Nagisa Ōshima | |
|---|---|
| 大島 渚 (Ōshima Nagisa) | |
 Ōshima in 2000 | |
| Born | (1932-03-31)March 31, 1932 |
| Died | January 15, 2013(2013-01-15) (aged 80) Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan |
| Occupation(s) | Film director Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1953–1999 |
| Notable work | Cruel Story of Youth Night and Fog in Japan Death by Hanging Boy The Ceremony In the Realm of the Senses Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence |
| Movement | Nuberu Bagu |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Cannes Film Festival 1978Empire of Passion –Best Director (Prix de la mise en scène) |
Nagisa Ōshima (大島 渚,Ōshima Nagisa, March 31, 1932 – January 15, 2013) was a Japanese filmmaker, writer, and left-wing activist who is best known for his fiction films, of which he directed 23 features in a career spanning from 1959 to 1999.[1][2] He is regarded as one of the greatest Japanese directors of all time, and as one of the most important figures of theJapanese New Wave (Nūberu bāgu), alongsideShōhei Imamura. His film style was bold, innovative and provocative. Common themes in his work include youthful rebellion,class and racial discrimination and taboo sexuality.
His first major film was his second feature,Cruel Story of Youth (1960),[3] one of the first Japanese New Wave films, a youth-oriented film with an earnest portrayal of the sexual lives and criminal activities of its young protagonists. And he came to greater international renown afterDeath By Hanging (1968), a film on the theme ofcapital punishment andanti-Korean sentiment, was shown at theCannes Film Festival in 1968.[4] His most controversial film isIn the Realm of the Senses (1976), a sexually explicit film set in 1930s Japan.
Nagisa Ōshima was born into a family of aristocratic samurai roots. His father was a government official who had a large library. Ōshima spent very little time with his father, who died when he was six, which left a deep mark on him. Ōshima would point to this as the most important event of his childhood in his 1992 essayMy Father's Non-existence: A Determining Factor in My Existence.[5] After graduating fromKyoto University in 1954, where he studied political history,[6] Ōshima was hired by film production companyShochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut featureA Town of Love and Hope in 1959.
Ōshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly,[7] and such films asCruel Story of Youth,The Sun's Burial andNight and Fog in Japan followed in 1960. The last of these 1960 films explored Ōshima's disillusionment with the traditional political left, and his frustrations with the right, and Shochiku withdrew the film from circulation after less than a week, claiming that, following the recent assassination of the Socialist Party leaderInejiro Asanuma by the ultranationalistOtoya Yamaguchi, there was a risk of "unrest". Ōshima left the studio in response, and launched his own independent production company. Despite the controversy,Night and Fog in Japan placed tenth in that year'sKinema Jumpo's best-films poll of Japanese critics, and it has subsequently amassed considerable acclaim abroad.[8]
In 1961 Ōshima directedThe Catch, based on anovella byKenzaburō Ōe about the relationship between a wartime Japanese village and a capturedAfrican American serviceman.The Catch has not traditionally been viewed as one of Ōshima major works, though it did notably introduce a thematic exploration of bigotry and xenophobia, themes which would be explored in greater depth in the later documentaryDiary of Yunbogi, and feature filmsDeath by Hanging andThree Resurrected Drunkards.[9] He embarked upon a period of work in television, producing a series of documentaries; notably among them 1965'sDiary Of Yunbogi. Based upon an examination of the lives of street children in Seoul, it was made by Ōshima after a trip to South Korea.[8][10]
Ōshima directed three features in 1968. The first of these -Death by Hanging (1968) presented the story of the failed execution of a young Korean for rape and murder, and was loosely based upon an actual crime and execution which had taken place in 1958.[11] The film utilizes non-realistic "distancing" techniques after the fashion ofBertold Brecht orJean-Luc Godard to examine Japan's record of racial discrimination against its Korean minority, incorporating elements of farce and political satire, and a number of visual techniques associated with the cinematic new wave in a densely layered narrative. It was placed third inKinema Jumpo's 1968 poll, and has also garnered significant attention globally.[12]Death By Hanging inaugurated a string of films (continuing through 1976'sIn the Realm of the Senses) that clarified a number of Ōshima's key themes, most notably a need to question social constraints, and to similarly deconstruct received political doctrines.[13]
Months later,Diary of a Shinjuku Thief unites a number of Ōshima's thematic concerns within a dense, collage-style presentation. Featuring a title which alludes toJean Genet'sThe Thief's Journal, the film explores the links between sexual and political radicalism,[14] specifically examining the day-to-day life of a would-be radical whose sexual desires take the form ofkleptomania. The fragmented narrative is interrupted by commentators, includingKara Jūrō's underground performance troupe, starring Kara Jūrō, his then wife Ri Reisen, andMaro Akaji (who would go on to lead the butoh troupe Dairakudakan).Yokoo Tadanori, an artist who created many of the iconic theatre posters during the 1960s and '70s, plays the thief, who gets a bit part in Kara's performance. The film also features a psychoanalyst, the president of Kinokuniya Bookstore in Shinjuku, and an impromptu symposium featuring actors from previous Ōshima films (along with Ōshima himself), all dissecting varied aspects of shifting sexual politics, as embodied by various characters within the film.
