Oshima Nagisa

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ptmd · #76 Post by **ptmd** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:59 pm

Not necessarily DVD-related, but the much-awaited nearly complete Oshima retro that James Quandt has been working on for years is finally happening and will be traveling to various North American venues this fall. If you live near a big city, don't miss this as it's one of the very few chances you will ever have to see most of these films on film with English subtitles. DVDs of the higher-profile titles will almost certainly follow, although don't expect New Yorker to do much with the titles they control (as I mentioned earlier, Janus now has the rights to Cruel Story of Youth and some of the other early films so something is being planned).

Awesome Welles · #77 Post by **Awesome Welles** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:08 am

Here's hoping it comes to London! What's your source, do you have a link?

otis · #78 Post by **otis** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:58 pm

FSimeoni wrote:Here's hoping it comes to London!

Seconded. In the meantime, there are 3 Oshimas in the BFI's Japanese Gems season in July: Violence at Noon, Boy and The Ceremony. But a proper retrospective would be incredibly welcome.

Awesome Welles · #79 Post by **Awesome Welles** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:28 pm

otis wrote:Seconded. In the meantime, there are 3 Oshimas in the BFI's Japanese Gems season in July: Violence at Noon, Boy and The Ceremony. But a proper retrospective would be incredibly welcome.

I did not know that! Where the hell are the BFI with my programme! I'll be seeing all three I think.

Can anyone recommend any of the others as must sees?

ptmd · #80 Post by **ptmd** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:56 pm

What's your source, do you have a link?

The source is a conversation I had with James Quandt, but he alludes to it in his notes for another Japanese series this summer. I don't know if it's going to London, but I'd be surprised if at least part of it doesn't come over.

otis · #81 Post by **otis** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:05 pm

FSimeoni wrote:Can anyone recommend any of the others as must sees?

For simplicity's sake, here's the complete programme of the BFI season by director:

Kurosawa: Rashomon; Stray Dog; Ikiru
Oshima: Violence at Noon; Boy; The Ceremony
Shindo: The Naked Island, Onibaba, A Last Note
Imamura: Intentions of Murder; Vengeance is Mine; Black Rain
Yamada: A Wedding; Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset; The Yellow Handkerchief
Suzuki: Tokyo Drifter; Branded to Kill; Zigeunerweisen
Ichikawa: A Full-up Train; Conflagration; Her Brother
Haneda: Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer; Ode to Mount Hayachine; Into the Picture Scroll: The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa

Any of our Japan experts want to offer some recommendations?

PimpPanda · #82 Post by **PimpPanda** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:14 pm

ptmd wrote:
What's your source, do you have a link?
The source is a conversation I had with James Quandt, but he alludes to it in his notes for another Japanese series this summer. I don't know if it's going to London, but I'd be surprised if at least part of it doesn't come over.

It's also in the coming soon section of the Cinematheque booklet. Having not seen any Oshima and living in Toronto, I can't wait!

otis · #83 Post by **otis** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:34 pm

Screen caps from the Yume Sun's Burial here.

Awesome Welles · #84 Post by **Awesome Welles** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:01 am

Email from Geoff Andrew, Head of Programming at the BFI Southbank:

Thank you for your email enquiring about Oshima, which has been forwarded to me.

As it happens we have been in long-term discussions with James Quandt about Oshima, so yes, we shall be doing the retrospective here; the date is yet to be decided.

EDIT: Follow up email:

We do hope that there will be restorations; we are waiting upon James to let us know more about what is likely to be made available.

jojo · #85 Post by **jojo** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:30 pm

otis wrote:
FSimeoni wrote:Can anyone recommend any of the others as must sees?
For simplicity's sake, here's the complete programme of the BFI season by director:

Kurosawa: Rashomon; Stray Dog; Ikiru
Oshima: Violence at Noon; Boy; The Ceremony
Shindo: The Naked Island, Onibaba, A Last Note
Imamura: Intentions of Murder; Vengeance is Mine; Black Rain
Yamada: A Wedding; Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset; The Yellow Handkerchief
Suzuki: Tokyo Drifter; Branded to Kill; Zigeunerweisen
Ichikawa: A Full-up Train; Conflagration; Her Brother
Haneda: Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer; Ode to Mount Hayachine; Into the Picture Scroll: The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa

Any of our Japan experts want to offer some recommendations?

