3 B E R R A N DIRECTORY OF D I R WORLD E C T O CINEMA R Y O F W A O R L D C I N E M P A J A P A N 3 A J EDITED BY JOHN BERRA Volume 31 directory of world cinema JaPan 3 Edited by John Berra intellect Bristol, UK / Chicago, USA s t n First published in the UK in 2015 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK e First published in the USA in 2015 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2015 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. t A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Publisher: May Yao Publishing Managers: Jelena Stanovnik and Heather Gibson n Cover photograph: Hideko Takamine in The Insect Woman (1963, Shohei Imamura). Nikkatsu/ The Kobal Collection Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Sebastian Manley Typesetter: John Teehan Directory of World Cinema ISSN 2040-7971 Directory of World Cinema eISSN 2040-798X o Directory of World Cinema: Japan 3 ISBN 978-1-78320-403-8 Directory of World Cinema: Japan 3 eISBN 978-1-78320-404-5 Printed and bound by Short Run Press, UK. c s directory of world cinema t JaPan 3 n acknowledgements 5 Yasuzo Masumura 100 Hitoshi Matsumoto 104 introduction by the editor 6 Takashi Miike 108 Kenji Misumi 112 films of the year 8 Goro Miyazaki 116 Hard Romanticker 9 Hayao Miyazaki 120 Himizu 10 Kenji Mizoguchi 124 Kotoko 13 Yoshimitsu Morita 128 eA Letter To Momo 15 Hideo Nakata 132 No Man's Zone 17 Mamoru Oshii 138 Nagisa Oshima 142 festival focus 20 Yasujiro Ozu 146 Tokyo Filmex and the Problem Rintaro 150 of the Niche Kaneto Shindo 153 Makoto Shinkai 157 industry spotlight 26 Masahiro Shinoda 161 t Interview with Susumu Hani Sion Sono 164 Seijun Suzuki 168 directors 32 Isao Takahata 172 Shinji Aoyama 32 Yuki Tanada 176 Kinji Fukasaku 36 Hiroshi Teshigahara 180 Kazuo Hara 40 Yutaka Tsuchiya 184 nYasuharu Hasebe 44 Shin’ya Tsukamoto 188 Eikoh Hosoe 48 Koji Wakamatsu 192 Jun Ichikawa 52 Mitsuo Yanagimachi 196 Kon Ichikawa 56 Takahisa Zeze 200 Shohei Imamura 60 Katsuhito Ishii 63 recommended reading 204 Teruo Ishii 66 Shunji Iwai 70 Japanese cinema online 210 Akio Jissoji 73 oRyuhei Kitamura 77 test your Knowledge 220 Takeshi Kitano 81 Masaki Kobayashi 85 notes on contributors 223 Masaru Konuma 89 Hirokazu Kore-eda 92 filmography 230 Akira Kurosawa 96 c s Directory of World Cinema t n e m e G d e l w o n K c a s Directory of World Cinema t n e This third volume of the Directory of World Cinema: Japan departs from the format of its predecessors in that it is a collection of essays on selected m directors rather than a collection of film reviews organized by genre. Such thorough discussion of leading Japanese film-makers, some of whom have rarely been discussed in previous academic texts on the subject, has been made possible by the devotion and dedication of this volume’s contributor base, which encompasses a range of related scholarly interests e in the field. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed an essay to this volume, and also the team at Intellect Books, whose commitment to innovative film studies publishing continues to make the Directory of World Cinema such a culturally relevant series. I would G particularly like to thank the late Intellect Chairman Masoud Yasdani, who suggested that this volume should focus on directors. I would also like to thank James Campbell, Heather Gibson, Mark Lewis, Melanie Marshall, Holly Rose, Jelena Stanovnik and May Yao, whose professional diligence has d resulted in the international visibility of the Directory of World Cinema series. With regard to the increasing awareness of the Directory of World Cinema: Japan beyond academic circles, I would particularly like to thank Samuel Jamier, Fumiko Miyamoto and Joel Neville Anderson, who arranged for me to participate in the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ retrospective at the Japan e Society in February 2012. In my capacity as guest speaker introducing a number of films on the theme of twisted romance, I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to engage with the audience for Japanese cinema in l the United States. It was also a pleasure to work alongside the organization’s terrific volunteer staff throughout a week of screenings. I would also like to thank Travis Crawford and Eric Moore of Artsploitation Films, Keith Aiken w of Sci-Fi Japan, Joey Leung of Terracotta Distribution, Liza Palmer of Film International, Adam Torel and Claire Marty of Third Window Films and Jon Jung of VCinema for facilitating exposure for this series, providing DVD copies of their releases, and arranging for the use of film stills that have contributed to the distinctive design of this latest volume. o On a very personal note, I would like to thank my wonderful wife Meng Yan for her continued love and support. I would also like to thank my parents, Paul and Janet, sister Becky, brother-in-law Neil, and my lovely nieces Evie and Layla. I would also like to thank my in-laws Meng Zhao-quan and Wang Tieli. n Finally, I would like to thank the Japanese film-makers whose works have inspired such a wide-ranging collection of essays and offer such an inexhaustible treasure trove of research material to academics in the field. John Berra K c a Acknowledgements 5 Directory of World Cinema introduction By the editor This third volume of the Directory of World Cinema: Japan departs from the format of the previous entries by focusing exclusively on directors through a collection of insightful essays by both regular contributors and new voices to the series. These essays are not biographical overviews but studies of particular aspects of the work of significant film-makers that, in some cases, focus on a specific period of their often lengthy careers. In keeping with the mission statement of the Directory of World Cinema series to explore national identity through the medium of film, these essays adopt a variety of analytical approaches – aesthetic, cultural, industrial and sociopolitical – to explore the richly enduring national cinema of Japan. Due to the inevitable restrictions of space, the selection of directors found here is not intended to be a definitive guide to Japan’s greatest film-makers. Rather, it aims to offer a broad spectrum of directors whose works span various time periods, industrial trends and genres, as a means of further establishing the multifaceted nature of this particular national cinema. Therefore, essays on directors who are firmly ensconced in