Woman in the Dunes
Woman in the Dunes
is a film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and based on the novel of the same name by Kōbō Abe. The novel was published in 1962, and the film was released in 1964. Kōbō Abe also wrote the screenplay for the film version....
.
Both films, along with the subsequent The Face of Another (1966) and The Man Without a Map (1968) were co-scripted with Abe; in all four the search for self-definition in personal identity and for one's purpose in life is the driving theme, albeit related in allegorical fashion. In 1971, Teshigahara completed an additional feature, Summer Soldiers, which was scripted by John Nathan (translator for Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
and Kenzaburo Oe
Kenzaburo Oe
is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.Ōe was awarded...
), and focused on two American soldiers AWOL from the Vietnam War, and their attempt to hide in Japan.
Teshigahara would later retreat from filmmaking; after the retirement and death of his father he would take over his father's school, eventually becoming grandmaster. After completing Summer Soldiers in 1971, Teshigahara would not make another film for 12 years, re-emerging with a minimalistic documentary about architect Antonio Gaudi.
Creative legacy
The Japanese New Wave began to come apart (as it did in France) by the early 1970s; in the face of a collapsing studio system, major directors retreated into documentary work (Hani and - for a while - Imamura), other artistic pursuits (Teshigahara, who practiced sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and became grand master of an Ikebana
Ikebana
is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as .-Etymology:"Ikebana" is from the Japanese and . Possible translations include "giving life to flowers" and "arranging flowers".- Approach :...
school), or into international co-productions (Oshima).
In the face of such difficulties, a few of the key figures of the Japanese New Wave were still able to make notable films - Oshima's 1976 film In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses
is a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
became internationally infamous in its blend of historical drama and aspects of pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
(drawn from an actual historical incident), and - after a return to filmmaking Teshigahara won acclaim for his experimentalistic
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
documentary Antonio Gaudi
Antonio Gaudi (film)
Antonio Gaudi is a 1984 Japanese and Spanish documentary film by Hiroshi Teshigahara about the works of Antoni Gaudi. In the film the director visits the buildings including houses in Barcelona and the Sagrada Família.-Reception:...
(1984) and the features Rikyu
Rikyu (film)
is Hiroshi Teshigahara's film about the 16th century master of the Japanese tea ceremony, Sen no Rikyū. The film focuses on the late stages of life of Rikyū, during the highly turbulent Sengoku period of Feudal Japan. It starts near the end of Oda Nobunaga's reign, with Rikyū serving as tea master...
(1989) and Princess Goh (1992). Shohei Imamura eventually became one of only four filmmakers to win the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
for multiple films - The Ballad of Narayama
The Ballad of Narayama (1983 film)
is a 1983 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. It stars Sumiko Sakamoto as Orin, Ken Ogata, and Shoichi Ozawa. It is an adaptation of the book Narayama bushiko by Shichiro Fukazawa and remake of the 1958 film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.- Plot :...
(1983), and The Eel
The Eel (Japanese film)
The Eel is a 1997 film directed by Shohei Imamura and starring Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho and Akira Emoto. The film is loosely based on the novel On Parole by celebrated author Akira Yoshimura, combined with elements from the director's 1966 film The Pornographers...
, in 1991.
Key films associated with the Japanese New Wave
(directors listed alphabetically within the year)1950s
1956- Children Who Draw, Susumu Hani (documentary)
- Punishment Room, Kon Ichikawa
- Crazed FruitCrazed Fruit, also known as Juvenile Jungle, is a 1956 Japanese Sun Tribe film directed by Kō Nakahira. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Shintaro Ishihara, the older brother of Yujiro Ishihara.- Cast :* Masahiko Tsugawa - Haruji...
, Ko Nakahira - Suzaki Paradise, Kawashima Yuzo
1957
- Kisses, Yasuzo Masumura
- Warm Current, Yasuzo Masumura
- The Sun's Legend, Kawashima Yuzo
1958
- Giants and ToysGiants and Toysis a 1958 comedy film directed by Yasuzo Masumura and starring Hiroshi Kawaguchi. It portrays the increasingly frenzied efforts of the World candy company to compete with the rival Giant and Apollo companies over caramel sales...
, Yasuzo Masumura
1959
- The AssignationThe AssignationThe Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery is a Restoration comedy written by John Dryden. The play was first acted late in 1672, by the King's Company at their theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields, but was not a success with its audience....
, Ko Nakahira - A Town of Love and Hate, Nagisa Oshima
1960s
1960- Cruel Story of YouthCruel Story Of Youth, was the second film directed by Nagisa Oshima.Oshima, who was only 28 at the time, made extensive use of hand-held cameras and location shooting, and the results drew comparisons to the French nouvelle vague filmmakers emerging at around the same time; the film became one of the primary films in...
, Nagisa Oshima - The Sun's Burial, Nagisa Oshima
- Night and Fog in JapanNight and Fog in Japanis a 1960 film from Japanese director Nagisa Oshima. It is an intensely political film- both in subject matter and in thematic concerns such as political memory and the interpersonal dynamics of social movements.- Plot :In 1960, uninvited guests interrupt the wedding ceremony between Nozawa, a...
