Event: Adachi Masao films at NYU

[sharon hayashi]

CINEMA & REVOLUTION

A SCREENING OF MASAO ADACHI?S WORK

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P R O G R A M

Introduction by Go Hirasawa

?Aka. Serial Killer?1969

?Red Army/PFLP: The Declaration of World War?1971

An Omnibus made from various works by Adachi

Talk by Takashi Sakai

Public Discussion

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November 19th, at 2:00 PM ? Free Admission

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THE DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

715 Broadway, 3rd Floor, Room 312

Sponsored by The Department of East Asian Studies at NYU

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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

A B O U T T H E D I R E C TO R

M A S A O A D A C H I

Born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1939. Entered the Film Studies Program in the 
Fine Art Department at Nihon University in 1959. Adachi took part in 
restructuring the Nihon University Film Study Group ? a leading group 
not only within the field of student films but in Japan?s experimental 
film at large ? and made such acclaimed films as ?Wan [Bowl]? (61) and 
?Sa-in [Blocked Vagina]? (63). At the same time, in association with 
the VAN Institute for Cinematic Science, he collaborated with such 
diverse range of artists as Genpei Akasegawa, Takehisa Kosugi, Yasunao 
Tone, Yoko Ono, and Sho Kazekura and organized a one-time screening 
event of ?Sa-in? entitled ?Sa-in no Gi [The Ceremony of Blocked 
Vagina]?. After participating in the Film Independent, collective 
screenings of independent filmmakers? works, Adachi joined Wakamatsu 
Production, led by Koji Wakamatsu, whose ?A Secrete Affair Behind the 
Wall [Kabe no nakano Hiji]?(67), notwithstanding its being categorized 
as ?pink film,? was selected for the Berlin Film Festival and caused an 
enormous controversy. During this period, Adachi wrote numerous scripts 
for Wakamatsu?s best known films including ?When a Fetus Poaches [Taiji 
ga Mitsuryo-suru Toki]?(66), ?A Dark History of Violence in Japan: The 
Blood of a Pervert [Nihon Boryoku Ankoku-shi: Ijosha no Chi]? (67), 
?Thoughts on Run-away Lovers? Suicide [Kyoso Joshi-ko]? (69), ?Sex 
Jack?(70); meanwhile, he also made his own films beginning from 
?Abortion [Datai ]?(66) continuing to ?The Birth Control Revolution 
[Hinin Kakumei]? (66), ?Sex Zone [Sei Chitai]? (68), ?Sex Play [Sei 
Yugi]?(68), ?Female Student Guerillas [Jogakusei Guerilla]? (69), A 
Woman in Revolt/A Phantasmagoric hell [Hanjo/Mugen Jigoku] (70), and 
?Prayer of Ejaculation/A 15 Year Old Prostitute [Funshutsu Kigan/ 
15-sai no Baishunfu]? (70). Meanwhile, he independently produced ?The 
Galaxy [Gingakei]? (67), and played a role in ?The Death By Hanging 
[Koshukei]? (68) and ?Three Resurrected Drunkards [Kaette-kita 
Yopparai]? (1968) by Nagisa Oshima; he also worked for Oshima?s 
production company Sozo-sha by writing the script for ?A Diary of 
Shinjuku Thief [Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki]? (68). Finally Adachi 
co-produced ?Aka. Serial Killer,? a film consisting only of scenery 
that serial killer Norio Nagayama must have seen, with Mamoru Sasaki, 
script writer of Sozosha, and Masao Matsuda, an anarchist film critic. 
In 1971, along with Oshima and Wakamatsu, Adachi was invited to 
?Director?s Film Week? at the Cannes Film Festival; on his way back, he 
went to Palestine and produced a trans-border newsreel film, ?The Red 
Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War? (71), co-produced by Japanese Red 
Army members including Fusako Shigenobu and PFLP, and subsequently 
developed the movement of ?the Red Bus Film Screening Troop,? traveling 
around the country and holding nation-wide screening. As an activist, 
Adachi conceived and practiced various theories about film ? concerning 
both cinematic expression and the form of film screening itself. In 
1974 Adachi left Japan and committed himself to the Palestinian 
Revolution and linked up with the Japan Red Army. His activities 
thereafter were not revealed until he was arrested and imprisoned in 
1997 in Lebanon. In 2001 Adachi was extradited to Japan, and after two 
years of imprisonment, he was released and subsequently 
publishedCinema/Revolution[Eiga/Kakumei], an auto-biographical accounts 
of his life up to now, edited by a film critic Go Hirasawa. Currently 
Adachi is preparing a new film entitled ?Thirteenth Month of the Year 
[Jyu-san gatsu]? and working towards constructing a new film theory and 
praxis.

