The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast (Paperback)

~ Maureen Turim (Author) "The film career of Oshima Nagisa spans the years 1959 to the present..." (more)
Key Phrases: imaginary filmmaker, kita yopparai, senso sengo hiwa, Oshima Productions, Realm of the Senses, World War (more...)

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Product Description

This study of the films of Oshima Nagisa is both an essential introduction to the work of a major postwar director of Japanese cinema and a theoretical exploration of strategies of filmic style. For almost forty years, Oshima has produced provocative films that have received wide distribution and international acclaim. Formally innovative as well as socially daring, they provide a running commentary, direct and indirect, on the cultural and political tensions of postwar Japan.
Best known today for his controversial films In the Realm of the Senses and The Empire of Passion, Oshima engages issues of sexuality and power, domination and identity, which Maureen Turim explores in relation to psychoanalytic and postmodern theory. The films' complex representation of women in Japanese society receives detailed and careful scrutiny, as does their political engagement with the Japanese student movement, postwar anti-American sentiments, and critiques of Stalinist tendencies of the Left. Turim also considers Oshima's surprising comedies, his experimentation with Brechtian and avant-garde theatricality as well as reflexive textuality, and his essayist documentaries in this look at an artist's gifted and vital attempt to put his will on film.

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"Turim raises critically important issues that the existing literature on Japanese cinema has been loath to address. Through thoughtful and sensitive readings of Oshima's films, she acknowledges the problematic nature of categories such as culture, subjectivity, and identity. This is an important contribution not only to film criticism and scholarship but to current debates and discussions in the Japan field, in cultural studies generally, and in feminist thought."--William Haver, State University of New York, Binghamton

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Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (August 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520206665
• ISBN-13: 978-0520206663
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #392,489 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Japan's Own, January 25, 1999

By A Customer

Being the World Cinema buff that I am, I always ask my friends from other countries what their favorite film from their home countries is. Whenever I've asked a friend from Japan this question, they have unanimously responded by saying "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" by Oshima Nagisa. Here in the U.S., we are led to presume it would be Kurosawa Akira, but that isn't so. For some reason, Oshima's film about Japan's atrocities during World War II resonate more, if not with most Japanese, with the younger generation with whom I interact. Maureen Turim's book "The Films of Oshima Nagisa" proceeds to tell us why, reviewing beyond Oshima's major features to include his documentaries as well. Along the way, she presents the Eastern and Japanese specific references and influences in Oshima's work rather than assume that Oshima primarily looked to the West for his inspiration as is shown in the over-emphasis in Western reviews of the Brechtian influences and the parallels to Goddard. This book also provides a solid feminist critique of Oshima's films, again with respect to what Feminism means in Japan. This book has trully enhanced my appreciation of Oshima's films and I recommend it highly.