Nagisa Ōshima 352143 224995212 2008-07-11T11:00:06Z Mickea 4352308 Awards {{Infobox Actor | name = Nagisa Ōshima<br>大島 渚 | image = Ki ez.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Nagisa Ōshima (right) with [[Ryuhei Matsuda]] (left), the star of [[Taboo (1999 film)|Taboo]], in Cannes 2000. | birthname = | birthdate = {{birth date and age|1932|3|31}} | birthplace = {{flagicon|Japan}} [[Kyoto]], [[Japan]] | occupation = [[Film director]]<br>[[Screenwriter]] | yearsactive = [[1953]]–[[1999]] | spouse = Akiko Koyama (?-present) | website = | awards = {{awd|[[Blue Ribbon Awards]] for Best New Director|1961|[[Night and Fog in Japan]]<br>[[Cruel Story of Youth]]}}<br>{{awd|[[Kinema Junpo Awards]] for Best Screenplay|1969|[[Death by Hanging]]}}<br>{{awd|[[Kinema Junpo Awards]] for Best Director|1972|[[The Ceremony]]}}{{awd|[[Kinema Junpo Awards]] for Best Film|1972|[[The Ceremony]]}}{{awd|[[Kinema Junpo Awards]] for Best Screenplay|1972|[[The Ceremony]]}}<br>{{awd|[[Cannes Film Festival]]<br>[[Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival)|Prix de la mise en scène]]|1978|[[Empire of Passion]]}}<br>{{awd|[[Kinema Junpo Awards]]<br>Readers' Choice Award for Best Film|1984|[[Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence]]}}<br>{{awd|[[Blue Ribbon Awards]] for Best Director|2000|[[Taboo (1999 film)|Taboo]]}}{{awd|[[Blue Ribbon Awards]] for Best Film|2000|[[Taboo (1999 film)|Taboo]]}} }} {{nihongo|'''Nagisa Ōshima'''|大島 渚|'''''Ōshima Nagisa''}}, born [[March 31]], [[1932]] in [[Kyoto]], is a famous [[Japanese people|Japanese]] [[film director]]. After graduating from [[Kyoto University]] he was hired by [[Shochiku|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 in film|1959]]. ==1960s== Ōshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly<ref>Bock, Audie. ''Japanese Film Directors'', pp 311. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.</ref>, and early watershed films ''[[Cruel Story of Youth]]'' (青春残酷物語), ''[[The Sun's Burial]]'' (明日の太陽) 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'' placed #10 for the year in ''Kinema Jumpo'''s annual best-films poll (among Japanese critics), and it has subsequently amassed considerable acclaim abroad<ref>Bock, Audie. ''Japanese Film Directors'', pp 333. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.</ref>. Subsequently, Ōshima directed ''The Catch'' (1961), based on a [[novella]] by [[Kenzaburo 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, 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 <ref>Turim, Maureen. ''The Films Of Nagisa Ōshima'', pp 168. University of California, 1998. Berkeley.</ref>. 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]]<ref>Bock, Audie. ''Japanese Film Directors'', pp 333. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.</ref><ref>Oshima, Nagisa. ''Cinema, Censorship And The State'', pp 101. MIT Press, 1992. Cambridge.</ref>. 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 - ''[[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 <ref>Turim, Maureen. ''The Films Of Nagisa Oshima'', pp 88. University of California, 1998. Berkeley.</ref>, 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. Months later, ''[[Death By Hanging]]'' (1968) presented the story of the failed execution of a young [[Korean people|Korean]] for rape and murder, and was loosely based upon an actual crime and execution which had taken place in 1958<ref>[[Donald Richie|Richie, Donald]]. ''A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film'' pp. 198. Kodansha International, 2001. Tokyo.