, Nagisa Oshima - Naked Island, Kaneto Shindo
- The Warped OnesThe Warped Onesis a 1960 Japanese Sun Tribe film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and starring Tamio Kawachi, Eiji Go, Yuko Chishiro and Noriko Matsumoto. It was produced and distributed by the Nikkatsu Company...
, Koreyoshi Kurahara
1961
- Bad Boys, Susumu Hani
- Pigs and BattleshipsPigs and Battleshipsis a 1961 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura.- Plot :The film depicts the mutually exploitative relationship that exists between the U.S. military and the lower elements of Japanese society at Yokosuka....
, Shohei Imamura - The Catch, Nagisa Oshima
1962
- The RevolutionaryThe RevolutionaryThe Revolutionary is a 1970 film directed by Paul Williams. The screenplay was written by Hans Koning , based on his novel of the same name. It was the film debut for actor Jeffrey Jones.-Main cast:...
, Nagisa Oshima - Pitfall, Hiroshi Teshigahara
1963
- She and He, Susumu Hani
- The Insect WomanThe Insect Womanis a 1963 film directed by Japanese director Shōhei Imamura. It was entered into the 14th Berlin International Film Festival where Sachiko Hidari won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.-Plot:...
, Shohei Imamura
1964
- Intentions of Murder, Shohei Imamura
- Assassination, Masahiro Shinoda
- Pale FlowerPale FlowerPale Flower is a 1964 Japanese crime film directed by Masahiro Shinoda. The film is about Muraki a Yakuza hitman just released from prison. At an illegal gambling parlor, he finds himself drawn to a mysterious young woman named Saeko . Though Saeko loses large sums of money, she asks Muraki to...
, Masahiro Shinoda - Gate of FleshGate of Fleshis a 1964 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki.-Synopsis:In an impoverished and burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-World War II Japan, a band of prostitutes defend their territory, squatting in a bombed-out building. Somehow they eke out a living together...
, Seijun Suzuki - Tattooed LifeTattooed Lifeis a 1965 yakuza action movie directed by Seijun Suzuki. The film stars Hideki Takahashi as "Silver Fox" Tetsu. The story follows the flight of yakuza hitman Tetsu and his younger, artistic brother Kenji after the latter kills a yakuza boss in a double cross. The pair is pursued by the yakuza and...
, Seijun Suzuki - Woman in the DunesWoman in the Dunesis a film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and based on the novel of the same name by Kōbō Abe. The novel was published in 1962, and the film was released in 1964. Kōbō Abe also wrote the screenplay for the film version....
, Hiroshi Teshigahara
1965
- The Song of Bwana Toshi, Susumu Hani
- Sea of Youth, Shinsuke Ogawa (documentary)
- With Beauty and Sorrow, Masahiro Shinoda
- A Story Written with Water, Yoshishige Yoshida
1966
- Bride of the Andes, Susumu Hani
- The Pornographers: An Introduction to Anthropology, Shohei Imamura
- Violence at Noon, Nagisa Oshima
- Fighting ElegyFighting Elegyis a 1966 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki. Filmmaker Kaneto Shindō adapted the script from the novel by Takashi Suzuki. The film has also screened under the titles Violence Elegy, Elegy to Violence, Elegy for a Quarrel and The Born Fighter at various film festivals and...
, Seijun Suzuki - Tokyo DrifterTokyo Drifteris a 1966 yakuza action film directed by Seijun Suzuki. The story follows Tetsuya Watari as the reformed yakuza hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu who is forced to roam Japan avoiding execution by rival gangs.-Plot:...
, Seijun Suzuki - The Face of Another, Hiroshi Teshigahara
1967
- A Man VanishesA Man Vanishesis a 1967 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. A Region 2 DVD release in the Masters of Cinema series is scheduled for October 2011.- Plot :On the face of it, a documentary about an ordinary man who—like many Japanese every year—disappears without trace, leaving his job and fiancee behind,...
, Shohei Imamura - The Oppressed Students, Shinsuke Ogawa (documentary)
- Manual of Ninja Arts, Nagisa Oshima
- A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Song, Nagisa Oshima
- Branded to KillBranded to Killis a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko Ogawa. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu Company, originally released in a double bill with Shōgorō Nishimura's Burning Nature. The story follows Goro...
, Seijun Suzuki
1968
- Inferno of First LoveHatsukoi JigokuhenHatsukoi Jigokuhen is a 1968 film directed by Susumu Hani and co-scripted by him with Shūji Terayama. It is one of Hani's best known works. In the West, it is known as Nanami, The Inferno of First Love or as Nanami, First Love. The movie focuses on the pain of emerging from adolescence...
, Susumu Hani - The Profound Desire of the GodsThe Profound Desire of the Godsis a 1968 Japanese film by director Shōhei Imamura. The culmination of the director's examinations of the fringes of Japanese society throughout the 1960s, the film was an 18-month super-production which failed to make an impression at the time of its release, but has since risen in stature to...
