28 — Friday, March 20, 1998 ~ North Shore News ——— FILM imamura Imamura. He is the last great tilmmaker to develop his skills within the Japanese studio system that produced the likes of Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi. Imamura began directing ‘cature Alms at Nikkatsu in 1958 atter a brief stint at Shochiku. Much has ber made of his apprenticeship with Yasujiro Ozu but in interviews he downplays the experience himself describing his position as an insigniticant fifth assistaut diree- tor, Imariura has in fact been called the anti-Ozu for his realistic, unsentimental treatment of narrative, particularly in his portrayal of women characters, The retrospective, organized by Cinematheque Ontario-and The Japan Foundation (Tokyo) was first showa last November in Toronto and will tour through North America for much of 1998. “Four more cities have been added to the original 1] North American venues,” says Cinematheque Ontario director James Quandt. “It’s alse going to Europe. it will travel co the Netherlands and Stockholm later this year and hopefully to London as well.” The British Fiim Institute is currendy showing the Mizoguchi retro- spective Quandt and his staff put together fast vear. In connection with the Imamura films the Cinematheque Ontario and the Toronto International Film Festival Group have published a book on the director which is available at screenings. “It is the first book in English on Imamura,” savs Quandt. “The articles span his entire career and include cranslations of French writers who were the first to recognize his work in the West.” The book itself is a major achievement (the first in whar hopeful- ly will be a series of monographs from the Cinematheque) and includes essays and interviews by Donaid Ritchie, Max Tessier, and Audie Back among athers. Imamura is one of only three directors (the others: Francis Ford Coppola and Emir Kusturica) to ever receive the Palme d’Or awice at Cannes — foi The Ballad of Naravama in 1983 and The Eel ia 1997, The latter film was not available for the touring exhibit of his work but may come through town separately. In all, 15 of Imamura’s 18 feature-length films are part of the retrospective. A new work Doctor Akag: (his last, Imamura has said) niay receive its first screening at Cannes this year. Most of the films are in newly-struck 35mm Wide-screen Scope prints produced specially for the event. The Profound Desire of the Gods (1968) is available in its entirety for the first time according to Quandr. “My research shows there were two ver- sions of the film. The one released in the West was 20 to 30 min- utes shorter than the original cut.” Several of the other films have never been shown in Vancouver. Imamura’s first film Stolen Desire (1958) received its Vancouver premiere fast weekend. The movie indicates the director had some of his major thematic concerns in place from the very beginning of his career. Stolen Desire follows a poor theatrical troupe as they setde in a rural area outside Osaka for a series of performances. Imamura wanted to call the movie Treat Theatre but the studio Nikkatsu came up with the more lurid title. In the movie, and in Imamura in general, we are not cealing with che high-end of Japanese culture — the troupe feader has the actresses do a strip show before the Kabuki drama to loosen up the peasant audience. “Imamura has his own themes trom which he has never wavered,” says Audie Bock. These include an anthropological interest in rurai lapan and in realistic depictions of Japanese woman, particularly of the lower classes. “My heroines are true to life — just look around you at Japanese women. They ayv strong, and thev outlive men. Self-sacrificing women like the heroines of Naruse’s Floating Clouds (1955) and Mizoguchi’s Life of Obaru (1952) don’t really exist,” Bock quotes Imamura in Japanese Film Directors. Becoming Fram pane 19 y While the “Japaneseness” of Imamura is suessed by crities his thematic concerns and narrative treatment also have a universal appeal. “Imamura’s films have none of the serenity and spirituality thar we have come to expect from Japanese movies. Instead they are ragged and violent, vulgar and sarcastic, teeming with needling, ner- vous energy that secms the exact contradiction of Mizoguchi’s cos- mic regret and Ozu’s sublime acceptance.” savs Dave Kehr in an article included in the Cinematheque monograph. Quandt agrees with the assessment of a universality in Imamura’s work but he also told me “1 do think there are things in the films that Western audiences don’t get. A quarter of the Toronto audi- ence was Japanese — there are nuances of language, certain cultural things that don’t translate.” Imamura himself is not pleased with all of the films he has made over the course of his career. “In Nishi Ginsa Station Nikkatsu forced him to use the star Frank Nagai singing the title tune three times,” says Quandt. He put the song in and then did the rest of the