</ref>. The film utilizes non-realistic "distancing" techniques after the fashion of [[Bertold Brecht|Brecht]] or [[Jean-Luc Godard|Godard]] to examine Japan's record of [[racial discrimination]] against its [[Koreans|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 placed #3 in ''Kinema Jumpo'''s 1968 poll, and has also garnered significant attention globally<ref>Bock, Audie. ''Japanese Film Directors'', pp 335. Kodansha International, 1978. Tokyo.</ref>. ''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<ref>[[Tadao Sato|Sato, Tadao]]. ''Currents In Japanese Cinema'' pp. 177. Kodansha International, 1982. Tokyo.</ref>. ''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 another [[satire|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 most famed for his provocative 1976 film ''[[In the Realm of the Senses]]'' (''Ai no korīda''; 愛のコリーダ), a film based on a true story of fatal sexual obsession in 1930s Japan. Ōshima, a prolific critic of censorship and his contemporary [[Akira Kurosawa]]'s humanism, was determined that the film should feature [[hardcore pornography]] and thus the film's undeveloped film cans had to be transported to [[France]] to be developed 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 another important critical success with ''[[Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence]]'', set in a wartime prison camp, featuring [[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]]. In 1996 Ōshima suffered a stroke, but he returned to directing in 1999 with the period piece ''[[Taboo (1999 film)|Taboo]]'' (''Gohatto''), featuring ''Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence'' actor [[Takeshi Kitano]] and music by co-star and composer [[Ryūichi Sakamoto]]. 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]]. ==Partial filmography== * ''[[A Town of Love and Hope]]''(愛と希望の街) (1959) * ''[[Cruel Story Of Youth]]''(青春残酷物語) (1960) * ''[[The Sun's Burial (aka Tomb of the Sun)]]''(太陽の墓場) (1960) * ''[[Night and Fog in Japan]]''(日本の夜と霧) (1960) * ''[[The Catch (film)|The Catch]]''(飼育) (1961) * ''[[The Revolt]]'' (1961) * ''[[Shiro Tokisada]]''(天草四郎時貞) (1962) * ''[[A Small Child's First Adventure]]'' (1964) * ''[[Yunbogi's Diary]]''(ユンボギの日記) (1965) * ''[[The Pleasures of the Flesh]]'' (1965) * ''[[Violence at Noon]]''(白昼の通り魔) (1966) * ''[[Tales of the Ninja]]''(忍者武芸帖) (1967) * ''[[Sing a Song of Sex]]''(日本春歌考) (1967) * ''[[Japanese Summer: Double Suicide]]''(無理心中 日本の夏) (1967) * ''[[Diary of a Shinjuku Burglar]]''(新宿泥棒日記) (1968) * ''[[Death By Hanging]]''(絞死刑) (1968) * ''[[Three Resurrected Drunkards]]''(帰ってきたヨッパライ) (1968) * ''[[Boy (film)|Boy]]''(少年) (1969) * ''[[Man Who Left His Will on Film]]''(東京戦争戦後秘話) (1970) * ''[[The Ceremony (film)|The Ceremony]]''(儀式) (1971) * ''[[Dear Summer Sister]]''(夏の妹) (1972) * ''[[The Battle of Tsushima]]'' (1975) * ''[[In the Realm of the Senses]]''(愛のコリーダ) (1976) * ''[[Empire of Passion]]''(愛の亡霊) (1978) * ''[[Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence]]''(戦場のメリークリスマス) (1983) - based in part on the war experiences of [[Laurens van der Post]]. * ''[[Max, Mon Amour]]''(マックス、モン・アムール) (1986) * ''[[Kyoto, My Mother's Place]]'' (1991) * ''[[Taboo (1999 film)|Taboo]]''(御法度) (1999) == Notes == {{reflist}} ==External links== * {{imdb name|id=0651915|name=Nagisa Oshima}} * [http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/oshima_nagisa.shtml Profile at Japan Zone] * [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/oshima.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database] {{DEFAULTSORT:Oshima, Nagisa}} [[Category:1932 births]] [[Category:Kyoto University alumni]] [[Category:Film theorists]] [[Category:Japanese film directors]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People from Kyoto (city)]] [[de:Ōshima Nagisa]] [[es:Nagisa Ōshima]] [[fr:Nagisa Ōshima]] [[it:Nagisa Oshima]] [[lt:Nagisa Oshima]] [[nl:Nagisa Oshima]] [[ja:大島渚]] [[no:Nagisa Oshima]] [[pl:Nagisa Oshima]] [[ru:Осима, Нагиса]] [[fi:Nagisa Ōshima]] [[zh:大岛渚]]