, Shohei Imamura - Summer in Narita, Shinsuke Ogawa (documentary)
- Death by HangingDeath by Hangingis a 1968 film directed by Nagisa Oshima, acclaimed for its innovative Brechtian techniques and complex treatments of guilt and consciousness, justice, and the persecution of ethnic Koreans in Japan.- Plot synopsis :...
, Nagisa Oshima - Three Resurrected Drunkards, Nagisa Oshima
- The Man Without a Map, Hiroshi Teshigahara
1969
- Aido, Susumu Hani
- Ryakushô Renzoku Shasatsuma, Adachi Masao
- Eros Plus MassacreEros Plus Massacreis a Japanese black-and-white film released in 1969. It was directed by Yoshishige Yoshida, who wrote it in cooperation with Masahiro Yamada.-Plot:The film is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, who was assassinated by the Japanese military in 1923...
, Yoshishige Yoshida - Funeral Parade of Roses, Toshio Matsumoto
- Boy, Nagisa Oshima
- Diary of a Shinjuku ThiefDiary of a Shinjuku Thiefis a 1968 Japanese New Wave film by Nagisa Oshima.-Synopsis:The film centers around Birdie, a young, Japanese book thief who soon is caught by a woman named Umeko...
, Nagisa Oshima - Double SuicideDouble Suicideis a 1969 film directed by Masahiro Shinoda. It is based on the 1721 play The Love Suicides at Amijima by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. This play is often performed in the bunraku style...
, Masahiro Shinoda - Go, Go Second Time VirginGo, Go Second Time Virginis a 1969 Japanese film by Kōji Wakamatsu. Acclaimed filmmaker Takeshi Kitano made his film debut as an extra.-Plot:Poppo, a teenage girl, is raped by four boys on the roof of a seven-story apartment building. She asks them to kill her, but they mock her and leave. Tsukio, a teenage boy, has been...
, Koji WakamatsuKoji Wakamatsuis a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses...
1970s
1970- History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar HostessHistory of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostessis a 1970 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura.After the poor box-office performance of his ambitious 1968 film, The Profound Desire of the Gods, Imamura decided to undertake a more modestly budgeted film. This was Imamura's second foray into the documentary format, after 1967's A Man Vanishes...
, Shohei Imamura (documentary) - The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Nagisa Oshima
- Buraikan, Shuji Terayama
1971
- Red Army, Adachi Masao
- The Ceremony, Nagisa Oshima
- Emperor Tomato KetchupEmperor Tomato Ketchup (film)Emperor Tomato Ketchup is a Japanese film directed by Shūji Terayama in 1971.-Plot summary:A youngboy is the emperor of a country in which children have overthrown the adults....
, Shuji Terayama - Throw Away Your Books, Let's Go Into the Streets, Shuji Terayama
- Summer Soldiers, Hiroshi Teshigahara
1972
- Summer Sister, Nagisa Oshima
1973
- Karayuki-san, the Making of a ProstituteKarayuki-san, the Making of a ProstituteKarayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute is a 1975 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. It is a documentary on one of the Japanese "karayuki-san," who were women that were taken from their homes in Japan and used as prostitutes in the post-war period...
, Shohei Imamura (documentary) - Coup d'EtatCoup d'Etat (film)is a 1973 Japanese film directed by Yoshishige Yoshida. It was Japan's submission to the 46th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.-See also:*Cinema of Japan...
, Yoshishige Yoshida
1974
- Matsu the Untamed Comes Home, Shohei Imamura (documentary)
- Pastoral, Shuji Terayama
1976
- God Speed You! Black EmperorGod Speed You! Black EmperorGod Speed You! Black Emperor is a 1976 Japanese black-and-white 16 mm documentary film, 90 minutes long, by director Mitsuo Yanagimachi, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors. 1970s Japan saw the rise of biker gangs, known as Bōsōzoku, which drew the interest of...
, Yanagimachi Mitsuo (documentary) - In the Realm of the SensesIn the Realm of the Sensesis a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
, Nagisa Oshima
Further reading
- Desser, David (1988). Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to The Japanese New Wave Cinema. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 0-253-20469-0.
- Mellen, Joan (1976). The Waves At Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema. Pantheon, New York. ISBN 0-394-49799-6.
- Oshima, Nagisa and Annette Michelson (1993). Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima. MIT Press, Boston. ISBN 0-262-65039-8.
- Richie, Donald (2005). A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos. Kodansha America, New York and Tokyo. ISBN 4-7700-2995-0.
- Richie, Donald (2004). Japan Journals 1947-2004. Stone Bridge, Berkeley. ISBN 1-880656-97-3.
- Sato, TadaoTadao Satois a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
(1982). Currents In Japanese Cinema. Kodansha America, New York and Tokyo. ISBN 0-87011-815-3.
- Svensson, Arne (1971). Japan (Screen Series). Barnes, New York. ISBN 0-498-07654-7.