film the way he wanted to. “it's very strange. A minor revela- tion.” “One of the main things that I admire in his films is the wild- ness,” says Quandt. “My favorites are the string of films from the mid-sixties ( The Inseee Woman (1963); Intenziozs of Murder (1964); The Pornagraphers (1966)... Endless Desire 1958} is the film where Imamura becomes Imamura.” Partly in response to the breakdown of the studio system Imamura began his own three-year protessonal film school The Japan Academy of Visual Arts in the 1970s. With the international success of The Ballad of Narayama ac Cannes he was able to move the school into custom-built premises in Shin-Yurigaoka, Kawasaki in 1986. Audie Bock spent one year on the faculty in 1991 while {mamura was still president of the school. “The school is now geared more towards televisior. than film,” she says. “When you ask young Japanese if they like movies they thiak vou are talking about Hollywood? If you narrow it down to Japan they think vou are referring to television.” [mamura has since retired as chief adminis- trator of the academy. “Current Japanese films cost much less than American films,” says Bock. “You den’ get the production values. Television has higher budgets.” For her part she has continued to work in the realm of Asian cinema. Bock manages a film distribution company specializing in Japanese film and East-West Classics, as well as lectur- ing on cinema in California. She also is planning to enter Harvard to complete a doctoral dissertation on the films of Mikio Naruse. Her 1983 study of the director is only available in French to date. In the past decade Bock has been approached to write a sequel to her seminal Japanese Fibn Directors but tae conditions are not the same to say the feast. The 1978 volume presents a pantheon of film directors from a Japanese system which no longer exists. It is sympromatic of the current state of the film industry that one of the voung directors showing promise, Koreeda Hirokazu: (.Maboree? 1995), is produced by a Tokyo company called TV Man Union. Don’t miss this chance to catch a master at work. The Shohei Imamura retrospective runs at the Pacific Cinematheque (1131 Howe St., Vancouver) until April 6. The rise and fall of the. Japanese studio system Fy 1896 - Edison’s Kinetoscops first seen. in Japan o 1897 = First film shot in Japan - street scenes in Tokyo - made films : 1903 - Opening of the first permane cinerna (in Tokyo) ; : 1908 ~ First film studio built at Meguro; Japan . : : 1911 - First full-length Japanese docii mentary (2n Antarctic expedition) | 1912 -The predecessor of Nikkatsu movie studio established en 1918 —- Movement to replace the ; Oyama with actresses (up to this tin female impersonators were used in films, as in traditional theatre) 1919 ~The magazine Kinema jumpo established ; 1920 - The predecessor of Shochiku -- studio established Se 1923 — Big studios destroyed in the great Kanto earthquake cad 1932 - Strikes by benshi (film narrators'§ employed by cinemas) and musicians resistung talkies. PCL, the predecesse: of Toho established : 1939 ~ Japanese film industry com- pletely controlled by the government 1942 = the predecessor of Daiei estab- lished during the war : 1945 - Governmental contro! abolished .& 1947 = Shin Toho established as off- : shoot of Toho studio 1948 ~ Strike at the Toho studios 1951 - Kurosawa's Rashomon (pro- - duced by Daiei) wins Grand Prix at. Venice. First notice of japanese film in’ the West. Toei established. a 1953 — Nikkatsu studio resumes film |." Hi production : 1954 ~ Kinugasa's Gate of Heil (Daiei) wins Grand Prix at Cannes ; {957 ~ First japanese wide-screen film: produced at Toei : 1960 ~ Color TV broadcasting 1961 ~ Shin Tohe ceases production; first 70mm film produzed by Daiei 1963 = Five major studios decide to show old films on TV 1969 — Four major directors (Kurosawa, !chikawa, Kinoshita and . Kobayashi) join te form an independent Schedule of Shohei Imamura films at Pacific Cinematheque March 20 & 2! — Fri and Sat. Vengeance is Mine (1979) 7:15 p.m. Brother (1961) 9:40 p.m. and Pigs and Battleships (!961) 9:45 p.m. April 3 & 4 — Fri and Sat. Zegan (1987) 7:15 p.m. and The March 27 & 25 — Fri and Sat. Endless Desire (1958) 7:15 p.m. and Pornographers (1966) 9:35 p.m. Efjanaika (1981) 9:45 p.m. April 5 & 6 — Sun. and Mon. The Profound Desire of the Gods (1968) March 29 — Sun. A Man Vanishes (1967) 7:!5 p.m. and Karayuki-San, 7:30 p.m. The Making of a Prostitute (1975) 9:40 p.m. (Films screened last week: The Ballad uf Narayama, The Insect Woman, March 30 — Mon. A Man Vanishes (1967) 7:15 p.m. and My Second Intentions of Murder, Stolen Desire, and Nishi Ginza Station.) prodzction company, Yonki no Kai. Go to www.issay.com/shohei-imamura . for information on the director in : English and Japanese. $t inciudes trans- lated interviews with actors and Imarnura, himse}f unavailable elsewhere. 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