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Home , B movie, Ero guro, Extreme cinema, Gate of Flesh, Kihachi Okamoto, Kinji Fukasaku

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE NEW JAPANESE EXTREMITY

A Thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University ^ - In partial fulfillment of 3G> the requirements for £01} the Degree

F \ u A

* 2) #5 Master of Arts

In

Cinema Studies

by

Jesus Manuel Soler Fernandez

San Francisco, California

May 2017 Copyright by Jesus Manuel Soler Fernandez 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL

I certify that I have read The Historical Origins o f the New Japanese Extremity by Jesus

Manuel Soler Fernandez and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master in

Cinema Studies at San Francisco State University.

Associate Professor, MA Coordinator THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE NEW JAPANESE EXTREMITY

Jesus Manuel Soler Fernandez San Francisco, California 2017

Japan has a long tradition of . Images of intense violence, bodies in pain and explicit images represent some of the most paradigmatic examples of Japanese Extreme Cinema. One of the main goals of this group of is to produce in the viewers an affective response. In the contemporary moment, filmmakers use a wide variety of techniques to produce affect in Extreme films.

The objective of this project is to survey the evolution of Extreme Cinema in . Throughout the essay, I will analyze the most paradigmatic movies of three decades in order to point out how filmmakers produce extreme films.

I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis

Chair, Thesis Committee Date PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Aaron Kerner, for his help and expert guidance throughout the project. Furthermore, I would like thank Professor R.L. Rutsky for being a part of the committee and guiding me while doing my masters and also for his advises and recommendations for this dissertation.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Defining Extreme Cinema...... 1

The Decade of the 60s...... 4

The Decade of the 70s...... 12

The Decade of the 80s...... 18

Conclusions...... 25

Bibliography...... 27

Filmography...... 29 1

1. Introduction

In the following sections of the essay, I will analyze the most paradigmatic films of three decades to point out the origins of the New Japanese Extremity and how the styles and the trends have evolved throughout the years. This evolution culminates with what we understand today as Japanese Extreme Cinema, with famous films such as Battle Roy ale (, 2000), Ichi the Killer ( 2001), Audition (Takashi Miike, 2001), and more recently Confessions (, 2010), or Helter Skelter, (Mika Ninagawa, 2012) among others.

Defining Extreme Cinema

Film Scholars continue to debate how to define Extreme Cinema. Some of them posit that it is a subgenre of horror, while others argue that it represents a new by itself. However, they all converge in suggesting that the main goal of Extreme Cinema is to produce in the viewers an affective response and, in addition, to generate changes in their bodies: jumping from the seat, gasping, and breathing heavily and sometimes even producing spasms in the viewing body.

In the article, “ Bodies, Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Linda Williams identifies three body : , horror, and . Each of these genres produces a change in the viewer’s body while he or she is watching a film. These bodily changes or sensations are inherently associated with the narrative and the form of a film, in other words, there is an exchange of sensations between viewers and the images onscreen. 2

Extreme Cinema produces in the viewers extreme sensations and brings them to the feeling of, using Linda Williams’s words, “ecstasy of fear and terror.”1 Hence, Extreme Cinema demands an active participation from the audience, making them feel a variety of sensations depending on the images presented and most importantly, how these images are presented. On the basis that Extreme films deliver sensations such as gasping, spasms or breathing heavily, what strategies then do filmmakers utilize to elicit these sensations? Violence, grotesqueness or pain can be represented in many ways, and filmmakers have developed elaborate strategies in order to effectively produce the desired reaction. Besides, Extreme films contribute on the desire of the audience of gazing upon the most remote perversions in the mind of humans, seeking for bizarre, ugly or frightening elements.

Moviegoers usually base their experience of a film on the narrative: this is the story, the evolution of the characters throughout the movie, the plot twists and the climax. However, less attention is paid to the form of the film, in other words, its montage, the way the scenes are presented, the identification process, or the audio design. What distinguishes Extreme Cinema is its utilization of formal techniques to deliver sensations to the viewers. According to Aaron Kerner and Jonathan Knapp: “One of the defining tropes of extreme cinema is its affective charge” and “it is not governed according to narrative conventions ... and instead emphasizes spectacles.” Therefore, Extreme Cinema films break conventions and experiment with form to deliver sensations to the audience.

Violence is frequently incorporated into Extreme Cinema. Violence can be delivered to the audience in different forms: for example, diegetic and non-diegetic sound

1 Linda Williams, “Film Bodies, Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Film Quarterly vol. 44, no.4 (Summer 1991),Page 4 .

2 Aaron Michael Kerner and Jonathan L. Knapp, Extreme Cinema: Affective Strategies in Transnational Media (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 5. 3

play here a very important role. Sound design can amplify or mitigate the amount of violence seen onscreen. On top of that, music can also change radically the intended sensation, from fear to tenderness or vice versa. On the other hand, it is important to differentiate music and noise, two resources used in different ways in cinema in general and Extreme films in particular. In the film Requiem for a Dream, directed by in the year 2000, and based on the novel of the same title written by Hubert Selby Jr., noise and music are combined with fast cut images to create a climax of violence (form) to point out how the lives of the four main characters have collapsed from the excessive use of drugs (narrative content). Requiem for a Dream also shares other characteristics previously mentioned to belong to Extreme Cinema: it tends to create a feeling of discomfort in the audience, it plays with form, uses slow motion and other techniques like a trembling camera, noise and music are combined, it shows close- ups and details to make the scenes more affecting and on top of that, it is episodic, as

'I Aaron Kerner and Jonathan Knapp maintain.

In Requiem for a Dream, the last scene begins with a phone conversation between two of the main characters. The sound of a non-diegetic violin can be heard; as the scene progresses, the camera starts to tremble and the music changes; it is still played by a violin however, it now sounds as if someone is scratching the strings. This audio design provides the climax of the film materializing in excessive violence, mixed with other elements like the extreme close ups on the mouths and teeth of the characters. Hence, Requiem for a Dream represents a good example of how form can be used to manipulate the viewers and at the same time, create an affecting narrative.

