Oshima Nagisa Sex and Violence in the Modern Japan

The Post-war Japanese Film Industry Founded in 1912 One of the oldest production companies. After the dormant period, it resumed production in 1954; it recruited directors from other studios - Imamura Shohei and Suzuki Seijun.

A successful genre, Nikkatsu Action Eiga - action movies for the male audience. After the popularity of cinema declined in the 60s, it successfully turned to the production of soft-porn films, Nikkatsu Roman Porno, with relatively high-budget and production values.

The Post-war Japanese Film Industry Founded in 1920 One of the most successful and reliable companies through the 30s, 40s and 50s - Studios in Kyoto specialized in producing jidai geki - Studios in Tokyo (Kamata and Ofuna) specialized in producing gendai geki

Director’s studio - employed a large number of established and talented directors under contract. Conservative production policy targeting mainly the female audience. The decline of its fortune from the late 50s as its movies increasingly looked out of touch with the rapidly changing Japanese society.

The Post-war Japanese Film Industry From 1945 to 2002 Under the charismatic president of the company and chief executive producer, Nagata Masaichi, it produced internationally acclaimed films - Rashomon (1951), The Tale of Ugetsu (1953) and The Gate of Hell (1954).

From the 50s to 60s it produced high-budget epics using top film stars such as Kyo Machiko, Yamamoto Fujiko, Wakao Ayako, and Ichikawa Raizo. Autocratic Nagata became the cause of trouble rather than asset in the 60s. Sensationalist movies in the 60s.

The Post-war Japanese Film Industry The film production branch of Takarazuka Theatre Company founded by Kobayashi Ichiro, a show- business entrepreneur, in After the war, the company experienced the greatest labour dispute and was split into two companies - Toho and Shin (new) Toho.

Kurosawa was under contract in the 50s. Monster films such as Mothra and Godzilla were its hit products of the 50s. During the slump it shifted to the production of movies for children. Now the most successful company turning popular TV programmes and comics into films.

The Post-war Japanese Film Industry The youngest major film company founded by the millionaire owner of Tokyu Railway Co. Goto Keita in 1949, and later came to specialize in genre pictures - crime thrillers, sward play films, and Yakuza movies.

Commercially the most successful and the only film company making healthy profits through Yakuza films during the 60s and 70s while other film companies were struggling to survive. It came to also specialize in animation from the 80s.

New Youth Films The emergence of a new genre in the mid-fifties - youth film Its origin - the success of a novel - Season of the Sun (1956) by Ishihara Shintaro - a bestseller which scandalized the older generations and created a social phenomenon, Taiyo-zoku (‘Sun-tribe’) lifestyle and a series of ‘Taiyo-zoku’ movies Taiyo-zoku Japanese equivalence to Greasers youth sub-cultural movements in US and Rockers and Mods in Great Britain

Youth subcultures in the 50s and 60s consumerism, care-free and reckless actions, loose sex, drug, rock music

New Youth Films Phenomenal successes of Nicholas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause (1955) and Richard Brooks’ Blackboard Jungle (1955) - featuring the youth and youth culture with sympathy

New Youth Films British films which dealt with the youth and new youth culture in northern industrial cities: Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distant Runner (1962)

New Youth Films Taiyo-zoku movies and the new youth film - about the youth who live amoral, licentious and irresponsible lives Season of the Sun (1956) Crazed Fruit (1956) Punishment Room (1956) Man Who Caused a Storm (1957) The genre was first exploited by Nikkatsu

Created the new young idols - Ishihara Yujiro,, Shishido Joe, Akagi Kei’ichiro, Kobayashi Akira

Nitani Hideaki, Watari Tetsuya, Matsubara Keiko, Asaoka Ruriko. Thanks to the new strategy, movie attendance rose to just over a billion in 1958, the post-war highest.

New Youth Films In 1958 Shochiku was the poor fourth after Nikkatsu, Toho and Toei at the box office Rivals’ triumph, poor performances of its films (including Ozu’s) and the success of French nouvelle vague films prompted: Change of its production policy (shift to the movies targeted for the youth market) and promotion of young assistants to directors.

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku Entered Shochiku as assistant director in With his friends he started a film journal and wrote scripts which were never filmed. Political and artistic radical.

