-
Flashback: Ingmar Bergman
By Peter Cowie -
Safety Last!: High-Flying Harold
By Ed Park -
A Series of Flashbacks
By Peter Cowie -
-
-
Oshima in Words and Images
PrevNext-
The landscape of cinema would not be the same without Nagisa Oshima, who died today at age eighty. An artist who tirelessly challenged both viewers and himself, Oshima believed that film was an inherently political medium, and that taboos existed only to be broken wide open. Over the course of a forty-year career during which he made more than twenty features focused on social outcasts, the enigma of human sexuality, and violence, Oshima provoked and entertained his Japanese compatriots and the cinephile world at large.
Oshima—who had studied law and and was passionately involved in left-wing politics and drama—enrolled in an assistant director apprenticeship program at Shochiku studios in 1954. “I wasn’t a film lover,” he once said. “It was just that no other company would hire me.” In fact, Oshima had a distrust of Japanese cinema in general, which he viewed as staid and tradition-bound. Despite or perhaps because of this ambivalence, he developed a fervor for the medium and became one of its most important voices, both on the screen and on the page. For magazines, journals, and conferences, he wrote about film with zeal, rigor, and profound intellect. To pay tribute to this great artist, we’ve assembled some quotes from him, culled from various essays and interviews, and illustrated them with images from a few of his visually stunning films. -
“A filmmaker’s method is present in even a single shot; from a single shot we must be able to get a sense of his temperament and his perception of reality.”
(Image from Empire of Passion) -
“My hatred of Japanese cinema includes absolutely all of it.”
(Image from Japanese Summer: Double Suicide) -
“I have no way to make films except by examining the Japanese and endeavoring to discover who they are.”
(Image from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence) -
“I think that our only route to freedom and our only route to pleasure can come after we have first recognized that freedom and pleasure are not possible in this world.”
(Image from Japanese Summer: Double Suicide) -
“I think that I am still in adolescence. I wonder if this is because I am involved with films.”
(Image from Boy) -
“The first time I made a film in color—my first film was in black and white and my second was in color—I imposed a small taboo on myself. It was to never shoot the color green . . . At that time, the green of shrubbery was, for me, the root of many evils. No matter how severe a human confrontation you are portraying, it immediately becomes mild the instant that even a little green enters into it.”
(Image from Pleasures of the Flesh) -
“I have a definite distrust of the architects who create Japan’s scenery, particularly because they have not created even one place with scenery that adequately negates reality.”
(Image from Sing a Song of Sex) -
“The concept of ‘obscenity’ is tested when one dares to look at something that he has an unbearable desire to see but has forbidden himself to look at. When one feels that everything that one had wanted to see has been revealed, ‘obscenity’ disappears, the taboo disappears as well, and there is a certain liberation.”
(Image from In the Realm of the Senses) -
“To the leaders of the cinema still to come, I can offer only a few words drawn from my modest experience. You must ceaselessly formulate and sharpen your critical views, both of others and of yourselves.”
(Image from Sing a Song of Sex) -
“Certain critics have picked up on a shot that for them was characteristic of my work, one where a flame burns in the dark. For me, this flame represents the lives of my characters. But it’s also an image of our lives. I often cite this maxim: ‘Just like the fish that dwell in the abyss, we cannot find the light until we ourselves shine.’”
(Image from Violence at Noon)
Intro
The landscape of cinema would not be the same without Nagisa Oshima, who died today at age eighty. An artist who tirelessly challenged both viewers and himself, Oshima believed that film was an inherently political medium, and that taboos existed only to be broken wide open. Over the course of a forty-year career during which he made more than twenty features focused on social outcasts, the enigma of human sexuality, and violence, Oshima provoked and entertained his Japanese compatriots and the cinephile world at large.
Oshima—who had studied law and and was passionately involved in left-wing politics and drama—enrolled in an assistant director apprenticeship program at Shochiku studios in 1954. “I wasn’t a film lover,” he once said. “It was just that no other company would hire me.” In fact, Oshima had a distrust of Japanese cinema in general, which he viewed as staid and tradition-bound. Despite or perhaps because of this ambivalence, he developed a fervor for the medium and became one of its most important voices, both on the screen and on the page. For magazines, journals, and conferences, he wrote about film with zeal, rigor, and profound intellect. To pay tribute to this great artist, we’ve assembled some quotes from him, culled from various essays and interviews, and illustrated them with images from a few of his visually stunning films. -
14 comments
By thevoid99
January 15, 2013
07:45 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By bthiam
January 15, 2013
09:08 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Craig J. Clark
January 15, 2013
11:07 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By phillip greenlief
January 16, 2013
03:54 AM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Michael Brakemeyer
January 16, 2013
12:15 PM
By Garage_Alien
January 16, 2013
02:53 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Shohei Imamura
January 16, 2013
03:01 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Hannu Björkbacka
January 16, 2013
03:34 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Sidney
January 16, 2013
07:41 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Daniel W.
January 16, 2013
11:08 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Craig J. Clark
January 17, 2013
02:22 PM
By jmh
January 29, 2013
07:35 PM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By Ivan Lippi
January 30, 2013
06:46 AM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.
By corbin
January 30, 2013
10:51 AM
Or log in and post using your Criterion.com account.
You are logged in to your Criterion.com account as . Log out.