Hence, violence is one of the key elements that seem to be inherent to Extreme films. However, this violence might be presented in a very affecting and realistic mode, which is Requiem for a Dream’s case, or exaggerated, like in Toshiya Fujita’s film Lady Snowblood, in which the way violence is presented subtracts credibility and tends to be

3 Ibid. Page 7 4

less affecting. In addition, the violence seen onscreen tends to generate changes on the bodies of the characters, transforming them into nonhumans or deformed human beings, like in 1988 film Mermaid in the Manhole directed by Hideshi Hino.

Historically, Japan has had a very long tradition of Extreme films. In point of fact, films such as Koji Wakamatu’s The Embryo Hunts in Secret, released in 1966 and Horrors of Malformed Men, directed by in 1969, are two examples of how Extreme Films have used film form, colors, montage and music to produce affect since the sixties. Hence, it would be a mistake to presume that Extreme Cinema is a contemporary enterprise. However, while exploring the origins of the New Japanese Extremity, it is important to consider the fact that the films from the sixties, seventies and eighties examined in this essay diverge from today’s standards of Extreme Cinema.

The roots of the New Japanese Extremity can be found in movements like Ero- Guro and the Pink Films, or Pinku Eiga movement, which will be defined later. And while these cinematic movements are instrumental in the emergence of Extreme Cinema in Japan, at the same time, national film industries do not function in a vacuum and it will be argued that the violence found in Extreme Cinema was sown by the violence experienced by Japan during the Second World War.

2. The Decade of the 60s

Fifteen years after World War II, Japan faced a hard postwar period marked with the death of tens of thousands of people—as well as the enduring aftermath of the atomic bombings of and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9 of 1945). These tragic events marked a turn in Japanese history. By the 1960s Japan enjoyed tremendous economic development, known as the “Post-War Economic Miracle,” which contributed to its re- 5

emergence as a significant world (economic) power; Japan joined with other nations the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in 1965. This step helped Japan in being recognized as one of the most advanced developed industrial countries and it presents a significant moment in the modernization process of the country. As a matter of fact, as scholars Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S. George maintain, “discourses on ‘modernization’ continue to play a critical role in contemporary Japan. Over its 60-years postwar history, fisheries policy has always been focused on tasks connected to ‘modernization.’”4

The economic growth and the optimistic climate also had repercussions in Japanese culture and significantly in cinema. During this decade, movies such as Harakiri {Seppuku, 1962), (, 1961), (Akahige, Akira Kurosawa 1965), Woman in the Dunes (Suna no onna, 1964), or The Sword o f Doom (Dai-bosatsu toge, 1966) represent a few examples of films that would secure Japan’s place as a significant country. Even prior to this in 1951 Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon won “the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,” the following year.5 Furthermore, such us Mifune Toshiro, who worked in the most important films of director Akira Kurosawa, became icons inside and outside Japan, being known as “the Japanese ”6

Throughout this decade, the content of films started to become more explicit and in some examples, the violence showed represented a strategy to create an affective product. Films such as The Embryo Hunts in Secret (Taiji ga mitsuryo suru toki, Wakamatsu Koji, 1966), or Gate o f flesh (Nikutai no mon, Suzuki Seijun, 1964) represent

4 Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S George “Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble” (1).

(London, GB: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) Page 191

5 Aaron Kerner, “Irreconcilable Realities,” in Film Analysis Second Edition, Jeffrey Geiger and R. L. Rutsky eds. (New York: Norton & Company, 2013), 463. 6 Jasper Shard, “Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema” (Scarecrow Press, 2011) Page 162 6

two examples of how, using experimentation with form, montage and music, the narrative can be affecting to the viewers. However, it is important to remember that the examples of films that we consider “Extreme” in the sixties, are completely different than today’s standards, nevertheless, they all share the same goal: produce an affective response in the audience.

The sixties was an important decade for the film industry in Japan for many reasons, but one that stands out is the arrival of the Pink Films, or “Pinku Eiga” movement. One of the main elements of the movement is that these films revolved around sexual content, however these images were not highly explicit; Pink Films can be categorized as “‘soft-core’ pornography as opposed to ‘.’”7 Another element of the movement was the low budget used in production. Film scholars differentiate three different moment or waves in this movement: The first one from 1962 until 1972.

During this wave, the most representative film, and for some scholars the film that started the movement, is Flesh Market, directed by Satoru Kobayashi in 1962. The second wave lasts from 1972 until 1982, films such as In the Realm o f the Senses or A woman Called , both based in the famous case of a woman who killed her husband and castrated him. The third moment of this wave represents the rebirth of this movement and dates from 1992 onwards.8 For some scholars, Koji Wakamatsu was the “first star of the Pinku Eiga movement [who] hit a nerve with a sexually and politically frustrated (male) youth.”9

The Embryo Hunts in Secret, directed by Koji Wakamatsu, is one of the most paradigmatic examples of the first wave of the Pinku Eiga movement. The film depicts an ordinary couple that goes to an apartment on a rainy night. What was supposed to be a

7 John Berra, “Directory of : Japan” (Bristol, GB: Intellect Ltd., 2010) Page 249 8 Ibid, Page 249 9 Roland Dome, “Vital flesh: the mysterious world of Pink Eiga” published in web.archive.com 7

romantic evening turns into a nightmare when the man ties up his girlfriend and starts torturing her. Director Koji Wakamatsu uses form in this film in a variety of ways; one of the elements that stands out is the dramatic use of , which emphasizes the shadows and the forms of the characters, similar to the directors such as Fritz Lang or F.W. Mumau did in the twenties in films such as Metropolis or Nosferatu during the German Expressionism movement.

