Nagisa Oshima

Nagisa Ōshima 大島 渚
Nagisa Ōshima (right) with Ryuhei Matsuda (left), the star of Taboo, in Cannes 2000.
Born	March 31, 1932 (1932-03-31) (age 79) Kyoto, Japan
Occupation	Film director Screenwriter
Years active	1953–1999
Spouse	Akiko Koyama (?-present)
Awards	Blue Ribbon Awards for Best New Director 1961 Night and Fog in Japan Cruel Story of Youth Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Screenplay 1969 Death by Hanging Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Director 1972 The Ceremony Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Film 1972 The Ceremony Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Screenplay 1972 The Ceremony Cannes Film Festival Prix de la mise en scène 1978 Empire of Passion Kinema Junpo Awards Readers' Choice Award for Best Film 1984 Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Director 2000 Taboo Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Film 2000 Taboo

Nagisa Oshima (大島 渚, Ōshima Nagisa ^?, born March 31, 1932, Kyoto) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope (愛と希望の街; Ai to kibō no machi) in 1959.

1960s

Ōshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly,^[1] and early watershed films Cruel Story of Youth (青春残酷物語), The Sun's Burial (太陽の墓場) and Night and Fog in Japan (日本の夜と霧) all followed in 1960. The last of these 1960 films explored - in challenging fashion - 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 leader by a right-wing extremist, 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 was placed tenth in that year's Kinema Jumpo's best-films poll (among Japanese critics), and it has subsequently amassed considerable acclaim abroad.^[2]

Subsequently, Ōshima directed The Catch (1961), based on a novella by Kenzaburō Ōe about the relationship between a wartime Japanese village and a captured African American serviceman. The Catch has not traditionally been viewed as one of Ōshima's major works, though it did notably introduce a thematic exploration of bigotry and xenophobia, themes which would explored in greater depth in the later documentary Diary Of Yunbogi (1965), and the feature films Death By Hanging and Three Resurrected Drunkards, both from 1968.^[3]

Ōshima then embarked upon a period of work in television, producing a series of documentaries; notably among them 1965's Diary 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.^[2][4]

One of Ōshima's more formally unusual films was Band of Ninja (1967), an adaptation of the popular manga by Sampei Shirato, Ninja Bugei-chō, a 16th-century saga of oppressed peasants and deadly ninja. It is not a live-action film, or even an animated one; Ōshima simply photographed close-ups of Shirato's drawings and added voices. Ōshima had used the technique previously in some documentaries, and a willingness to make use of unorthodox techniques was an indication of the mature period of experimentalism which would soon surface in Ōshima's work. The film managed to become a modest critical and commercial success in Japan.

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.^[5] The film utilizes non-realistic "distancing" techniques after the fashion of Brecht or 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 in Kinema Jumpo's 1968 poll, and has also garnered significant attention globally.^[6] Death By Hanging inaugurated a string of films (continuing through 1976's In 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.^[7]

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 to Jean Genet's The Thief's Journal, the film explores the links between sexual and political radicalism,^[8] specifically examining the day-to-day life of a would-be radical whose sexual desires take the form of kleptomania. The fragmented narrative is interrupted by commentators, including an underground noh performance troupe, a psychoanalyst, 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.

1970s

The Ceremony (1971) was a satirical look at Japanese attitudes, famously expressed in a scene where a marriage ceremony has to go ahead even though the bride is not present.

Ōshima is best known for In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no korīda; 愛のコリーダ 1976), a film based on a true story of fatal sexual obsession in 1930s Japan. Ōshima, a critic of censorship and his contemporary Akira 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 and an uncensored version of the movie is still unavailable in Japan.

In his 1978 companion film to In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion (Ai no bōrei; 愛の亡霊), Ōshima took a more restrained approach to depicting the sexual passions of the two lovers driven to murder, and the film won the 1978 Cannes Film Festival award for best director.

1980s and 1990s

In 1983 Ōshima had a critical success with a film made partly in English, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which is set in a wartime prison camp, and features David Bowie and Ryūichi Sakamoto as examples of Western and Eastern military virtue. Max, Mon Amour (1986), written with Luis Buñuel's frequent collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, was a comedy about a diplomat's wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose love affair with a chimpanzee is quietly incorporated into an eminently civilised ménage à trois.

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, he served as president of the Directors Guild of Japan.^[9] (He actually won the inaugural Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award in 1960.^[10])

In 1996 Ōshima suffered a stroke, but he returned to directing in 1999 with the period piece Taboo (Gohatto), featuring Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence actor Takeshi Kitano and music by co-star and composer Ryūichi Sakamoto. Oshima has since suffered two more strokes, so future films are unlikely.

A collection of Ōshima's essays and articles was published in English in 1993 as Cinema, Censorship and the State (ISBN 0-262-65039-8). A critical study by Maureen Turim, The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast (ISBN 0-520-20666-5) appeared in 1998.

Nagisa Ōshima currently lives in Fujisawa in Kanagawa Prefecture.