the pantheon of international cinema (Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa) are found alongside pieces on cult favourites (Yasuharu Hasebe, Teruo Ishii, Seijun Suzuki), wizards of anime (Hayao Miyazaki, Rintaro, Makoto Shinkai) and experimentalists who largely defy categorization (Eikoh Hosoe, Yutaka Tsuchiya). While such various members of the politically charged Nuberu bagu (Japanese New Wave) as Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura and Kaneto Shindo are discussed, there is also consideration of the eclectic output of such studio system stalwarts as Kon Ichikawa and Kenji Misumi, while the renaissance of Japanese cinema that occurred in the early 1990s following a lengthy lull is represented by such individualistic talents as Shinji Aoyama, Shunji Iwai, Hirokazu Kore- eda, Takashi Miike and Sion Sono. Many of these essays serve to illustrate the sustained interest that Japanese directors have demonstrated with regard to the representation of social groups and the ever-shifting politics of space: Japanese women in the films of Mizoguchi and Imamura; Aoyama’s investigation of community; the no man’s land within urban sprawl that is obsessively returned to by Takahisa Zeze; the severely dysfunctional family units depicted by Miike; the records of youth culture offered by Mitsuo Yanagimachi; and the marginal subjects of Kazuo Hara’s documentaries. There is also a focus on aesthetics, which ranges from the fiercely stylized ‘trash’ of Sono to the pop culture cool of Ryuhei Kitamura. A number of the essays here prefer to place their subjects in industrial context. Japanese directors were largely ‘contract players’ until the 1970s, when the studio system began to unravel due to an economic downturn and an audience shift towards television; as such, most film-makers who worked for the major studios from the 1930s to this point were assigned films rather than developing them. Directors found their careers being shaped by the genres that they were expected to specialize in, whether chanbara (samurai), jidai-geki (historical drama), shomin-geki (lower-middle-class-life drama), yakuza or others. Therefore, discussion of Ishii’s crime thrillers, Suzuki’s yakuza chronicles or Misumi’s samurai adventures places their output firmly in the context of their respective studio and the audience preferences of the period, while considering how these film- makers filtered their social vision through the material at hand. These were directors who 6 Japan 3 Directory of World Cinema seemed not merely to accept the pace at which the industry expected them to operate, but to actually relish the challenge of delivering a decent movie on a tight schedule. Until such directors received belated but justly warranted international attention through retrospectives, the fast turnaround associated with the Japanese film industry at its production peak had often led their achievements to be ‘lost’ in a pile of credits. For instance, the most frequently used word in discussions of the legendary Suzuki is probably ‘prolific’, even though a director of his level of wit and invention is undoubtedly worthy of greater accolades. As noted, the legacies of these directors will be forever tied to their respective genres, or the audience appetites that they were expected to feed, but such film-makers have, in turn, not only shaped but often subverted popular narrative forms to suit their own interests. While the mechanics of the studio system loom large over the Japanese film industry, it is also a national cinema that continually fascinates scholars due to its independent productions. Whether they be the pioneering works of the Art Theatre Guild, the festival sensations of Takeshi Kitano and Shinya Tsukamoto, the media activism of Yutaka Tsuchiya or the output of a savvy film-maker such as Yuki Tanada, who moves nimbly between independent and studio production while keeping her work thematically consistent, films in Japan’s alternative sector continue to plough forwards even in difficult economic circumstances. Independent directors are featured not just in the essays here, but also in the ‘Festival Focus’ section, which takes a look at the recent low-budget selection of Tokyo FILMeX, and in an extensive ‘Industry Spotlight’ interview with Susumu Hani, who established a unique form of radical documentary film-making in the 1960s. New directors and film-makers who can now be considered as comparative veterans feature in this volume’s ‘Films of the Year’ section, which spotlights Su-yeon Gu’s viciously amusing crime thriller Hâdo romanchikkâ/Hard Romanticker (2011), Sono’s harrowing drama Himizu (2011), Tsukamoto’s emotionally visceral Kotoko (2011), Hiroyuki Okiura’s charming coming-of-age anime Momo e no tegami/A Letter to Momo (2011) and Toshi Fujiwara’s haunting Fukushima documentary Mujin chitai/No Man’s Land (2011). Some of these films were made independently, while others are products of the current studio system, but each evidences a distinct vision that either further establishes its director as a leading generational voice or marks a younger talent out as a name to follow in the future. Some of the directors discussed in this volume have yet to benefit from academic attention in the pages of this series or elsewhere, and it is both an honour and a pleasure to bring their works to the attention of our readers. Also, new approaches to directors of Japan’s Golden Age – such as studies of the significance of eating spaces in Ozu and of the encroaching social disenchantment in the early films of Masaki Kobayashi – are intended to contribute to ongoing discussion regarding their remarkable careers. Essays on the widescreen cinema of Kurosawa, the exploration of violence in the work of Kitano, and the animation of Satoshi Kon can be found in the first volume of the Directory of World Cinema: Japan; with essays on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tetsuya Nakashima, Naoko Ogigami, Hiroshi Shimizu and Shuji Terayama being available in the second. It is hoped that this third volume in the series will further enrich your appreciation of Japanese cinema and further contribute to your understanding of national culture through its examination of film history. John Berra Introduction 7 Directory of World Cinema Hard Romanticker © 2011 Toei Company, Artsploitaton Films films of the year Hard romanticker Himizu kotoko a Letter to momo no man’s zone 8 Japan 3