Boy (1969), based on another real-life case, was the story of a family who use their child to make money by deliberately getting involved in road accidents and making the drivers pay compensation.
The Ceremony (1971) is a satirical film on traditional Japanese attitudes, famously expressed in a scene where a marriage ceremony has to go ahead even though the bride is not present.
In 1976, Ōshima madeIn the Realm of the Senses, a film based on a true story of fatal sexual obsession in 1930s Japan. Ōshima, a critic of censorship and his contemporaryAkira Kurosawa's humanism, was determined that the film should feature unsimulated sex and thus the undeveloped film had to be transported to France to be processed. An uncensored version of the movie is still unavailable in Japan. A book with stills and script notes from the film was published by San’ichishobo, and in 1976 the Japanese government brought obscenity charges against Ōshima and San’ichishobo.[15] Ōshima testified in the trial and said. "Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden."[16] Ōshima and the publisher were found not guilty in 1979; the government appealed and the Tokyo High Court upheld the verdict in 1982.[15]
In his 1978 companion film toIn the Realm of the Senses,Empire of Passion, Ōshima took a more restrained approach to depicting the sexual passions of the two lovers driven to murder, and the film won the 1978Cannes Film Festival award for best director.[17][18]
In 1983 Ōshima had a critical success withMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a film partly inEnglish and set in a wartime Japanese prison camp, and featuring rock starDavid Bowie and musicianRyuichi Sakamoto, alongsideTakeshi Kitano. The movie is sometimes viewed as a minor classic but never found a mainstream audience.[19]Max, Mon Amour (1986), written withLuis Buñuel's frequent collaboratorJean-Claude Carrière, was a comedy about a diplomat's wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose love affair with achimpanzee is quietly incorporated into an eminently civilisedménage à trois.
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, he served as president of theDirectors Guild of Japan.[20] He won the inauguralDirectors Guild of Japan New Directors Award in 1960.[21]
A collection of Ōshima's essays and articles was published in English in 1993 asCinema, Censorship and the State.[22] In 1995 he wrote and directed the archival documentary '100 Years of Japanese Cinema' for theBritish Film Institute.[23] A critical study by Maureen Turim appeared in 1998.[24]
In 1996 Ōshima suffered a stroke, but he recovered enough to return to directing in 1999 with thesamurai filmTaboo (Gohatto), set during thebakumatsu era and starringMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence actorTakeshi Kitano.Ryuichi Sakamoto, who had both acted in and composed forLawrence, provided the score.
He subsequently suffered more strokes, andGohatto proved to be his final film. Ōshima had initially planned to create abiopic entitledHollywood Zen based on the life ofIssei actorSessue Hayakawa. The script had been allegedly completed and set to film in Los Angeles, but due to constant delays, declining health, and Ōshima's eventual death in 2013 (see below), the project went unrealized.[25][26]
Having a degree of fluency in English, in the 2000s, Ōshima worked as atranslator. He translated four books byJohn Gray into Japanese, includingMen Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
Ōshima died on January 15, 2013, of pneumonia. He was 80.[6]
The 2013 edition of theSan Sebastian Film Festival scheduled a retrospective of Ōshima films in September.[27]
Blue Ribbon Awards
1961Night and Fog in Japan &Cruel Story of Youth –Best New Director
2000Taboo –Best Director &Best Film
Cannes Film Festival[17]
1978Empire of Passion –Best Director (Prix de la mise en scène)
Kinema Junpo Awards
1969Death by Hanging –Best Screenplay
1972The Ceremony –Best Director,Best Film &Best Screenplay
1984Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence –Readers' Choice Award for Best Film
Nagisa Oshima was known for the protean nature of his work. From one film to the next, he would frequently shuffle between black-and-white and color, betweenacademy ratio andwidescreen, betweenlong takes and fragmented cutting, and between formally composed images and acinéma vérité style.[28]