Using ’s words, the true meaning of Expressionism is ‘“Squeezing out,’ thus making the true essence of things and people emerge into a visible form”10 just like director Koji Wakamatsu does at the beginning of The Embryo Hunts in Secret. As a matter of fact, the close ups on the man’s face smiling when the couple is about to enter in the apartment, emphasize his teeth and his expression reveling somehow his true intentions towards the woman.

When one considers Pink Films as a form of ‘soft-core’ pornography, The Embryo Hunts in Secret represents a good example of this trend; instead of focusing on sexual elements the film gives more emphasis to the graphic violence. Even though the main characters are naked, director Koji Wakamatsu never shows their pubic area and instead freezes the image on the screen to highlight the expression of pain in the face of the woman.

Throughout the scenes when the woman is being tortured, a series of close ups in the characters’ faces put emphasis in the expressions of pain and pleasure. At this point, the apartment has turned into a torture chamber, where the woman is being whipped. During the torture scene, images of saints and religious images can be seen while the man is whipping the woman; these depictions, the violent sound of the whip and the expression of pain, make clear reference that the woman is a martyr being tortured.

10 Susan Hayward “Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts”. Fourth Edition, Routledge, Page 189 8

When the woman tries to escape from the apartment, the man ties her up again and tries to torture her with a razor blade; however, he cannot perform this torture. Right after, the man can be seen naked talking about his mother and his relation with her. There is a clear connection in the fact that the man uses a phallic weapon to produce pain in the woman but he cannot do it in the end. Linda Williams posits: “horror is the genre that seems to endlessly repeat the trauma of castration as if to ‘explain’ by repetitious mastery, the originary problem of sexual difference.”11 Furthermore, right after his failed attempt in torturing the woman, the man can be seen in a fetal position talking about his relation with his mother, which justifies Williams’s idea of the exploration of childhood and .

There is a clear misogyny represented in the male character of The Embryo Hunts in Secret, whose troubles (or traumas) make him feel joy only by torturing a woman. Besides, the process of torture unlocks memories; in other words, the torture serves him as an exploration of his own past. After being tortured in different ways, the woman is animalized by the man who feeds her keeping her standing in four legs, which accentuates the misogyny and Williams’s point previously mentioned.

The Embryo Hunts in Secret shares many affinities with the film Martyrs, directed by Pascal Laugier in 2008. Martyrs belongs to the movement and as a matter of fact, Japanese extreme films have had a great influence in directors of this trend. Even though the amount of violence depicted in The Embryo Hunts in Secret cannot be compared with Martyrs, both film’s goal is to produce anxiety in the audience. To do so directors Pascal Laugier and Koji Wakamatsu use extreme close ups, and the perpetrator feeds and takes care of the victim so that the female victim can be tortured in the future. In conclusion, both films share the same goal, even though the violence is shown differently.

11 Linda Williams, “Film Bodies, Gender, Genre, and Excess” Film Quarterly vol. 44, no.4 (Summer 1991) Page 10 9

Gate o f Flesh, based on the novel by the same name written by Taijiro Tamura, takes place in after the Second World War. The story of the film is about a group of prostitutes who struggle to survive in the streets of the devastated city in the postwar society. One day, a thief named Shin joins the group and asks the prostitutes for permission to remain hidden with them because he has killed a man. However, the prostitutes, whose rules forbid them to fall in love with other men, start to have feelings towards Shin.

One of the elements that stands out in Gate o f Flesh and helps the viewer to engage with the narrative of the film is the production design by . The film takes place during the postwar period after the Second World War, a time when violence was an everyday occurrence; people struggled to survive under precarious conditions. Using long takes, director shows a society in which human lives were almost worthless. The film was shot ten years after World War II and as director Suzuki recognizes “it would have been best to shoot it right after the war, with Japan’s war-torn landscape as the background, then you wouldn't have had to build a set.”12

Even though there are not many scenes of graphic violence in Gate o f Flesh, the violence that director Seijun Suzuki points out can be seen in the streets of Tokyo in the postwar period. As a result, this film that was originally conceived as a B-film according to Takeo Kimura, turns out to be a melodrama, in which a group of prostitutes fall in love with men but they cannot fulfill their desire unless they are punished. As in Linda Williams’s idea of the body genres, this author posits that are films “addressed to women in their traditional status under patriarchy as wives, mothers, abandoned lovers, or in their traditional status as bodily hysteria or excess, as in the frequent case of the woman ‘afflicted’ with a deadly or debilitating disease.”13

12 Seijun Suzuki’s interview included in “, From the Ruins” 2007 13 Linda Williams, “Film Bodies, Gender, Genre, and Excess” Film Quarterly vol. 44, no.4 (Summer 1991) 10

Gate o f Flesh shares the characteristics pointed out by Williams, especially the “abandoned lovers” point. Hence, women in this film, and the four prostitutes in particular, appear as a source of pleasure for men; however, this pleasure has been denied to them and they cannot fall in love unless they pay a very high price. The idea of castration will be explored in the next section in the analysis of the film In the Realm o f the Senses. Apart from the Pink Film movement, Japanese filmmakers were also heavily influenced by Ero-Guro; a movement that was bom in literature during the twenties and experiences a rebirth in film throughout the sixties thanks to directors like Teruo Ishii. Ero-Guro (from the English words “erotic” and “grotesque”) puts emphasis on breaking taboos and boundaries exploring new topics and ideas such us the bizarre, homosexuality, or the irrational. According to the Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema, “the term resurfaced in the 1950s to describe de the more B-Movie gangsters, and Horror works produced by ... and adaptations by [Edogawa] Rampo.”14 This author, whose name derives phonetically from the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, has had a big influence in filmmakers, especially for the cinematic capacity in all his books. Rampo’s books were made into movies respecting the dark atmosphere and the bizarre elements; filmmakers such as Masumara Yasuzo, Tanaka Nobory, Teruo Ishii or Tsukamoto Shinya are some directors among others who adapted the stories written by Rampo. As a matter of fact, these filmmakers have confirmed that they read Rampo’s stories, which had “a great influence in their work, having read them when they were kids.”15

