Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema (Midland Book)

Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema (Midland Book)

David Desser

Language: English

Pages: 239

ISBN: 0253204690

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The decade of the 1960s encompassed a "New Wave" of films whose makers were rebels, challenging cinematic traditions and the culture at large. The films of the New Wave in Japan have, until now, been largely overlooked. Eros plus Massacre (taking its title from a 1969 Yoshida Yoshishige film) is the first major study devoted to the examination and explanation of Japanese New Wave film.

Desser organizes his volume around the defining motifs of the New Wave. Chapters examine in depth such themes as youth, identity, sexuality, and women, as they are revealed in the Japanese film of the sixties. Desser's research in Japanese film archives, his interviews with major figures of the movement, and his keen insight into Japanese culture combine to offer a solid and balanced analysis of films by Oshima, Shinoda, Imamura, Yoshida, Suzuki, and others.

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popular Singer Frank Nagai. ~3 The ra ther slight plot focuses on Nagai as a hen pecked d ru gstore owner who daydreams about a native woman he mct on an island during the war. The image of the native woman merges with that of his de rk. A friend advises him to have an affai r. Comic complications ensue, including a n idyll on a tropiC island which turns out not to be a tropic island . Something like a reun ion of husband and wife occurs a t the end- this is, after all. a comedy_ Dave Kehr

missing man, the detective finds himself s lowly occupyi ng the husband's place. An attraction to the man's wife, his own divorce (that is, his own version of ha ving "vanished" ) and o ther similarities to the disappeared man serve to trans fo nn him into that man. The detective's own hold on his identity "Was always tenuous, his job a transposition of his o wn search fo r himself into Ruinnl Maps 81 the search for others, for other selves. In The Faa of AI/olher, the man's iden tity is

mythology. These myths find women as miko who rule the tribe, their sexuality and spiri tuality are above the laws of men, until such time as the men d ecide to rebel. The incest motif comes to the fore in terms of tribal identity, in wh ich all members of the tribe are essentially all members of one family . Such an image is deeply held by the Japanese and e)[plains much of the fascination incest holds for Imamura. The links between sexuality and the fam ily a re profound, as the discussion of

later in the novel to indude American blncks whom the protagonist sees on television rioting in U .5. streets: Of course, t had almost noth ing in comIllon with thl' N~'8roes, except for ~i ng an object of prejudice. The Negroes w('~ oomrades bound in the same cause, but I was quite atonl'. Even though the Negro question might be a grave SOcial problem, my own case oould n~'Vcr go beyond the limits of the personal.!'! This recognition on the hero's part that his problem is "personal" is precisely

<;>ne yOUng boy who lives with his parents showed a charming and de-lightful personality, philosophically answering questions posed by the off· "".t 166 EIIOS PI. US M ASSAC It H screen filmmakers . When the boy suddenly becomes tired and depressed, he kindly but forcefull y asks the ca mera crew to leavc.33 Memorable, too, is the young boy who is deaf, dumb, and blind. but who loves the feel of music, the vibrations as they come th rough two la rge stereo speakers that his poor family has

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