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A K A . S E R I A L K I L L E R

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1969, 86 Minutes, Color, 35 mm

Co-produced by Masao Adachi, Yu Yamazaki, Masaaki Nonomura,

Susumu Iwabuchi, Masao Matsuda, and Mamoru Sasaki.

Music supervision by Hisato Aikura

Music performed by Masahiko Togashi and Mototeru Takagi

Narration by Masao Adachi

*Starting with the narration: ?In the fall of 1968, four murders took 
place in four cities. In all four, the same gun was used. In the spring 
of 1969, a 19 year old boy was arrested. He came to be called a ?serial 
shooting killer [renzoku-shasatsu-ma]?. This film continuously shows 
the landscape that the absent protagonist-killer Norio Nagayama must 
have seen, shooting only the trajectory of Nagayama?s drifts from the 
suburbs of Abashiri City, Hokkaido ? downtown of Abashiri City ? 
Itayanagi ? Hirosaki ? Aomori ? Hakodate ? Itayanagi ? Yamagata ? 
Fukushima ? Itayanagi ? Shibuya ? Yokohama ? Nagoya ? Hong Kong ? 
Yokohama ? Oyama ? Utsunomiya ? Osaka ? Moriguchi ? Haneda ? Kawasaki ? 
Yokosuka ? Kawasaki ? Yodobashi ? Higashinakano ? Ikebukuro ? Sugamo ? 
Odawara ? Atami ? Nagoya ? Osaka ? Kobe ? Yokohama ? Nerima ? 
Nishiogikubo ? Higashinakano ? Itayanagi ? Tokyo ? Nagano ? Yokosuka ? 
Ikebukuro ? Shiba ? Kyoto ? Yokohama ? Ikebukuro ? Hakodate ? Otaru ? 
Sapporo ? Hakodate ? Nagoya ? Yokohama ? Shinjuku ? Nakano ? Yokohama ? 
Harajuku. As an alternative to the previous key term ?situation 
[jokyo]? for approaching the status quo, the theory of ?landscape? (the 
landscape itself as the site of revelation) was developed beginning 
from this film. This idea provoked numerous discussions, involving 
photographers such as Takuma Nakahira.

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RED ARMY/PFLP: THE DECLARATION OF WORLD WAR

1971, 71 minutes, color, 16mm

Co-produced by Wakamatsu Production

Co-edited by Red Army (Red Army Faction of Japan Revolutionary

Communist League) and PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of 
Palestine)

*It was a milestone of film as activism, cinema as movement in Japan?s 
context. Adachi and Wakayama went to Beirut on the way back from the 
Cannes Film Festival. There, in collaboration with the Red Army members 
and PFLP, they produced this newsreel film depicting the everyday 
activities of Arab guerrillas as a cinematic narrative on the world 
revolution. Being a fusion of intense agitation and the ?landscape 
theory? approach inherited from ?Aka. Serial Killer,? the film was 
conceived as a new form of news report, and was discussed in 
synchronicity with J-L Godard?s Dziga Vertov Group and the 
revolutionary films of Latin America, transcending geographical 
distances. In order to negate the conventional idea of a film 
screening, the Red Bus Film Screening Troop was organized and the film 
screening was acted out nation-wide. The English and French subtitled 
versions were produced and the film has been screened internationally, 
including in Palestine. The film is important in the sense that it was 
an embodiment of the collaboration between Japanese filmmakers and 
Palestinians in that era, and also as a historical document of 
Palestine, where constant bombings made it hardly possible for 
Palestinians to possess their own images.

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