Oshima compilation documentary

Yeh Yueh Yu yyyeh at hkbu.edu.hk
Mon Jan 18 06:05:17 EST 1999


> Subject: re: introductory textbooks
> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 08:15:36 +0900
> From: jmhall at gol.com (Jonathan Mark Hall)
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> 
> On the subject of textbooks, I wonder if anyone has used the 52 minute
> Oshima Nagisa-directed documentary /100 Years of Japanese Cinema/ from the
> BFI's Century of Cinema Series in a classroom setting?  I'm thinking of
> using the first day of class--while students are still "shopping" (to use
> that horrible metaphor).
> 
> I used it for a class of American EALC students from Hawai'i, but they were pretty bored.  The problem was that I was using a Japanese broadcast copy, with no subtitles, and I had to stop it from time to time to explain what Oshima was saying.  (They especially appreciated the cute commercials.) They perked up a little on seeing the bit from 'Cruel Stories of Youth' (a prolonged clip in which a boy throws a girl into the waters of Tokyo Bay, then refuses to pull her back up until she agrees to submit).  They were also intrigued w/ Oshima's statement that Nikkatsu's Roman-poruno films from the 60s (or is it pinku-eiga? Wasureta.) represents the third golden age of Japanese cinema.  Trouble is, these kids had little idea of what he meant, and there was little elaboration or examples from Oshima.  I think he was only trying to provoke--although he followed up pretty well in 1976 . . . .
Maybe if you coupled Oshima's doc. w/ some clips from 'Realm of the
Senses', you might have better luck pulling in students who are
shopping?
Sex always sells (Oshima knew that).

Could anyone on this list tell me how to get a subtitled copy of this
documentary?  I've tried BFI, to no avail.

Darrell Davis
Hong Kong


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