Oshima Nagisa

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ptmd
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:12 pm

Re: Oshima Nagisa

#126 Post by ptmd » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:52 am

Depressing that Janus doesn't own ALL of Oshima's films like they seem to own all of Ozus.
The big difference is that Oshima worked for several studios, including the Art Theater Guild and some independent organizations whose back-catalogs have changed hands several times. This made putting together the retrospective a nightmare; it was apparently in the works for over a decade. It also means that it's much harder for someone to release Oshima's entire body of work, unlike with Ozu who, with a small handful of exceptions (namely The Munekata Sisters, the one Ozu Janus doesn't control), worked for the same studio for his whole career.

New Yorker used to have the rights to several of the ATG period films, but several of those lapsed even before they collapsed so who knows what's going to happen with titles like The Ceremony at this point.

CJG
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:13 am

Re: Oshima Nagisa

#127 Post by CJG » Thu Apr 16, 2009 3:49 pm

The PFA's Oshima retrospective schedule is now up.

The prints for these films are credited to Janus/Criterion Collection:

Night and Fog in Japan
Cruel Story of Youth
The Sun's Burial
Three Resurrected Drunkards
A Town of Love and Hope
In the Realm of the Senses
Empire of Passion
Double Suicide: Japanese Summer
Pleasures of the Flesh
Violence at Noon
A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Song
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Oshima Nagisa

#128 Post by zedz » Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:49 pm

If they've got all of those, surely they'll be trying to add the ATG titles ex-New Yorker (which represent an unsightly gap in their coverage).

It'd be great if they came in a Rossellini rush, but chances are they'll dribble out over four or five years. Criterion (or Eclipse) set for the first four films; full Criterion for Violence at Noon (and maybe Pleasures of the Flesh); Eclipse set for the remaining mid-60s films; full Criterion for Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.

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Yojimbo
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Re:

#130 Post by Yojimbo » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:00 am

Steven H wrote:lots of spoilers

What a stunning, hilarious, and unforgettable film Three Resurrected Drunkards is. The structure, or structures, of the narrative seem to be a number of things working together and against each other. It's a film about three lost and confused friends, a story of learning about oneself or growing up, a political allegory concerning racism, war guilt, revolution, and identities, both national and personal, but it's also a film about film. Three Japanese friends are having a day at the beach. While away their clothes are stolen by a mysterious hand coming out of the sand, and their student uniforms are replaced with used, and apparently cheap, clothing. After this, they are taken for two identified, and one non-identified, Korean stowaways. The confusion continues until the film takes a turn for the bizarre and surreal, both Brechtian and Bunuelian in turn.

Oshima is eagerly compared to Godard, but Oshima was as casually epic and silly as Godard was serious and self-consciously iconoclastic (though Oshima certainly had a self-consciously iconoclastic streak). Oshima would have taken Week-end and turned it into a giddy farce, with a vicious close up of Jean Yanne as he grimaces and makes an ironic statement about wasting good cars by setting them on fire for the background of a film set. The diegetic and non-diegetic big splash of an idea behind Three Resurrected Drunkards is that the film starts repeating itself, but the main characters eventually "catch up" with the film replaying and turn it to their own advantage (though certainly not very heroically.) It's very reminiscent of three other self-conscious Oshima films from the same time, The Man Who Left His WIll on Film, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief and Death by Hanging (and starring many of the same actors, particularly Sato Kei and Watanabe Fumio).

The film begins playing with our, and the three Drunkards', expectations. Logic is turned on its head (very much like in Death by Hanging) and relationships can change on a dime. We, and they, have no clue when the film will end, or who friend or foe can be, except by going on previous different versions of the film. A young woman who initially helps, becomes a villain, and her husband/father/pimp (depending on the story) changes roles as well. By the end of the film, even the Japanese drunkards have no idea who they are, and after escaping the two Koreans that attempted to steal their identities, saying to each other:

"Your acting last night was good"
"What acting?"
"That we're Korean and they're Japanese"
"Huh? But it's all true"
"Right! We're Korean!"

Since other than the Korean names, they are nameless, in some ways it's hard to know who to believe. There's a long scene shot documentary style asking seemingly random Koreans on the street if they're Japanese. The confusion of national identity versus personal identity is something Oshima had a huge interest in. In this way it almost becomes Celine and Julie Go Boating, where Celine and Julie switch roles with each other, and then switch roles with the nurse in the haunted house. Except this is more explicitly acknowledging it's own filmness and political attitudes (cultural relativism and universal human rights).

