Eclipse Series 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties

[knives]

Having seen only three of his films(one of which not having a female character), but I will see Pleasures tonight, I may not be an authority. Nevertheless I can't understand how someone could see Oshima as anything but feminist. A lot of what people claim as part of Mizoguchi's films I see as being a part of the whole for Oshima. He holds beliefs and carries them out. The moral center of Cruel Stories, for example, is the Wood character who also. To get beyond archetypes for a second, Realm's female lead is a full fledged character who while making mistakes is treated with respect and dignity. Oshima is one of the few Japanese directors who comes off as entirely genuine in their feminism.

[jojo]

What's interesting about VaN is that despite the concept sounding like just another "misogynistic" Oshima film

I think Oshima's a feminist director, all of his films portray the women as intelligent, self aware but ultimately a victim because of traditional Japanese values. Why do you think his films are misogynist?

I actually don't think they are, but I've been paying much more attention to his treatment of females ever since I began to read about the charges of misogynism in his work (as touched upon in some of the extras found In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passions).

I've generally always had the impression that Oshima simply makes a lot of films exploring the male gaze, which lends itself to various interpretations because he tends to argue that sex and brutality are intertwined in the male psyche (and not in a way he necessarily approves of), and sometimes the female characters around them are victims to that intertwining. But because his women are sometimes roughed up and don't always manage to achieve an audience-pleasing level of empowerment, I can see where some people might interpret his films as misogynistic. Of course, that interpretation would ignore the fact that all of his characters, males included, rarely ever achieve any kind of real empowerment by the end of his films.

I don't consider him a feminist director, but as of yet I still don't have an impression of him as a misogynistic director either. His females often play crucial roles in the defining of his male-female relationships, and vice versa. It's never just one-sided with Oshima. Oshima may or may not see the relationship between men and women as being a mix of sexual tension and violence, but I've never seen a film of his that ISN'T interested in or at least not a little bit fascinated by the female's emotional and psychological status within a relationship.

But what I was talking about in regards to Violence at Noon is that it was the first film of his I've seen that completely devotes its focus to the female POV. Granted, there are still a good handful of Oshima films I haven't seen yet.

[Michael Kerpan]

So far, Violence at Noon is the first Oshima film I've seen that I've really liked a lot -- maybe because it reminded me a bit of Imamura's work. ;~}

[jojo]

Yeah, I was actually mentally comparing Violence at Noon to Intentions of Murder at times--they're totally different stories of course, but they have the same concerns toward sexual roles, sexual violence, male desire at first and later overwhelming it with female desire, etc,. I think Imamura is a more forgiving director, though, and more overtly feminist than Oshima--Imamura usually allows his female characters some degree of noticeable empowerment unlike Oshima who usually dooms his whole cast--male and female alike--to some kind of ambivalent hell.

[Michael Kerpan]

VaN also has a determined (and earthy) heroine who just doesn't give up -- very Imamura-like.

Another interesting link might be to Mizoguchi's Portrait of Madame Yuki. Both feature a young woman as viewpoint character -- involved with an older woman who is sexually obsessed with an abusive scoundrel who takes advantage of her.

[knives]

Just finished Pleasures and, pardon the pun, it was the most immediately pleasing of Oshima's films I've seen yet. While I think Imamura still holds the candle, this film really is evidence enough to Oshima's greatness.
As to the film itself, it's been around a year since I've so despised a protagonist. Evil by itself doesn't bug me too much, but such a self righteous John Wayne view of oneself mixed in with that horrendousness makes for a despicable character. I could go on, but I think Domino summed it up much better than I could.
Instead I guess I'll blab on about my favorite aspect: The organization. The way that information is revealed in the movie while not radical is still greatly interesting. Just the lead's reason for spending the money is a journey made complex. I think this has a lot to do with the non-ellipse use of epllipses. The transition from one relationship to the next, specifically for one and two, is done by an invisible string.
The moment that made the film for me though is the finger sequence. Everything worth watching this film for is at its best there. Though the horror movie lighting in the Keiko scenes keep the movie in line better than anything else could.

SpoilerShow

One last thing, but am I nuts to suspect that that final confrontation with the girl was an other hallucination?

[cdnchris]

SpoilerShow

One last thing, but am I nuts to suspect that that final confrontation with the girl was an other hallucination?

SpoilerShow

You're talking about Shoko? I'm pretty sure that one happened, especially since she's the one that turned him in.

[knives]

Yeah, It's a bit of a ridiculous thought, but for some reason I have it. Just seems like to good of a vindictive situation for him. What she does to him could be unrelated. Not likely, but a fun idea nevertheless.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

VaN also has a determined (and earthy) heroine who just doesn't give up -- very Imamura-like.

