eShop USA > Books > Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima, 1956-1978 (October Books)
Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima, 1956-1978 (October Books)
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.430952
EAN: 9780262150408
ISBN: 0262150409
Label: The MIT Press
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: July 01, 1992
Publisher: The MIT Press
Studio: The MIT Press
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
The First time I made a film in color... I imposed a small taboo on myself internally. It was to never shoot the color green.
Nagisa Oshima is generally regarded as the most important Japanese film director after Kurosawa and is one of Japan's most productive and celebrated postwar artists. His early films represent the Japanese New Wave at its zenith, and the films he has made since (including In the Realm of the Senses and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence) have won international acclaim. The more than 40 writings that make up this intellectual autobiography reveal a rare conjunction of personal candor and political commitment. Entertaining, concise, disarmingingly insightful, they trace in vivid and carefully articulated detail the development of 0shima's theory and practice.
The writings are arranged in chronological order and cover the period from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s. Following a historical overview of contemporary Japanese cinema, a substantial section articulates the theoretical and political rationale of 0shima's own film production, which he sees as being profoundly influenced by the social formation and political processes of postwar Japan. Among many other topics considered in his essays, Oshima questions the economics of film production, the ethics of the documentary film, censorship (both political and sexual), and the relation of aesthetics and social taboos. A filmography and notes round out this important collection.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Vital writings on cinema...
Oshima on Oshima - the bulk of this extremely intriguing collection of translated essays details his 60s heyday, with 1976 as the rough cutoff point.
The essays detailing years before the start of his film career are the most intriguing - childhood, grade school and university - as Oshima devotes considerable detail to intellectual influences that drifted into his life beginning at a very early age; this writing recontextualizes quite a bit of his cinematic output, which seems far ... Read More
Rating:  - Fascinating insights into Oshima's screenwriting * directing
This book is written specifically for those who are interested particularly in the filmmaking of Nagisa Oshima's earlier films. I was a bit disappointed to find that there was little (if anything) written about MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR LAWRENCE (1983), EMPIRE OF PASSION (1980), and MAX MON AMOUR (1988?-his only French parlour comedy). Otherwise, there is plenty written about Mr. Oshima's aspirations and political/social ideas which account for his unusual and sometimes unpopular films. Of interest ... Read More
Related Categories:
| |
 |
