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 Extreme Cinema. 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 films 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 Japan. 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 (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000), Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike 2001), Audition (Takashi Miike, 2001), and more recently Confessions (Tetsuya Nakashima, 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 genre 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, “Film Bodies, Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Linda Williams identifies three body genres: melodrama, horror, and pornography. 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 Darren Aronofsky 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 Teruo Ishii 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