I never thought as the women in these types of films as "Imamura-like". I forgot what famous Japanese actress said it, but they said something to the effect that if you want to make a political film in Japan, make a film about women. Imamura might have had a very female focused point of view for his films, but directors like Nagisa Oshima, Susumi Hani and even Koji Wakamatsu all delved into these aspects of Japanese society. These directors concerns at the time were about placement and treatment of women or the importance of women in the society. To see more of the determined and earthy woman, all you have to do is see The Sun's Burial which goes completely against the woman tricking multiple partners type from the sun tribe films or In the Realm of the Senses where a woman lives off of pure emotion and lives a life that's completely in opposition of what a woman's place in Japanese society was in the 30's where her focus is on herself and her pleasures.

I'm so excited that people are getting such joy out of Pleasures of the Flesh. I saw it at the American Cinematheque last May (with only about fifteen other people in the theater and me being the youngest by about twenty years) and have been patiently waiting for it to come to DVD. I'm incredibly surprised people took so well to it!

[zedz]

I'll pitch in in more detail when I get my set, but it's great to see so much discussion about the actual films here.

Oshima is one of the few Japanese directors who comes off as entirely genuine in their feminism.

I agree with the general tenor of the discussion, and I think the accusations of misogyny re. Oshima arise, rather simplistically, from the fact that so many of the women in his films are badly treated - all those rapes, for example - and there's sometimes a tendency to assume that the depiction of certain behaviours equates with endorsement of them.

Another factor may well be that other New Wave directors such as Imamura and Yoshida are far, far more overt in their feminism, with a preponderance of female protagonists in their films (though they too tend to get badly treated). Even lesser known masters like Hani gets far more deeply involved in the mind of the female protagonist of She and He than most of his Western contemporaries.

Oshima is often more analytical and distanced in his treatment of character (I think Pleasures of the Flesh is a good example of this - he presents a complex matrix of human behaviour, but we're not exactly invited to empathize with the individual characters, though we might project ourselves into some of their decisions), and he's also very interested in exploring personality (and sexuality) as conditioned or societally imposed behaviour (see how the protagonists of Three Resurrected Drunkards begin to adopt their ascribed Korean identity, for example, or consider the fluidity of sexual identity in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, or how reenacting a specific ritual in The Man Who Left His Will on Film reinforces identity).

Instead I guess I'll blab on about my favorite aspect: The organization. The way that information is revealed in the movie while not radical is still greatly interesting.

This is a key aspect of Oshima's filmmaking that I love: his formidable layering and organization of ideas. If you liked this aspect of Pleasures of the Flesh, just wait until you get to something like Death by Hanging, which is a Chinese box of pet themes, all fully and lucidly explored, all overlapping and reflecting back on one another, and all delivered in the form of a regular-sized, if highly unconventional, narrative feature.

[knives]

While Violence at Noon is a completely different beast from Pleasures everything I said for that one could apply here ten fold. The organization is a beautiful maze that very slowly reveals all of it's parts. For the first hour I seriously thought I would need to rewatch it immediately the plot is shown so cryptically. Also at first I was feeling this as a lesser early Vengeance is Mine and certainly the killer's plot goes that way, but the focus on the women quickly leads this to a separate territory allowing me to appreciate it all for itself. And appreciate it one has to. There are so many levels here form the pulp to the human to the political that no matter what your fancy there is something here for you.
Just one quick note, what is it with the Japanese and double suicides? I know the history with regular suicide, but double here is given special almost religious reverence by the characters and I think its safe to assume that it's not just this movie as the collection has two movies with double suicide in its name.

[Murdoch]

Pleasures was such a gorgeous film, the montage scene where Hitomi, I believe it was, is talking about perfume was such a visually splendid delight. The more Oshima I see the more I adore his framing technique, I love how he situates his actors' faces along the perimeter of the frame. Can't wait to get through more of this set.

[zedz]

The more Oshima I see the more I adore his framing technique, I love how he situates his actors' faces along the perimeter of the frame.

Radically decentred compositions can be found in the work of many of the New Wave directors, but the king is definitely Yoshida, who framed his shots in such an idiosyncratic way he could give conscientious projectionists nervous breakdowns.

As for double suicide, or shinju, it's a very important Japanese cultural (and literary) concept, and a lot of the film references to it hark back to Chikamatsu. Here's Wikipedia.

And one more bit of mopping up: 2000+ shots per feature might be unremarkable in 2010, but Violence at Noon was made nearly 50 years earlier, so it's not unreasonable that prior commentators identified this incredibly rapid cutting as one of the film's most distinctive characteristics.