Doesn't this sound so manipulative? But how should we feel, being manipulated? Business as usual, that's what films do. By showering us with feelings of the unexpected, Oshima takes a film about mistaken identity and turns it into a film about mistaken narrative expectations. By the end of the film do we know what we're watching anymore (the characters are hopelessly confused, saying "Now the real finale, in Tokyo!" and of course, being incorrect)? By the end of the film, the political allegory of "war guilt" has risen to the surface, foreshadowing in a classic sense at the beginning of the film, the three Japanese reenact the famous picture from the tet offensive, and this is before surreality sets in. Throughout the film, anytime a gun is pointed at someone's head, it's brought up that it doesn't look right, not the right grimace. Is Oshima wondering out loud why it takes a picture to bring the human element in so much focus (similar to Godard's Letter to Jane)? Or maybe he's using the picture as a point of repetition, like the narrative structure itself, which eventually drums it into our brains like a previously familiar word made to sound strange and new. By the end we're confronted with the "reality" of the photograph, a large mural and dual reenactments (with very little grimace.)

The three drunkards, like the audience, are never fully satisfied by the narrative, but a sentimental emotional connection, and high melodrama are definitely not what the director is after: "If it was a movie, she'd come running into my arms right now!", "If it was by a stupid Japanese director!" The main characters exclaim this towards the end (about the young Korean girl), but you can almost hear their exasperation and imagine them crying out "why can't we be in a more reasonable film!?" Reasonable films aren't nearly as much fun, of course.

I also wanted to note that there was a Pickpocket moment in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief. At the very beginning when Suzuki grabs Birdey Hilltop's arm as he's about to steal a handful of books, I could have sworn it was right out of the Bresson film.
Just watched this one on a French-subbed Carlotta DVD, which, as always with Carlotta, is a pristine print
I probably picked up about 90% of the dialogue, which is probably more than necessary, given that so much of it is visual.
I hadn't picked up on the "famous picture from the tet offensive" as I was watching it, although clearly it had significance.

Agreed about Godard, although, structurally, and in the inclusion of street interviews, etc,. he was clearly an influence.
Although it was probably Lester's 'Hard Days Night' was another actual influence, - it certainly came first, - I was more reminded of the Monkees tv series, - although this was presumably inspired by the former.

I guess the fact that, being tired, I dozed off intermittently, - through lack of sleep last night, and wasn't fully alert, - is an acceptable excuse for not immediately making the 'Celine and Julie' connection

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Yojimbo
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#131 Post by Yojimbo » Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:41 pm

zedz wrote:If they've got all of those, surely they'll be trying to add the ATG titles ex-New Yorker (which represent an unsightly gap in their coverage).

It'd be great if they came in a Rossellini rush, but chances are they'll dribble out over four or five years. Criterion (or Eclipse) set for the first four films; full Criterion for Violence at Noon (and maybe Pleasures of the Flesh); Eclipse set for the remaining mid-60s films; full Criterion for Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.
I've bought the following three Carlottas zedz,...so no need to wait any longer

Double Suicide: Japanese Summer
Three Resurrected Drunkards
A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Song

I watched 'Drunkards' a couple of nights ago, and am about to watch 'Treatise': by all accounts 'Suicide' is more conventional than the other two, so I may not watch it in the near future

I already have following on English subbed Region 2 DVDs

Night and Fog in Japan
The Sun's Burial
Pleasures of the Flesh
Violence at Noon
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

Re: Oshima Nagisa

#132 Post by Perkins Cobb » Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:31 pm

Yojimbo wrote:by all accounts 'Suicide' is more conventional than the other two
Not by my account.

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Yojimbo
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#133 Post by Yojimbo » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:03 pm

Perkins Cobb wrote:
Yojimbo wrote:by all accounts 'Suicide' is more conventional than the other two
Not by my account.
is it less, or approximately equal in conventionality, then, in your account?

Perkins Cobb
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#134 Post by Perkins Cobb » Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:27 pm

Don't worry, it's as crazy as all his other '60s films.

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The Elegant Dandy Fop
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#135 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:04 pm

I'd dare say it's one of his craziest sixties films.

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Yojimbo
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#136 Post by Yojimbo » Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:47 pm

Perkins Cobb wrote:Don't worry, it's as crazy as all his other '60s films.
I guess you've sold me: I'll be giving it a look tonight, the last of the three Carlotta Oshimas I bought.