Horrors o f Malformed Men directed by Teruo Ishii in 1969 mixes two of the most emblematic works written by Edogawa Rampo: Strange Tale of Panorama Island published in 1926 and The Demon o f the Lonely Isle published in 1929. Ishii combines

14 Jasper Shard, “Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema” Scarecrow Press, 2011, page 80

15 Minoru Kawasaki and Tsukamoto Shinya in the documentary “Malformed Memories”, 2007 11

this two novels using characters from each of them: first, Hirosuke Hitomi from Panorama Island and second, Jogoro Komoda from The Demon o f the Lonely Isle. This last character is played by Butoh performer Hijikata Tatsumi who manifests the spirit of the Ero-Guro through a dance that emphasizes the artistic and the grotesqueness of the movement. As a matter of fact, Butoh dance plays a key role in Horrors of Malformed Men, being Hijikata “the principle founder ... [having] created his dance under the sign of darkness”16 leaving behind common dance standards.

Horrors of Malformed Men is the story of Hirosuke Hitomi, a man who takes the identity of Genzaburo Komoda and starts exploring his past. His investigation will lead him into an island where a man named Jogoro Komoda is conducting experiments with deformed people and plans to extend his legacy into the rest of the world. The film is divided in two parts: the first one, when Hirosuke takes Genzaburo’s identity, is focused on the investigation to discover where is Jogoro Komoda, and the second, when the characters arrive into Jogoro’s island. Director Teruo Ishii uses the second part of the film to express the potential of Ero-Guro, putting emphasis through close-ups of the deformed people and showing Hijikata’s potential while dancing.

Furthermore, the close-ups are focused on certain parts of the characters' bodies: big and grotesque teeth, a woman’s waist that has been placed into a goat’s body or the animalistic movements of the deformed people who live in the island. The set of these elements including Hijikata’s dance and the sounds of roaring of beasts in the background exaggerate somehow the narrative of the film and “embellish the cinematic spectacle.”17

16 Sondra Fraleigh “Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy.” (Champaign, US: University of Illinois Press, 2010) 17 Aaron Kerner, “Hijikata and Cinema: The Body in Revolt and Its Cinematic Traces” 12

In Horrors of Malformed Men Teruo Ishii uses form in a variety of ways to produce a degree of affect, or disgust, in the viewers. The use of colors put emphasis in certain situations to highlight the sensation of the characters, for example when Jogoro discovers that his wife is being unfaithful, Ishii uses the colors red and green to underline his madness. Later on, the light green color is used again, this time in the underground caves where Jogoro keeps his wife chained. Using this technique, the viewer is aware that the island belongs to a different world and its ruled by outcast people without rationality. Consequently, the emphasis on the spectacle using colors, close ups or dance reveals the uncanny and the perversions that are taking place in the island. As a result, the film culminates with Jogoro regretting his acts in a melodramatic scene that ends with fireworks showing the dismembered parts of the characters. It would be a mistake to place Horrors of Malformed Men in the horror genre; on the other hand, this film, and by extension the Ero-Guro movement puts emphasis in the sadomasochistic love, paranoiac obsessions, and at the end melodrama to fulfill in the viewers the desire of gazing upon the most remote perversions in the mind of humans.

The films described in this section are representations of how topics such as violence, fetishist sex, castration, the grotesque or human perversions among others have been historically used to produce sensations in the audiences since the 1960s. However, some of these topics are in an early stage in this decade, and there is a clear evolution of them in the following decades, resulting into more explicit and sometimes more affecting topics and reactions like gasping or breathing heavily in the films that belong to the origins of the New Japanese Extremity.

3. The Decade of the 70s

By 1970s, Japan had experienced major economic growth, leaving behind the postwar period of the previous decades reflected in films such as Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1949) or A Wonderful Sunday (Akira Kurosawa, 1947). As a matter of fact, as 13

Christopher Gerteis maintains, “By the mid-1970s ... families had, or would soon have, the car, color TV and air conditioned that served as the three key indicators of their socials and economic aspirations.” Furthermore, “By the 1970s, the majority of the Japanese considered themselves to be middle-class.”18 In addition, 1972 marks the year when Japan regains sovereignty of its territory, returning control of Okinawa to the Japanese government; however, the US still has a considerable presence in Japan, with several military bases. This particular fact contributes to the creation of a different and new society, far from the one that director Seijun Suzuki showed in Gate o f Flesh.

However, as Michael Gibbs notes, during the 1970s “paradoxically, violence increased in importance as a theme in Japanese cinema in this period.”19 Consequently, during this decade, the content of films is more explicit than they were during the 1960s. One of the most representative directors of the 1970s in Japan was Kinji Fukasaku. This filmmaker was highly influenced by the horrors of the war and grew up in a violent climate; this is one of the main reasons why his films stand for the exploration of violence. In 1972 he directed Under the Flag o f the Rising Sun, a film about a widow who explores the past of her husband in order to discover who he really was. During her search, she will find four men who met him and can tell her the truth about the events. Kinji Fukasaku’s filmography in general and Under the Flag o f the Rising Sun in particular prove that the wound of the war was still open in the 1970s in Japan since it was a frequent topic throughout this period.

Furthermore, as it was previously stated, the content of films tended to be more explicit, especially in regard to violence and sex. The film In the Realm o f the Senses (Ai no korlda, , 1976) exemplifies how the trend in pink films goes from soft­ core pornography into much more explicit images, portraying in this particular case

18 Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S George “Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble” (1). (London, GB: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) Page 142

19 Michael H Gibbs “Framing Film: The History and Art of Cinema: Film and Political Culture in Postwar Japan”.( New York, US: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2012) Page 80 14

scenes of actors having real sex, one of the main reasons why this film has been extremely controversial throughout history. In the Realm o f the Senses is the story of Sada Abe and her husband Kichizo. The couple starts to experiment with new ways of having sex until they lock themselves away in an inn and engage in frenzied sex with tragic consequences. The sexual escapades are set against Japan’s modernization project in the mid-1930s—which included militaristic and colonial enterprises. More than forty years after In the Realm o f the Senses came out, it still stands out as one of the best examples of erotic and transgressive film in world cinema in general and in Japanese cinema in particular.