2000s

In 2008, curator James Quandt of Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto put together a retrospective of Oshima's work that toured North America in 2008-2009.^[11]

Filmography

Year	English title	Japanese title	Romaji	Notes
1959	Tomorrow's Sun	明日の太陽	Ashita no taiyō	Short (7 min), color.
1959	A Street of Love and Hope	愛と希望の街	Ai to kibō no machi	62 min, B&W.
1960	Cruel Story of Youth	青春残酷物語	Sēshun zankoku monogatari	96 min, color.
1960	The Sun's Burial	太陽の墓場	Taiyō no hakaba	87 min, color.
1960	Night and Fog in Japan	日本の夜と霧	Nihon no yoru to kiri	107 min, color.
1961	The Catch	飼育	Shiiku	105 min, B&W.
1962	The Rebel	天草四郎時貞	Amakusa shirō tokisada	101 min, B&W.
1963	A Small Child's First Adventure	小さな冒険旅行	Chiisana bōken ryokō	60 min, color.
1964	It's Me Here, Bellett	私はベレット	Watashi wa beretto	60 min, color.
1965	The Pleasures of the Flesh	悦楽	Etsuraku	90 min, color.
1965	Yunbogi's Diary	ユンボギの日記	Yunbogi no nikki	24 min, B&W.
1966	Violence at High Noon	白昼の通り魔	Hakuchū no tōrima	99 min, B&W.
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 (A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs)	日本春歌考	Nihon shunka-kō	103 min, color.
1967	Double Suicide: Japanese Summer	無理心中日本の夏	Muri shinjū: Nihon no natsu	98 min, B&W.
1968	Death by Hanging	絞死刑	Kōshikē	117 min, B&W.
1968	Three Resurrected Drunkards	帰って来たヨッパライ	Kaette kita yopparai	80 min, color.
1969	Diary of a Shinjuku Thief	新宿泥棒日記	Shinjuku dorobō nikki	94 min, B&W/color.
1969	Boy	少年	Shōnen	97 min, color.
1970	Man Who Left His Will On Film	東京戰争戦後秘話	Tōkyō sensō sengo hiwa	94 min, B&W.
1971	The Ceremony	儀式	Gishiki	123 min, color.
1972	Dear Summer Sister	夏の妹	Natsu no Imōto	96 min, color.
1976	In the Realm of the Senses	愛のコリーダ	Ai no corrida	104 min, color.
1978	Empire of Passion	愛の亡霊	Ai no bōrē	108 min, color.
1983	Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence	戦場のメリークリスマス	Senjō no merī Kurisumasu	123 min, color, UK/Japan.
1986	Max, Mon Amour	マックス、モン・アムール	Makkusu, Mon Amūru	97 min, color. France/USA/Japan.
1999	Taboo	御法度	Gohatto	100 min, color.

TV documentaries

• Kōri no naka no sēshun (Youth on Ice, 1962, documentary, 25 min) (TV)
• Wasurerareta kōgun (The Forgotten Army, 1963, documentary, 25 min) (TV)
• Sēshun no ishibumi (The Tomb of Youth, 1964, documentary, 40 min) (TV)
• Hankotsu no toride (A Rebel's Fortress, 1964, documentary, 25 min) (TV)
• Gimē shōjo (1964) (TV)
• Chita Niseigo taihēyō ōdan (Crossing the Pacific on the Chita Niseigo, 1964) (TV)
• Aru kokutetsu-jōmuin (A National Railway Worker, 1964) (TV)
• Aogeba tōtoshi (Ode to an Old Teacher, 1964) (TV)
• Aisurebakoso (Why I Love You, 1964) (TV)
• Ajia no akebono (1964) (TV)
• Gyosen sonansu (The Trawler Incident, 1965) (TV)
• Daitōa sensō (The Pacific War, 1968) (TV)
• Mō-takutō to bunka daikakumē (Mao Tse-Tung and the Cultural Revolution, 1969) (TV)
• Kyojin-gun (The Giants, 1972) (TV)
• Joi! Bangla (1972) (TV)
• Goze: Mōmoku no onna-tabigēnin (The Journey of the Blind Musicians, 1972) (TV)
• Bengal no chichi laman (1973) (TV)
• Ikiteiru nihonkai-kaisen (1975) (TV)
• The Battle of Tsushima (1975, documentary, 50 min)
• Ōgon no daichi Bengal (The Golden Land of Bengal, 1976) (TV)
• Ikiteiru umi no bohyō (The Sunken Tomb, 1976) (TV)
• Ikiteiru gyokusai no shima (The Isle of the Final Battle, 1976, documentary, 25 min) (TV)
• Denki mō-takutō (The Life of Mao, 1976) (TV)
• Yokoi shōichi: guamu-to 28 nen no nazo o ou (Yokoi and His Twenty-Eight Years of Secret Life on Guam, 1977) (TV)
• Shisha wa itsumademo wakai (1977) (TV)
• Kyōto, My Mother's Place (1991)
• 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1994) (TV)

Notes

1. ^ Bock, Audie. Japanese Film Directors, pp 311. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.
2. ^ ^{a b} Bock, Audie. Japanese Film Directors, pp 333. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.
3. ^ Turim, Maureen. The Films Of Nagisa Ōshima, pp 168. University of California, 1998. Berkeley.
4. ^ Oshima, Nagisa. Cinema, Censorship And The State, pp 101. MIT Press, 1992. Cambridge.
5. ^ Richie, Donald A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film pp. 198. Kodansha International, 2001. Tokyo.
6. ^ Bock, Audie. Japanese Film Directors, pp 335. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.
7. ^ Sato, Tadao Currents In Japanese Cinema pp. 177. Kodansha International, 1982. Tokyo.
8. ^ Turim, Maureen. The Films Of Nagisa Oshima, pp 88. University of California, 1998, Berkeley.
9. ^ "Nihon eiga kantoku kyōkai nenpyō" (in Japanese). Nihon eiga kantoku kyōkai. http://www.dgj.or.jp/about_g/chronology.html. Retrieved 17 August 2010. 
10. ^ "Nihon Eiga Kantoku Kyōkai Shinjinshō" (in Japan). Directors Guild of Japan. http://www.dgj.or.jp/award_g/. Retrieved 11 December 2010. 
11. ^ In The Realm of Oshima.

External links

• Nagisa Oshima at the Internet Movie Database
• Profile at Japan Zone
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

Persondata
Name	Oshima, Nagisa
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1932-03-31
Place of birth	Kyoto, Japan
Date of death
Place of death