Japaneseness

Funny how the youth's assessment of social ills in the 1960's has become part of the world's modern myth. Of course that was before all those members of S.D.S. or the Communist Party became parents in the suburbs with professional jobs, kids in expensive private schools, German luxury cars, and politics that reflect their parents more than they reflect Marxism or even reform.

So, I often want to shrink into a ball when someone cites the 1960's as a milestone in their life. You know, Woodstock; Herbert Marcuse; Huey Newton; Hal Ashby movies; the Baader-Meinhoff gang; the French Strike in 1968; Bergman's psychological quagmires; re-reading Genet, Brecht, Beckett, De Beauvoir, Camus, Angela Davis; because none of it ever, ever, ever equated to giving power to the common people. It was all pornography to excite, but at the end of the day when cum had hardened atop the sheets of global youth, nothing was accomplished. We had merely created a new generation of consumers and cheerleaders on the wrong side of class war.

But I must admit, at one time change seemed palpable. Recently, I've been reading about the Japanese New Wave in Film which stretched roughly from the late 1950's to the early 1970's. Japan during that period experienced a turbulent epoch. America, both as victor and occupier, had enforced its post-WWII governmental strictures and built American military bases across Japan for future incursions into Asia: digging in for the Cold War, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the suppression of Japan's intellectual community which was largely anti-American, anti-Military, pro-confrontation.

Unfortunately, many of the Japanese movies from the early New Wave directors are difficult to find today, though some have found their way into cinematheques or University archives. Criterion's collection of re-issues on dvd includes some of the New Wave titles; and foreign bootlegs, though often of poor quality, are also a source. Their rediscovered popularity in the West seems to stem solely from the surface narratives, kitsch factor, and violence. I say that because very few Westerners know anything about Japanese politics and cultural complications during the time these films were produced, which is usually the heart of each film's substance. I'm not an exception to the large group of Americans that know virtually nothing about Japan during the post war economic boom days. It's partially why I find these films so intriguing. At the time of their release many of these films were unpopular with the studios and the public. This new generation of directors had superseded the entrenched post-war Humanists personified by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu and Kinoshita. They were a technically proficient group of former assistants who had attended Japan's best universities during a time of angry demands from the organized student population. Anti-governmental demonstrations, anti-American demonstrations and riots defined the era. Youth, violence, sex and politics became the thematic building blocks for these fresh directors who became known as Japan's New Wave.

Here's a list of some of the major films from the group I've mentioned. Some of these directors continued to make good films long after the era of the New Wave had ended, even into the new millennium, but their revolutionary spirit and subject matter had reached an end. Japan had changed, the world had changed, the directors and writers had changed and certainly the movie-going public had grown new interests. But the films are well worth digging out and watching. Netflix may offer some, perhaps good libraries and video stores make some of them available. Here goes:

1956
Children Who Draw-- Susumu Hani
Punishment Room--Kon Ichikawa
Crazed Fruit--Ko Nakahira
Suzaki Paradise--Kawashima Yuzo

1957
Kisses--Yasuzo Masumura
Warm Current--Yasuzo Masumura
The Sun's Legend--Kawashima Yuzo

1958
Stolen Desire--Shohei Imamura
Nishi Ginza Station--Shohei Imamura
Endless Desire--Shohei Imamura
Giants and Toys--Yasuzo Masumura

1959
The Diary of Sueko (My Second Brother)--Shohei Imamura
The Assignation--Ko Nakahira
A Town of Love and Hope--Nagisa Oshima

1960
Bad Boys--Susumu Hani
Crazy Season--Koreyoshi Kurahara
Cruel Story of Youth--Nagisa Oshima
The Sun's Burial--Nagisa Oshima
Night and Fog in Japan--Nagisa Oshima
Naked Island--Kaneto Shindo
One Way Ticket for Love--Masahiro Shinoda
Youth in Fury (Dry Lake) --Masahiro Shinoda
Volunteering for Villainy--Tsutomu Tamura
Only She Knows--Osamu Takahashi
Marriage with the Dead--Osamu Takahashi
Good-for-Nothing--Yoshishinge Yoshida
Blood is Dry--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1961
Pigs and Battleships--Shohei Imamura
The Catch--Nagisa Oshima
My Red Face in the Sunset--Masahiro Shinoda
Shamisen and Motorcycle--Masahiro Shinoda