Since the film came out in 1976 there has been an extended debate if In the Realm o f the Senses can be considered pornographic or not. Some reviewers considered the film obscene, a concept that director Nagisa Oshima examines, pointing out the following ideas:

The concept of “” is tested when we dare to look at something that we desire to see but have forbidden ourselves to look at. When we feel that everything has been revealed, “obscenity” disappears and there is certain liberation. When that which one had wanted to see isn’t sufficiently revealed, however, the taboo remains. ... Pornographic films are thus a testing ground for “obscenity,” and the benefits of pornography are clear. Pornographic cinema should be authorized, immediately and completely. Only thus can “obscenity” be rendered essentially meaningless.20

While highlighting the concept of obscenity and its consequences, Nagisa Oshima is pointing out one of the main attributes of extreme cinema; especially the fact that there is certain liberation in breaking the rules and taboos. In other words, the viewers fulfill a while watching porn, or for the purposes of this essay, while watching films with

20 Nagisa Oshima, “Theory of Experimental ”. 1976 15

extreme violent content also known as extreme cinema, being ‘affect’ an element attached to this fantasy or to these taboos.

However, it is important to differentiate here the concept of obscenity and its relation with extreme cinema, which is not the same meaning that it implies in the film In the Realm o f the Senses. As Aaron Kemer and Jonathan Knapp note, “in extreme cinema the exhibition of sexually explicit content might elicit from the spectator something other than arousal ... sexually explicit content in extreme cinema might be more likely to elicit disgust.”21 In this sense, Nagisa Oshima creates a film that arouses the viewers throughout ninety minutes, to conclude with a scene of castration, surrounded by sexually explicit content that produce different sensations than arousal.

Since In the Realm o f the Senses came out in 1976, there has been a long debate to conclude if this film can be considered pornographic or not. As a matter of fact, the movie is still banned in Japan for its explicit contents. In the article, “In the Realm of the Senses: Some Notes on Oshima and Pornography,” film scholar justifies why this film cannot be considered pornographic. He states that, “In pornographic films, the intent is to sexually inflame the viewer.” Richie adds, “Most porn narratives are quite empty,” and it is abundantly evident that In the Realm o f the Senses does have a narrative. Richie also affirms that, “In pornographic film ... sexual activity is done only for the camera and the solitary viewer” and at the same time in porn “actors [tend to] be objectified, even dehumanized, so that they can be more used, more objectified by the viewer.”22 Taking into account Richie’s words, Oshima’s film cannot be considered pornographic; it is a movie that develops the concept of pink films into a new level, and by extension extreme cinema, and breaks boundaries and taboos like never before.

21 Aaron Michael Kerner and Jonathan L. Knapp, “Extreme Cinema: Affective Strategies in Transnational Media” Edinburgh University Press, (July 2016) Page 130

22 Donald Richie, ‘in the Realm of senses, some notes on Oshima and Pornography in Viewing Film” “Taurus, 2009” 16

However, if we consider the way Nagisa Oshima presents the film, it comes closer to pornography than Donald Richie contends: the close-ups of the genitals in scenes of or the fact that the actors had real sex while they were shooting the film, opens again this debate. Furthermore, if we take into account Linda Williams’s theory of the body genres, based on the involuntary bodily response of the viewers while watching In the Realm o f the Senses, it is somehow clear that this film tends to arouse them, more than any other reaction. Nevertheless, Oshima’s films contributes for the purposes of the essay, being a good example of how throughout the 1970s content is much more explicit, pointing out a clear evolution on the pink film movement and how women are represented in this decade.

In addition to its transgressive and provocative contents, In the Realm o f the Senses depicts the ideas of misogyny and phallocentric worldview. As notes, “Although Sada is clearly positioned as an active desiring subject, as with her counterparts in hard/core pornography, her desire is structured to overvalue the penis as the sole source of her pleasure.” This particular fact leads to question the figure of the woman in Japanese films and how they have been depicted throughout history.

Additionally, In the Realm o f the Senses literally highlights the idea of woman as a castrating instrument, which is intrinsically connected with the idea of misogyny previously stated. The idea of castration was also explored in other films such as Lady Snowblood (Shurayukihime) directed by Toshiya Fujita in 1973. This film is based on the comic book written by Kazuo Koike.

Indeed, while during the 1960s literature was one of the main tools and inspirations for filmmakers to create films, in the 1970s and the , manga comic books became one of the main sources of stories and plots. One of the main reasons why

23 Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer “Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts”. (Abingdon, Oxon, US: Routledge, 2007). Page 224 17

Manga continues to be advantageous for filmmakers is because it shares some affinities with film, since the creation of movement is one of the main tools for both. As Robert S. Petersen notes, “Post- World War II mangaka (manga artist) were more interested than their predecessors in exploring cinematic styles that captured actions and characters.”24

Lady Snow’blood is the story of Yuki Kashima, a girl raised to become an instrument of revenge and murder the four assassins that killed her family before she was born. In the spirit of manga, director Toshiya Fujita uses exaggeration as one of the main tools in this film: when the main character cuts with her blade (hidden inside her umbrella) the arms or the legs of her enemies; blood comes out of the bodies like a fountain of water. This exaggeration detracts from the credibility of the violence of the film; once more, the way violence is presented is inherently connected with its affective charge. However, Lady Snowblood is explicit and violent, and it represents a clear example of how violence and blood onscreen are now more explicit than they were in previous decades. The exaggerated violence, the masculine behavior of the feminine protagonist and the depiction of sadism emphasize the spectacle of the film, especially if we keep in mind that Lady Snowblood comes from the world of manga, in which exaggeration contributes in the creation of an illustrated story.