In multiple interviews, Oshima has namedLuis Buñuel as a director he profoundly admires.[28] The influence of Buñuel's work can be seen as early as inThe Sun's Burial (1960), which was possibly inspired byLos Olvidados, and as late as inMax, Mon Amour (1986), for which Oshima worked withJean-Claude Carrière, a frequent collaborator of Buñuel's.[29]
| Year | English title | Japanese title | Romaji | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Tomorrow's Sun | 明日の太陽 | Ashita no Taiyō | Short (7 min), color.[30] |
| 1959 | A Town of Love and Hope | 愛と希望の街 | Ai to Kibō no Machi | |
| 1960 | Cruel Story of Youth | 青春残酷物語 | Seishun Zankoku Monogatari | |
| 1960 | The Sun's Burial | 太陽の墓場 | Taiyō no Hakaba | |
| 1960 | Night and Fog in Japan | 日本の夜と霧 | Nihon no Yoru to Kiri | |
| 1961 | The Catch | 飼育 | Shiiku | |
| 1962 | The Rebel | 天草四郎時貞 | Amakusa Shirō Tokisada | |
| 1965 | The Pleasures of the Flesh | 悦楽 | Etsuraku | |
| 1965 | Yunbogi's Diary | ユンボギの日記 | Yunbogi no Nikki | (Short) |
| 1966 | Violence at Noon | 白昼の通り魔 | Hakuchū no tōrima | |
| 1967 | Tales of the Ninja (Band of Ninja) | 忍者武芸帳 | Ninja Bugei-Chō | 131 min, B&W. |
| 1967 | Sing a Song of Sex | 日本春歌考 | Nihon Shunka-Kō | |
| 1967 | Double Suicide: Japanese Summer | 無理心中日本の夏 | Muri Shinjū: Nihon no Natsu | |
| 1968 | Death by Hanging | 絞死刑 | Kōshikē | |
| 1968 | Three Resurrected Drunkards | 帰って来たヨッパライ | Kaette Kita Yopparai | |
| 1969 | Diary of a Shinjuku Thief | 新宿泥棒日記 | Shinjuku Dorobō Nikki | |
| 1969 | Boy | 少年 | Shōnen | |
| 1970 | The Man Who Left His Will on Film | 東京戰争戦後秘話 | Tōkyō Sensō Sengo Hiwa | |
| 1971 | The Ceremony | 儀式 | Gishiki | |
| 1972 | Dear Summer Sister | 夏の妹 | Natsu no Imōto | |
| 1976 | In the Realm of the Senses | 愛のコリーダ | Ai no Korīda | |
| 1978 | Empire of Passion | 愛の亡霊 | Ai no Bōrē | |
| 1983 | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence | 戦場のメリークリスマス | Senjō no Merī Kurisumasu | |
| 1986 | Max, Mon Amour | マックス、モン・アムール | Makkusu, Mon Amūru | |
| 1999 | Taboo | 御法度 | Gohatto |
| Year | Original title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | Kōri no Naka no Seishun | Youth on the Ice | 25 min |
| 1963 | Wasurerareta Kōgun | Forgotten Soldiers | 25 min |
| 1963 | Chiisana Bōken Ryokō | A Small Child's First Adventure | 60 min |
| 1964 | Watashi wa Beretto | It's Me Here, Bellett | 60 min |
| 1964 | Seishun no Ishibumi | The Tomb of Youth | 40 min |
| 1964 | Hankotsu no Toride | A Rebel's Fortress | 25 min |
| 1964 | Gimei Shōjo | The Girl Under an Assumed Name | 30 min |
| 1964 | Chita Niseigo Taiheiyō Ōdan | Crossing the Pacific on the Chita Niseigo | 2 x 30 min |
| 1964 | Aru Kokutetsu-Jōmuin | A National Railway Worker | 25 min |
| 1964 | Aogeba Tōtoshi | Ode to an Old Teacher | |
| 1964 | Aisurebakoso | Why I Love You | |
| 1964 | Ajia no Akebono | The Dawn of Asia | 13 x 60 min |
| 1965 | Gyosen Sonansu | The Trawler Incident | 30 min |
| 1968 | Daitōa Sensō | The Pacific War (The Greater East Asian War) | 2 x 30 min |
| 1969 | Mō-Takutō to Bunka Daikakumē | Mao and the Cultural Revolution | 49 min |
| 1972 | Kyojin-Gun | Giants | 73 min |
| 1972 | Joi! Bangla | 24 min | |
| 1972 | Goze: Mōmoku no Onna-Tabigēnin | The Journey of the Blind Musicians | |
| 1973 | Bengal no Chichi Laman | The Father of Bangladesh | |
| 1975 | Ikiteiru Nihonkai-Kaisen | The Battle of Tsushima | 50 min |
| 1976 | Ikiteiru Gyokusai no Shima | The Isle of the Final Battle | 25 min |
| 1976 | Ōgon no Daichi Bengal | The Golden Land of Bengal | |
| 1976 | Ikiteiru Umi no Bohyō | The Sunken Tomb | |
| 1976 | Denki Mō-Takutō | The Life of Mao | |
| 1977 | Yokoi Shōichi: Guamu-to 28 Nen no Nazo o Ou | Human Drama: 28 Years of Hiding in the Jungle | 49 min |
| 1977 | Shisha wa Itsumademo Wakai | The Dead Remain Young | 49 min |
| 1991 | Kyōto, My Mother's Place | ||
| 1994 | 100 Years of Japanese Cinema | 60min |
Film scholars who have focused on the work of Ōshima includeIsolde Standish, afilm theorist specializing inEast Asia.[31] She teaches courses on Ōshima at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies in London and wrote extensively on him as for example:
Yes, I am planning to shoot a story of a Japanese. His name is Sessue Hayakawa. He was the only Japanese star in Hollywood. It was the 1910s silent film period of Hollywood. I will try to describe this star and the situation of the Japanese in the states.