Have you seen "A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs"?
Perkins Cobb wrote:
Yojimbo wrote:by all accounts 'Suicide' is more conventional than the other two
Not by my account.
all those other accounts were way off beam. (or the people who, allegedly, wrote them were!) :lol:

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puxzkkx
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:33 am

Re: Oshima Nagisa

#137 Post by puxzkkx » Fri Jul 17, 2009 1:37 am

I bought a bootleg of "Death By Hanging" online and I must say its the definition of a "tour-de-force". How can a film express so much anger yet remain so controlled? It is a staggering achievement. I've also seen his last film, "Taboo" - which has an austere beauty but I think is a bit emptier than many people think. I'm trying to track down "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief", "The Ceremony" and "Boy".

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Don Lope de Aguirre
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#138 Post by Don Lope de Aguirre » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:06 am

I've also seen his last film, "Taboo" - which has an austere beauty but I think is a bit emptier than many people think.
Au contraire, mon ami...

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Yojimbo
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#139 Post by Yojimbo » Sun May 08, 2011 12:18 am

puxzkkx wrote:I bought a bootleg of "Death By Hanging" online and I must say its the definition of a "tour-de-force". How can a film express so much anger yet remain so controlled? It is a staggering achievement. I've also seen his last film, "Taboo" - which has an austere beauty but I think is a bit emptier than many people think. I'm trying to track down "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief", "The Ceremony" and "Boy".
I watched it last night, albeit that, because I was so tired, I dozed off a lot in the last 25 minutes or so and need to watch it again.
But to say it was a pleasant surprise was an understatement: after the opening five minutes or so I was expecting an unrelentingly bleak film, somewhat along the lines of Kieslowski's brilliant 'A Short Film About Killing', but then it completely defied my expectations, in the way it dissected the surreal consequences of the execution failing to do its job.
He really did milk its comic possibilities to the nth degree, but following on the arrival of the condemned man's sister, it became quite reflective and tender.
I don't know the background to Oshima taking up the cudgel on behalf of Japan's Korean immigrant community, but its certainly provided him with a rich source for his cinematic explorations.

I think 'Boy' might be Oshima's greatest, albeit I've yet to see "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief", "The Ceremony", and "The Man Who Left His Will on Film" before I can be more definitive
"Japanese Summer: Double Suicide" is a great favourite, and, apart from the aforementioned, 'Violence at High Noon', 'Night and Fog in Japan', 'The Sun's Burial', and 'Sing A Song of Sex' are other vital films of his and now that I've got an English-subbed copy of 'Three Resurrected Drunkards', I'll be giving it another look to see where I'd rank it

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Yojimbo
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Re:

#140 Post by Yojimbo » Sun May 08, 2011 12:28 am

zedz wrote:
Steven H wrote: Though I haven't really posted much about it, I keep thinking I might consider The Ceremony (or Ceremonies) his greatest film, by a hair. I'm surprised Criterion, or someone else with money, hasn't busted all the doors they can down to get the rights cleared for this film. But if it hasn't happened by now, I'm sure there are very logical (and annoying) reasons.
From my days of trawling through the old film books in the university library, I gathered that, for a brief period, The Ceremony was considered Oshima's consensus masterpiece, even making it into some long forgotten "100 Greatest Films" volume. It seems that the international notoriety of In the Realm of the Senses (if a reference book mentioned only one Oshima - and if you were lucky, they did - this became the one) and the general inaccessibility of the earlier films soon put paid to that.

It's a magnificent film (and builds to an amazing climax), but also far straighter (on the surface) than many of his others. The same is the case for Boy. Both films show that Oshima was not just a master of wigged-out avant gardisms, but a masterful filmmaker building on the tradition of Ozu, Mizoguchi, Yamanaka. And these more stylistically traditional films weren't just a distinct phase in his output, but came out on top of and between his wildest, most transgressive stuff. As a director, Oshima is certainly one of the most perplexing omissions from Criterion's makeshift canon.
'Boy' is a beautiful film and my current No. 1 Oshima, but 'Shinjuku', 'Ceremony' and 'The Man Who Left His Will on Film' await my first viewing.
In the Realm of the Senses is a better film than its reputation by notoriety deserves, but its certainly not top rank Oshima
(although its certainly superior to 'Orrence')

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puxzkkx
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Re: Oshima Nagisa

#141 Post by puxzkkx » Mon May 23, 2011 7:01 pm

I saw The Ceremony, Taboo and Death by Hanging out of order, but I'm starting from the beginning with this guy now. I love what I've seen so far (the three aforementioned films + A Street of Love and Hope and Cruel Story of Youth). Next up is The Sun's Burial.

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