Another film that exemplifies and highlights how woman’s roles change in the 1970s is Female Tale: Inquisition and Torture (Yasagure anego den: sokatsu rinchi) directed by Ishii Teruo in 1973. In this movie, Ishii puts emphasis on women’s bodies, continuing the trends of the Japanese pink films. Female Yakuza Tale, which shares similarities with Lady Snowblood, is the story of a woman named Ocho, played by actress Reiko Ike. This characters moves to Kobe seeking a new life, but one night she is kidnapped by a gang who tie her up and violently assault her. When Ocho wakes up, she starts an investigation in order to find out who assaulted her and take her revenge. Her

24 Robert S Petersen “Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives”. (Westport, US: Greenwood, 2010) Page 173 18

search will lead her to a mafia that uses women as drug carriers who transport heroin from in their vaginas.

Once again, woman is presented in this film as an instrument of revenge and as a source of pleasure. Throughout the film, there are numerous images and depictions of naked woman, going with the idea previously stated of “independent sexplotation” in pink films. Hence, Female Yakuza Tale shares many similarities with Lady Snowblood, but Ishii’s film goes to a next level, mixing violence with naked women, in the spirit of the Ero-Guro and the pink film movement. Furthermore, Female Yakuza Tale depicts woman as a mere object that can be used to carry drugs or as a source of pleasure. In addition, it is important to note here the idea of film, a genre that has been well-known in Japan historically.

The Yakuza genre shares some similarities with American Gangster films. One of the common characteristics in both genres is that they were made by men and targeted for men; Ishii’s Female Yakuza Tale makes a break with the preconceived conventions of this genre though by placing female characters in the lead role, but at the same time reinforces the notion that woman represents an object to be looked at, like Toshiya Fujita does in Lady Snow’blood. Whether it is Yakuza films featuring women, soft-core Pink Films, or more explicit films (such as In the Realm o f the Senses) the sadistic treatment of the female form is a central element of Japanese Extreme Cinema in the 1970s. 4. The Decade of the 80s

Throughout the 1980s Japan experienced a technological revolution that changed the previous conceptions of entertainment in society. As Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S George note, “From the 1980s onward, Japan grew steadily in prominence as a mecca for postmodern culture, most notably in such areas as fashion and visual arts (manga,

25 John Berra “Directory of World Cinema: Japan” Bristol, GB: Intellect Ltd., 2010. Page 249 19

) and in the articulation of a distinctive style of cultural consumption (i.e., otaku culture).”26

Historians affirm that it is during 1980 when Japan reinforces itself into a capitalist society, especially taking into account that the technological revolution contributed tremendously to the development of the economy. But on the other hand, and even though the 1980s represent a decade of progress, it was in the 1990s when the Japanese economic bubble collapses, giving birth to the Lost Decade “a time of one-party democracy under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that ruled Japan as a partner of the bureaucracy and big business in what is known as Japan, Inc. or the Iron Triangle. It was also a time when the long shadows of wartime deprivation and dislocation shaped a national consensus prioritizing stability, security, and policies aimed at minimizing risk.”27

Furthermore, during the 1980s, manga and anime became extremely popular, not only in Japan, but also in North America and some European countries. Osuma Tezuka, Takao Saito, and Rumiko Takahasi, among others, are manga-writers whose stories became popular and, in numerous cases, were adapted into films and TV shows or anime, that were, and still are, one of the main sources of entertainment in Japan. As Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano notes, “Since the 1980s, anime crossed the boundaries between Japanese and global markets due to its capacity for modification on levels of both text and media. It is easily redubbed and reedited to make it more universal, and it was highly mobile in

26 Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S George “Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble” (1). (London, GB: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) Page 145 27 Jeff Kingston, “Blackwell History of the Contemporary World: Contemporary Japan: History, Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s”. Hoboken, GB: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Page 3 20

the form of ... Anime has characteristics that are culturally specific due to its jerky movement, typical of limited techniques.”

The significance of manga in Japanese culture cannot be understated—and the graphic violence of these comic books can be found in films in the Eighties. Throughout this decade, there is an important rebirth of the Ero-Guro movement; according to Jasper Shard, “from 1980 onward, [Ero-Guro] has been commonly used in connection with underground works featuring overt depictions of sex, violence and grotesquerie such us the films Entrails o f a Beautiful Woman (Bijo No Harawata, 1986), and Entrails of a Virgin (Shojo no Harawata, 1986) directed by Komizo Kazuo under the pseudonym of Gaira; the horror manga of artist such us Hino Hideshi and their adaptations.”

As a matter of fact, Hideshi Hino is a good example of a manga writer who also worked in film during the 1980s, emphasizing in his work violence as one of the key elements of his stories. In Hino’s works, his character’s bodies always end up transformed into grotesque creatures or bizarre with malformed limbs. This particular fact represents one of the key elements of extreme cinema in general; in this genre, characters frequently suffer a transformation in their bodies after a torturing process that will physically change them.