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku An admirer of Crazed Fruit by Nakahara Ko “Some people realized coming of new age for Japanese movie within the sound of the woman’s skirt torn and the swelling noise of the motorboat on which the hero killed his brother.”

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku Suddenly and unexpectedly he was given a chance by Kido Shiro to direct a film. A Town of Love and Hope (1959, the original title; The Boy Who Sold His Pigeons)

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku Cruel Story of Youth (1960) A college student rescues a high school girl who are being sexually assaulted. Their affair is not a innocent one. They learn they can make easy money by extorting money from men who make a pass at her.

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku The film is an examination of hopelessness, victimization, apathy, exploitation, and cultural alienation against the background of radical political and social change - the student uprising in Korea and the movement against the US-Japan Security Pact.

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku The Sun’s Burial (1960): The underclass in Osaka’s slum engage in pilfering, assaulting, robbing, trading IDs and blood. Portrayal of Japan’s ‘lost generation’ in the midst of the economic miracle; the examination of the loss of Japanese cultural and spiritual identity and its subsequent chaos and nihilism.

Oshima Nagisa in Shochiku Night and Fog in Japan (1960) A group of young intellectuals and their professor gather for a wedding in which the betrayal of the left-wing political activists is revealed. Shochiku withdrew the film two days after its opening.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Oshima left Shochiku in protest and became an independent filmmaker. His films were often financed by ATG (Art Theatre Guild), which started as a distributor and exhibitor (‘art theatre’) but later produced films of such directors as Oshima Nagisa, Imamura Shohei, Shinoda Masahiro, Yoshida Yoshishige (guild or co- operative).

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Violence at Noon (1966): A wealthy housewife is raped and murdered by a drifter whom her maidservant knows. The complicated past relationship between the murderer and the maid and his wife is revealed through flashbacks. The portrayal of sexual desire, repression, and guilt.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Death by Hanging (1968) A Korean rapist and murderer is sentenced to death by hanging, but he survives the execution. For the following hours, his executioners try to work out how to handle the situation in this black farce.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Film is a tragi-comic and surrealistic reflection on the identity crisis of a Japanese-Korean, intolerance, and capital punishment. clip

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Boy A man and a woman travelled around Japan with their young son, whom they had trained to run into a moving car and pretend to be hurt. The parents would then demand money from frightened driver. clip

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku The Ceremony (1971) - A marriage is arranged between the two who had never met before but it is about to be cancelled once the bride-to-be sends words that she will not be arriving. The patriarch insists the ceremony continue as planned. The forms of tradition must be obeyed, so the gathered guests watch as the humiliated bridegroom stands at the altar alone, ‘marrying’ nothing but air.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku In the Realm of Senses (1978) A former prostitute now working in an inn is seduced by its owner. A great passion sparks in both and they leave the inn and travelling together around the country. They give their entire existences to sex. In the end, with the man’s consent, the woman strangles him to death in a sex ritual and cuts his penis.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Empire of Passion (1978) - a labourer in a provincial village falls in love with the wife of a rickshaw driver. The labourer and his lover kill her husband to prevent him from discovering their affair, but when the driver’s ghost begins to haunt the lovers till they fall apart.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) - set in a POW camp in Java, a British officer exerts a strong sexual pull on the Japanese captain, who runs the camp. However, he is in no circumstances allowed to love his enemy of the same sex.

Oshima Nagisa after Shochiku Taboo (1999) Shinsengumi employs a young samurai, who has feminine beauty. He becomes the centre of homosocial and homosexual desire among the members of the militia.

Oshima’s Themes and Subjects At the first glance, his subjects and themes are eclectic. ‘Active subject’ = the director expresses his deepest passions, anxieties, and obsessions ‘Active subjects’ repeatedly appear in Oshima’s films are: Exposé of social hypocrisy and corruption; the abuse of power and social and political exploitation in the modern Japan

Oshima’s Themes and Subjects Through examining criminal actions and sexual behaviours, Oshima (1) flaunts the vulgarity of characters, but at the same time, (2) reveals the hypocrisy and corruption of the seemingly prosperous and polite nation, which has created them and makes them exist. Then, he demonstrates (3) sexual crime and violence are not without connection with social exploitation, alienation and repression.