[self pity]And my copy of the set still hasn't arrived[/pull yourself together]

[Michael Kerpan]

Three Resurrected Drunkards evoked thoughts of Bunuel -- particularly of his Exterminating Angel.

[Yojimbo]

This is one my most eagerly awaited DVD purchases, never mind box-sets, of the year.
And thats despite the fact I already have all of them on DVD; unfortunately, although my written French is still quite competent, I want to re-watch the French-subbed film ones again, in an English-subbed version, to see what if any nuances I might have missed on the previous viewings

[eljacko]

And one more bit of mopping up: 2000+ shots per feature might be unremarkable in 2010, but Violence at Noon was made nearly 50 years earlier, so it's not unreasonable that prior commentators identified this incredibly rapid cutting as one of the film's most distinctive characteristics.

And I think a lot of the cutting in this film is very different from the cutting in modern cinema. Whereas the latter is built for narrative continuity (or some attempt at it) VaN's editing always seems to be about emphasizing the emotional drive of a character - lots of jump cuts matching lines of dialog in the most intense scenes. I don't quite know what this editing device means, since I just finished watching the movie not too long ago and I'm still digesting it, but it's definitely an interesting technique.

[knives]

I was real conscious of that aspect of the cutting too. The edits seemed to have a real sense of purpose, keying in on important clues the visuals lay out, but the narrative hides away. The best example I can remember is during a conversation with the wife about fifteen minutes in there's a half second cut focusing the viewer on an item, I believe it was the letter but I don't remember, before immediately turning back to her. That quick cut isn't a pointless we just need to cut edit, but an absolute essential part of telling the story.
Though it still gave me a minor headache.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Three Resurrected Drunkards evoked thoughts of Bunuel -- particularly of his Exterminating Angel.

Not too surprising as Bunuel was his image of an ideal director. You see films like that, and it resembles nothing of influence of Japan's rich cinematic history. A lot of his films are closer to what was coming out of Europe at the time than anything Japan was producing. Strange too because his films still feel distinctively Japanese. It's certainly an excellent precursor to his even more radical, surreal and Bunuel-ish films he would do for ATG including Death By Hanging, The Man Who Left His Will on Film and the most radical and perfect of all, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief.

Also, in regards to Oshima's feminism, didn't he have a television show in his time between Dear Summer Sister and In the Realm of the Sense that was aimed directly toward women?

[Murdoch]

Radically decentred compositions can be found in the work of many of the New Wave directors, but the king is definitely Yoshida, who framed his shots in such an idiosyncratic way he could give conscientious projectionists nervous breakdowns.

Thanks for the info, Eros+Massacre has been on my to-watch list forever and now I have even more incentive to get around to it.

[jojo]

And one more bit of mopping up: 2000+ shots per feature might be unremarkable in 2010, but Violence at Noon was made nearly 50 years earlier, so it's not unreasonable that prior commentators identified this incredibly rapid cutting as one of the film's most distinctive characteristics.

Oh, I agree. I'm just puzzled about some of the more current reviews that seem to fixate on that as if it's a standout feature by today's standards. It's as if being told that it has 2000+ shots gives them an excuse to complain or oversell about the editing, but then they totally ignore the fact that 3/4ths of Hollywood features these days have far more shots per minute, are far more haphazardly edited, and are far more disorienting. Modern cinema is highly edited to account for the diminishing attention span of today's audiences, whereas I agree with Knives that there is definitely a sort of purpose to VaN's editing, which isn't really meant to evoke a feeling of hyperactiveness, but rather a fractured, almost dreamy quality. Much of the film occurs inside the characters' heads and "external" continuity is not important to Oshima here. The train sequence near the end of the film is just brilliantly done.

Does anyone here have any more information about Kei Sato's working relationship with Oshima? He appears in quite a few of Oshima's films and I wondered if maybe somehow he had the right "look" and "persona" for many of Oshima's ideas? I first really noticed him in The Ceremony as the creepy old grandfather, and it seems in pretty much all of Oshima's films Sato plays some kind of creep or degenerate.

Apparently he just passed away this month also.

[whaleallright]

I'm not sure you can always motivate the very peculiar cutting in VIOLENCE AT NOON narratively or even expressively. A lot of it is very strictly patterned, e.g. close up slowly panning right -cut- close up slowly panning left -cut- close up with character on extreme right of frame -cut- close up with character on extreme left of frame, etc. The conversation scenes on the train provide many examples of this.

The whole film is pitched at such a level of emotional extremity that you can use that as explanation for just about any of the formal devices. But that seems limiting to me. Clearly, like many Japanese directors before him, Oshima is interested in flourishes--his are unusually strictly patterned, bold, and self-conscious.