1962
A Full Life--Susumu Hani
The Revolutionary--Nagisa Oshima
Tears on the Lion's Mane--Masahiro Shinoda
Our Marriage--Masahiro Shinoda
Pitfall--Hiroshi Teshigahara
Bitter End of a Sweet Night--Yoshishinge Yoshida
Akitsu Springs--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1963
She and He--Susumu Hani
The Insect Woman--Shohei Imamura
Pale Flower--Masahiro Shinoda
Kanto Wanderer--Seijun Suzuki
Woman In The Dunes--Hiroshi Teshigahara
18 Roughs (18 Who Stir Up a Storm)--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1964
Intentions of Murder--Shohei Imamura
Assassination--Masahiro Shinoda
Gate of Flesh--Seijun Suzuki
Tattooed Life--Seijun Suzuki
Escape From Japan--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1965
The Song of Bwana Toshi--Susumu Hani
Diary of Yunbogi Boy--Nagisa Oshima
Pleasures of the Flesh--Nagisa Oshima
With Beauty and Sorrow--Masahiro Shinoda
Joy Girls--Seijun Suzuki
Secret Act Inside Walls--Koji Wakamatsu
A Story Written with Water--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1966
Bride of the Andes--Susumu Hani
The Pornographers--Shohei Imamura
Tattoo--Yasuzo Masumura
Red Angel--Yasuzo Masumura
Sea of Youth--Shinsuke Ogawa
Violence at Noon--Nagisa Oshima
Onibaba--Kaneto Shindo
Honno (Lost Sex)--Kaneto Shindo
Punishment Island--Masahiro Shinoda
Fighting Elegy--Seijun Suzuki
Tokyo Drifter--Seijun Suzuki
The Face of Another--Hiroshi Teshigahara
The Embryo Hunts in Secret--Koji Wakamatsu
Woman of the Lake--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1967
A Man Vanishes--Shoehei Imamura
Japanese Summer: Double Suicide--Nagisa Oshima
A Treatise on a Japanese Bawdy Song--Nagisa Oshima
Clouds at Sunset--Masahiro Shinoda
Branded to Kill--Seijun Suzuki
Violated Women in White--Koji Wakamatsu
Flame of Feeling--Yoshishinge Yoshida
Flame and Women--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1968
Sexual Play--Masao Adachi
Inferno of First Love--Susumu Hani
The Profound Desire of the Gods--Shohei Imamura
Death by Hanging--Nagisa Oshima
Three Resurrected Drunkards--Nagisa Oshima
Kukoneko--Kaneto Shindo
The Ruined Map--Hiroshi Teshigahara
Affair in the Snow--Yoshishinge Yoshida
Farewell to the Summer Light--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1969
Aido--Susumu Hani
Funeral Parade of Roses--Toshio Matsumoto
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief--Nagisa Oshima
Boy--Nagisa Oshima
Double Suicide--Masahiro Shinoda
Eros Plus Massacre--Yoshishige Yoshida
Go, Go Second Time Virgin--Koji Wakamatsu

1970
History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess--Shohei Imamura
The Man Who Left His Will on Film--Nagisa Oshima
Buraikan--Shuji Terayama
Angelic Orgasm--Koji Wakamatsu

1971
Red Army--Adachi Masao
Pandemonium--Toshio Masumoto
The Ceremony--Nagisa Oshima
Silence--Masahiro Shinoda
Emperor Tomato Ketchup--Shuji Terayama
Throw Away Your Books, Let's Go Into the Streets--Shuji Terayama
Summer Soldiers--Hiroshi Teshigahara
Heroic Purgatory--Yoshishinge Yoshida
Confessions Among Actresses--Yoshishinge Yoshida

1972
Dear Summer Sister--Nagisa Oshima

1973
The Making of a Prostitute--Shohei Imamura
Coup d'Etat--Yoshishige Yoshida

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