What I usually do is go to see the ones that aren't on R1 DVD, or likely won't be easily available for a LONG while.

So from that list, that would be mostly Ichikawa (at least from this list), Shindo, Haneda, Yamada, and of course Oshima.

Also, Imamura's Intentions of Murder has, in the past, gotten a lot praise from critics and colleagues here in Toronto; so that may be something I would consider seeing too. I'm certainly considering it, even though Imamura is starting to catch on in North America and will probably be better represented in the future. It's guys like Oshima and Yamada that I'm worried about missing and never seeing again for another 10-15 years.

ptmd · #86 Post by **ptmd** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:24 pm

Intentions of Murder is a confirmed future Criterion, but it's absolutely worth seeing on 35mm if you have the chance.

otis · #87 Post by **otis** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:44 pm

FSimeoni wrote:Email from Geoff Andrew, Head of Programming at the BFI Southbank:

Thank you for your email enquiring about Oshima, which has been forwarded to me.

As it happens we have been in long-term discussions with James Quandt about Oshima, so yes, we shall be doing the retrospective here; the date is yet to be decided.

Great news! Now watch them programme it for a month I'm not in London...

shirobamba · #88 Post by **shirobamba** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:43 am

Meanwhile Carlotta has announced the extras for the forthcoming Oshima releases. As expected no revolutionary revelations:

A Town of Love and Hope (1959)
Tomorrow's Suns (1959, 6 min)
A short ad film Oshima made for Shochiku introducing new upcoming actors of the studio.
100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995, 52 min)
Documentary commissioned by the BFI in 1995.

Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
Japan Under Pressure (25 min)
Video intro: Donald Richie talks about Oshima's early work.
Excerpts from Oshima's Notebooks (11 min)
An essay describing Oshima's thoughts, while he was writing â€žStory of Cruel Youthâ€œ
Trailer

Burial of the Sun (1960)
The Rebellion of Nagisa Oshima (25 min)
The first 4 films of Oshima form something like a portrait of the Japanese youths of the 60's.
Yoichi Umemoto, film critic and professor at Yokohama University talks about the impact of the nonconformity in these films on youth culture.
In addition, the boxset contains a 68 pages booklet with new essays by Diane Arnaud, Nicolas ThÃ©venin, Hubert Niogret and Max Tessier.

Night and Fog in Japan (1960)
Spotlights (2001, 11 min)
Oshima talks about his concept of mise en scÃ¨ne for Night and Fog.
Trailer

Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)
Beyond the Taboos (2008, 25 min)
Video intro by Jean Douchet
Trailer

#89 Post by **zedz** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:30 pm

Given this is basically the same selection various other European labels are coming up with I suppose there's little hope for better transfers (or English subs)

sidehacker · #90 Post by **sidehacker** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:46 pm

I'll be curious to see what Richie says/thinks of Oshima as well as what language he'll be speaking in. Has anyone seen or rather heard him speaking in French?

Some enticing features here, but unless the transfers are new and somehow better than the RJ2 discs, I won't buy it. For those who are curious, Tomorrow's Sun is on youtube.

#91 Post by **zedz** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 4:44 pm

sidehacker wrote:I'll be curious to see what Richie says/thinks of Oshima.

Given his commentary on Crazed Fruit (which I thought was excellent), I wouldn't be surprised if he talks about these films in the context of the Sun Tribe cycle.

shirobamba · #92 Post by **shirobamba** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:13 pm

sidehacker wrote:I'll be curious to see what Richie says/thinks of Oshima as well as what language he'll be speaking in. Has anyone seen or rather heard him speaking in French?

Some enticing features here, but unless the transfers are new and somehow better than the RJ2 discs, I won't buy it. For those who are curious, Tomorrow's Sun is on youtube.