[zedz]

Does anyone here have any more information about Kei Sato's working relationship with Oshima? He appears in quite a few of Oshima's films and I wondered if maybe somehow he had the right "look" and "persona" for many of Oshima's ideas? I first really noticed him in The Ceremony as the creepy old grandfather, and it seems in pretty much all of Oshima's films Sato plays some kind of creep or degenerate.

Apparently he just passed away this month also.

Sato was a totemic actor for Oshima right through this period, though I don't know that he was a full-on collaborator so much as a member of his stock company. In almost every film (even, imdb informs me, the perpetually elusive odd one out Band of Ninja) he's there, along with two other partners in crime, Rokko Toura and Fumio Watanabe. These three play off one another and their (generally sleazy) personas from film to film, sometimes on the margins and sometimes dead centre. Even when, in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, there's no role for any of them, Oshima drags them in to drunkenly reflect on the action of the film, and sex in general, in a grungy, available-light verité sequence.

Their absence from the post-hiatus films is another marker of 'not the same Oshima' for me.

[Steven H]

Sato is perfect in all these Oshima films. He has the ability to just look around, flash a half-grin and be unforgettably creepy. He was a memorable presence in a lot of the ATG films, especially Kuroki Kazuo's Evil Spirits of Japan where he played both lead roles, a yakuza and a police officer (they switch places / lives, social commentary ensues). Here's the somewhat painful to watch trailer (Not safe for work: featuring nudity and horrible music).

Has anyone enjoyed Japanese Summer: Double Suicide? Despite Sato and some nice imagery here and there, I thought it was pretty difficult to get through and like. I can see some examination of Japan's war culture, or at least I *think* I can (the ground "shadow" reminds me of the outlines of people on buildings from atomic blasts, I'm guessing they're digging into the stomach of this shadow and finding guns?) It all kind of stuck me as a big abstract in-joke that I was just not getting, unless the film is a broad stroke about futile student revolts, war guilt and everyone being responsible for the resurgence of militarism (AMPO?) except for women, who just want to have sex.

Their absence from the post-hiatus films is another marker of 'not the same Oshima' for me.

I couldn't agree more.

[zedz]

Well, I received my set and started in on Pleasures of the Flesh last night. Even though it's the film from the set that I'd seen most recently (and in Criterion quality), it was fun to see it again, and I hadn't got far through it before I realized that I won't be able to stop with the Eclipse set: I'll have to wolf down that whole glorious ATG run yet again as well.

Great as Pleasures is, I still find it a little tentative in terms of full-on Oshima intensity. That's completely understandable, as with this film he was trying to get his foot back in the door of feature filmmaking. His previous attempt, the even more self-effacing The Rebel, didn't work in that regard.

So, first and foremost, the film has to deliver on its great pulpy hook, and it really does. As soon as he could, Oshima abandoned genre narrative. You can even see his attention shifting with Violence at Noon. But in the meantime, he grabs this ridiculously lurid premise by the throat and shakes it for all it's worth. I think he pushes it right to the edge by cramming so much of the exposition into the first 15 minutes, but then, he needs to get to the personal and political stuff he's really interested in, and which occupies the central hour or so. The same basic idea (with the perversity toned down a tad) could easily have fuelled a Hitchcock or Chabrol film of the time, though the end result would have been very different.

Pleasures unfolds as a smart and funny deconstruction of the hapless protagonist's muddled morality (most clearly evident in his attitudes to women), which Oshima efficiently skewers by following each misguided thread to its (il)logical conclusion. By the end of the film, he's also drawn the film's own narrative conventions into the satirical scheme. Having gleefully swallowed and normalised the theft, murder and profligacy upon which the film is predicated, we're confronted at the last hurdle by people who are (rightly, if also ironically) appalled by those elements. Tellingly, it's the spending which rankles most, and the protagonist's big mistake is assuming that since everybody's wrapped up in the same pulpy narrative, they're all going to be on the same page, morally speaking. Ultimately, he's defeated by different shades of amorality among his narrative co-conspirators.

Apart from all this, the film is gorgeously composed. Those lyrical dissolving interludes are the clearest evidence of this, but there are all manner of elegant tracking shots, sharp and unexpected edits, and innovative framings on display. There's also a great soundtrack, juxtaposing the lush score with eerie experimental sound design. It's a great film on its own merits, though its status as the start of one of sixties cinema's wildest rides has tended to marginalise its achievement. In addition to this, the reception of Oshima in the west, which I believe only kicked in seriously with Boy, probably means that this film was discovered after critics had already seen films in which Oshima had gone much further with similar ideas, which brings us back to the recurrent theme of the hazards of distribution and reception colouring and distorting film history.

[Antares]

DVDVerdict review