In Hino’s stories malformed creatures, wild animals, and grotesque humans try to find their place in the world ruled by “‘normal’ people.” As Rajyashree Pandey notes in the article, “Medieval Genealogies of Manga and Anime Horror,” “These horror manga draw on narratives from Japan’s past, which envisage the world of nonhumans as being

28 Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano “J-Horror: New Media’s impact on Contemporary Cinema” in Horror to the Extreme, Changing boundaries in Asian Cinema Jinhee Choi, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano eds. University Press (2009) Page 30 29 Jasper Shard “Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema” Scarecrow Press, 2011. Page 61 21

not radically different from our own.”30 Panday explains this genealogy in Hino’s works in relation with the bodies as it follows:

In Hideshi Hino’s manga, as in Western horror films, the sense of terror comes precisely from this border crossing the grotesque transformation of a boy into a killer bug, the appropriation of the mother’s breast by a foul rat, the birth of a monstrous child to a normal mother, and so on. And yet, as I have argued, the worldview that allows for containment and closure in Hino’s manga deviates significantly from that which informs horror narratives in the West.31

Hino’s conception of horror and the transformation in human bodies is essential to understand his contribution to the origins of extreme cinema. Furthermore, in Hino’s stories, violence cannot be separated from the action, because it is an inherent element in the story. In his contribution to the horror genre in general and extreme cinema in particular, Hideshi Hino directed in 1988 the film Mermaid in the Manhole, a title that belongs to the Guinea Pig series, a group of films in which violence, torture, malformed people or bizarre elements represent the essential keys that conduct the plot.

Hino’s Mermaid in the Manhole features a painter who accidentally finds a mermaid in the sewers of his city. This man takes the unexpected mermaid to his house and puts her in the bathtub, hoping that she will represent his main source of inspiration. However, as time goes by, the mermaid starts developing pustules and malformations on her skin. When eruptions and wounds cover the mermaid’s body, the painter kills her in order to finish with her suffering and proceeds to dismember her body. The main element

30 Rajyashree Pandey “Medieval Genealogies of Manga and Anime Horror” in Mark W. MacWilliams, Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime. Armonk, GB: Routledge, 2008. Page 227

31 Ibid, page 231 22

that director Hino emphasizes in the film is violence; hence, brutality and sadism represent a prominent feature of the film. To do so this filmmaker uses extreme close-ups in order to show to the viewers the wounds and the pustules of the mermaid and how they bleed when the painter cuts them.

As mentioned earlier, Mermaid in the Manhole belongs to a films series called The Guinea Pig Films. This saga is constituted by six films in which filmmakers (Hino being one of the main directors and producers of this series) emphasizing cruelty, violent behavior and bodies in pain. The first title of this series is Devil’s Experiment (Satoru Ogura, 1985), a film about a group of men who kidnap a woman and torture her until she dies. For the brutality of its images, its explicit content and the way the film is shot, with very undeveloped techniques, it was once rumored that Devil’s Experiment was a . Even though the Guinea Pig film series is typically ignored in the history of Japanese cinema, the series nonetheless demonstrates that in the 1980s extreme violence in movies was now more accepted than it was in the previous decades.

Going on with the idea of extreme and graphic violence, which usually constitutes one of the main attributes of extreme cinema as we describe it today, throughout the 1980s another director that helps to rebirth the Ero-Guro movement is . This filmmaker, like others who begin to flourish in the 1980s, was very influenced by the stories written by Edogawa Rampo and also by the films of Teruo Ishii, whose personal style and techniques made Tsukamoto realize that “it’s okay to make films freely the way [filmmakers] like”32. Hence, Tsukamoto expresses himself through film with no restrictions and gives a new perspective to the Ero-Guro movement. Tetsuo: the Iron Man is one of the most representative films of this filmmaker and also a movie that marks a clear evolution of the New Japanese Extremity.

Tetsuo tells the story of a man who murders the metal fetishist, a character that is played by Tsukamoto whose name is credited this way. Progressively, the main character

32 Shinya Tsumamoto in the documentary “Malformed Memories”, Outcast Cinema, 2007. Min 9:00 23

of the film will turn into a grotesque creature made of metal, which is the revenge from the metal fetishist who, at the end of the film, will incite the protagonist to turn the world into a place ruled by metal. Tetsuo: the Iron Man serves as the perfect example of how the Ero-Guro movement and Japanese Extreme Cinema evolved in the 1980s since its origins and its early stage in the decade of the 1960s: On the one hand, this film explicitly presents erotic elements like the main character’s penis turned into a grotesque power drill, linking here the concepts erotic and grotesque; on the other, Tsukamoto shows here how technology, industry or electronic devices can represent the source of fear, anticipating a wave of films that flourished in the decade of the 1990s in which cell phones, or computers were the cursed elements that caused dead to the characters. Hence, apart from showing explicit violence, Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: the Iron Man points out new topics and trends in Japanese Extreme Cinema and also in the horror genre, demonstrating that this genre will evolve in different ways.

Furthermore, in Tetsuo Tsukamoto exaggerates the narrative by using continuous noises of drills and metal, fast motion and rapid montage, in other words, the filmmaker plays with the form of the film to create a non-conventional product that breaks boundaries and conventions in the horror genre. Going on with the idea previously stated of how manga was a major source of inspiration for filmmakers, Tsukamoto’s film career is also influenced by another of the most important forms of entertainment in Japan: Videogames. As a matter of fact, instead of “the end,” when the film reaches its end, the audience can read, “Game Over,” the classic sentence that players experience when they lose in a game. Therefore, Tetsuo: the Iron Man opens up new ways of how Extreme Cinema can evolve in the next decade, a film that “distilled the extremes of violence and lust on the screen with such obsessive detail and unbridled directness.”33

Industrial and technological developments are topics that Japanese filmmakers frequently use in horror films at the end of the eighties and throughout the 1990s. As

33 John Berra “Directory of World Cinema: Japan” Bristol, GB: Intellect Ltd., 2010, Page 53 24

Mitsuya Wada-Marciano notes, technology represents the main element that constructs the narrative in films like Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998), or Kairo (, 2001), which continues the trends previously pointed out by Tsukamoto in Tetsuo:

The Ring accurately follows the original’s use of technology as a medium for the horrific. The indispensable gadgets of urban life such as televisions, , cell phones, surveillance, cameras, computers, and the augment the anxious reality that J-Horror films produce. Various J-Horror films, including Ringu and the Ju-on series, play with the conceit of that technological fluency. ... Ringu’s sense of the horrific derives from the idea that a course is disseminated through trans-media such us Sadako crawling out of a television [or] a notice of death via telephone.34

To summarize, throughout the 1980s and 1990s Japanese Extreme Cinema reaches its stage of maturity leaving behind the implicit and contained violence showed in Gate o f Flesh, to give room to new narrative ways to show this concept, like The Guinea Pig film series.