Now, Richie is mumbling in English. Surprisingly he's not talking about the films in context of Sun Tribe. He gives an overview of the political developments in post-war Japan, and tries to define Oshima's position as a political maverick filmmaker, who, though a leftist himself, is raging against the Stalinism of the 50's JPC and later against the sectarianism of the New Left in the 60's. Richie tells a couple of interesting stories about Oshima's way of working with actors and his (that is: Oshima's) self-definition as a criminal...

And for the transfers: Night and Fog, and Pleasures are definitely new transfers. Both are superior as far as sharpness/detail is concerned. I don't like the contrast boosting in Pleasures though, because it destroys the subtle "Shochiku-colour palette" (much as MEK has described it for Ozu). But that's a matter of taste in the end.
I'm not sure if the "Youth trilogy" has all new transfers. All of them are sharper, than the Shochikus, but even though they are converted to PAL none of them shows any sign of PAL speed-up. The runtimes are exactly the same a Shochiku's NTSC transfers. In addition (or maybe because of that), despite the progressive encoding, they are plagued with ghosting, not too distracting, but anyway.

wpqx · #93 Post by **wpqx** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:47 am

I just ordered The Ceremony and Boy not sure exactly how the quality will be, but I'll try and report back as these have been my two most sought after Oshima films for the last several years.

Cronenfly · #94 Post by **Cronenfly** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:51 pm

Steven H wrote:What a stunning, hilarious, and unforgettable film Three Resurrected Drunkards is.

Congratulations, Steven; the above statement of yours is quoted in the Fall 2008 Cinematheque Ontario programme, on page 38. It's wrongly (or rather intentionally vaguely) attributed as being what "one fan recently wrote on Criterion's website", but it's still pretty cool...

sidehacker · #95 Post by **sidehacker** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:54 pm

As expected, Yume's release of Pleasures of the Flesh is rather awful. A level above a VHS, but that's it. The French DVD is much, much better.

Steven H · #96 Post by **Steven H** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:04 pm

Cronenfly wrote:
Steven H wrote:What a stunning, hilarious, and unforgettable film Three Resurrected Drunkards is.
Congratulations, Steven; the above statement of yours is quoted in the Fall 2008 Cinematheque Ontario programme, on page 38. It's wrongly (or rather intentionally vaguely) attributed as being what "one fan recently wrote on Criterion's website", but it's still pretty cool...

Ha! That is pretty cool. I feel vaguely famous. To celebrate, I'll buy everyone a drink in the good name of hyperbole!

royalton · #97 Post by **royalton** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:19 pm

I saw Diary of a Shinjuku Thief tonight in Manhattan, and oh God. If you thought it was dense and challenging before, try watching it with faulty, delayed and out of order subtitles.

From what I could properly follow, I was very, very impressed. I had expected some kind of mostly gritty Bresson-by-way-of-Oshima thing, and it was this delightful abstract comedy-drama.

It's a crime that this, Violence At Noon and others still aren't out on DVD over here.

shirobamba · #98 Post by **shirobamba** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:21 am

Would anyone who's seen the NY retro so far care to comment on which of the new 35 mm prints carry the Janus logo?

TIA

Shiro

#99 Post by **zedz** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:23 pm

royalton wrote:I saw Diary of a Shinjuku Thief tonight in Manhattan, and oh God. If you thought it was dense and challenging before, try watching it with faulty, delayed and out of order subtitles.

From what I could properly follow, I was very, very impressed. I had expected some kind of mostly gritty Bresson-by-way-of-Oshima thing, and it was this delightful abstract comedy-drama.

My sympathies, but if it's any consolation a first (or fifth) encounter with this film is bound to be discombobulating, however good the subtitling! One thing I love about the film is, as you note, how playful it is, and how the style and approach to the material changes every ten to fifteen minutes (though Oshima never quite gets round to Bresson). I've seen it more times than any other Oshima film, but it still strikes me like a Tex Avery frying pan every time.

carax09 · #100 Post by **carax09** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:56 pm

zedz wrote:but it still strikes me like a Tex Avery frying pan every time.

=D>