34 Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano “J-Horror: New Media’s impact on Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema” in Horror to the Extreme, Changing boundaries in Asian Cinema Jinhee Choi, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano eds. Hong Kong University Press (2009) Page 20 25

Conclusions

Extreme cinema negotiates film form rather than narrative. For this reason, extreme films tend to produce an affective response in the audience; these reactions are inherently attached with how the material is presented to the audience rather than the narrative itself. In point of fact, while watching a film belonging to the horror genre, viewers expect elements such as violence, blood, torture, sadism or bodies in pain; and since there is already an expectation it’s not simply the content that prompts an audience’s reaction, but rather it is dependent on how these elements are presented.

Let me then end with some speculative conclusions on the origins of Japanese Extreme Cinema, and in the process attempt to tie some of the points that I have made together. France, Japan, and the United States represent the three main countries where Extreme Cinema has been widely produced. However, countries have had different historical circumstances, situations and their societies cannot be compared because they involve different customs, traditions, habits, and languages. In Japan’s case, I would suggest that the extreme films analyzed and explored in this essay are rooted in the wounds of World War II; this conflict led the country into catastrophic conditions, in which the precarious situation compelled filmmakers and artists to negotiate what was happening in Japan. Think for instance of both Suzuki and Fukasaku—both personally touched by the violence of the Second World War. Given the cathartic potential of filmmaking, it seems only natural that filmmakers would use it as an instrument that contributes to the general healing process in Japan’s postwar situation. It is quite understandable that new trends and new ways of filmmaking would flourish in Japan after World War II; filmmakers could no longer make movies as they used to in the decades before the war. Japan experienced traumatic violence, it is perhaps to be expected that films would reflect this fact. 26

Hino and Ishii, were also touched by the Second World War. While Ishii took aerial photographs for Japanese bombing runs in Manchuria, Hino’s family was a part of the larger colonial enterprise in China. On numerous occasions Hino (who was bom in China) recounts the experience of his family making a hasty escape from China. Tsukamoto (born in 1960) is perhaps responding less to the horrors of the Second World War directly, and rather to the films made by those who had been. Though it is interesting to note that Tsukamoto’s last project Nobi (Fires on the Plain) is an adaptation of a famous novel set in the South Pacific—where a band of Japanese soldiers in the latter part of the war are compelled to cannibalize one another in order to stay alive. I have surveyed three decades of extreme cinema in Japan from a variety of genres (Yakuza, Horror, Pink Films, Ero-Guro), but the common thread that appears to hold these films together is the exhibition of intense violence (often inflected with eroticism). The intensity of this violence, I speculate, stems from the experience of the Second World War. 27

Bibliography

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Choi, Jinhee and Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo. Horror to the Extreme, Changing boundaries in Asian Cinema. Hong Kong University Press, 2009.

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Gerteis, Christopher, and George, Timothy S. Japan Since 1945: From Postwar to Post- Bubble. London, GB: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012.

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Richie, Donald. In the Realm o f senses, some notes on Oshima and Pornography in Viewing Film. Taurus, 2009. 28

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Filmography

A Wonderful Sunday [Subarashiki nichiyobi], Akira Kurosawa, 1947, 108 min

A Woman called SadaAbe [.Jitsuroku SadaAbe], , 1975, 76 min

Audition, Takashi Miike, 1999, 115 min

Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku, 2000, 114 min

Confessions [Kokuhaku], TetsuyaNakashima, 2010, 106 min

Devil’s Experiment [Akuma no Jikken], Satoru Oruga, 1985, 45 min

Embryo Hunts in Secret, The [Taiji ga mitsuryo suru toki], Wakamatsu Koji, 1966 72 min

Entrails o f a Beautiful Woman [Bijo No Harawata], Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu, 1986, 68 min

Entrails o f a Virgin [Shojo no Harawata], Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu, 1986, 72 min

Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture [Yasagure anego den: sokatsu rinchi], Teruo Ishii, 1973, 86 min

Flesh Market [Nikutai no Ichiba], Satoru Kobayashi, 1962, 49 min

Gate o f flesh [Nikutai no mon], Suzuki Seijun, 1964, 90 min

Harakiri [Seppuku] Masaki Kobayashi 1962, 133 min

Helter Skelter [Heruta sukeruta], Mika Ninagawa, 2012, 127 min

Horrors of Malformed men [Edogawa Rampo Zenshu Kyofu Kikei Ningen], Teruo Ishii, 1969, 99 min 30

Ichi the Killer, Takashi Miike, 2001, 129 min

In the Realm o f the Senses [Ai no korida], Nagisa Oshima, 1976, 104 min

Kairo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001, 118 min

Lady Snow’blood [Shurayukihime], Toshiya Fujita, 1973, 97 min

Red Beard [Akahige], Akira Kurosawa, 1965, 180 min

Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky, 2000, 102 min

Ringu, Hideo Nakata, 1998, 96 min

Martyrs, Pascal Laugier, 2008, 97 min

Mermaid in the Manhole [Manhoru no naka no ningyo], Hideshi Hino, 1988

Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927, 153 min

Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau, 1922, 91 min.

Stray Dog [Nora Inu], Akira Kurosawa, 1949, 122 min

Sword o f Doom, The [Dai-bosatsu tdge\, Kihachi Okamoto, 1966, 119 min

Tetsuo: the Lron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989, 67 min

Under the Flag o f the Rising Sun [Gunki hatameku motoni], Kinji Fukasaku, 1972, 96 min

Woman in the Dunes [Suna no onna], Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964, 122 min

Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa, 1961, 110 min