More reflections on pink films and other popular genres

[drainer@mpinet.net]

That's the great thing about Japan, you can always find shelter in movie 
theaters, internet cafes, karaoke booths, izakayas, saunas, all night 
events, the list goes on.


-d


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Larson" <peter_larson2000 at yahoo.com>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: More reflections on pink films and other popular genres


> "If the catch is the thrill of watching audiovisual
> representations of certain kinds of sexual activities,
> is a handful of poorly-acted, dubbed, simulated sex
> scenes worth a 1800 yen triple feature when you could
> go to Tsutaya and rent three hardcore videos with real
> sex scenes (or at least more convincing fake sex
> scenes) and sync sound to watch in privacy for half
> the price"
>
> I always looked at them as an overpriced homeless
> shelter when I would miss my train. Often I would ask
> myself if they were making these movies as some sort
> of community service to give people a place to go in
> the middle of the night. While i was always excited to
> be there just because I like movies, folks around me
> would often be sleeping.
>
> --- M Arnold <ma_iku at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Happy New Year everybody.
>>
>> I wanted to return very briefly to last month's
>> conversation on pink films.
>>
>> Aaron Gerow may be right that my drinking partner
>> person posed a rather
>> disingenuous question. This person himself is a
>> Japanese researcher who's
>> interested in pink film, and I know he understands
>> the motives of foreign
>> pink film researchers better than he was letting on.
>> The non-Japanese pink
>> film researchers we both know are all very careful
>> to look at the broader
>> picture and bring industry, spectatorship, and other
>> issues into
>> consideration. Nonetheless, he did seem to be
>> concerned with the kind of
>> images of Japan foreign critics and researchers may
>> be constructing through
>> their work. At any rate, I don't want to take his
>> question more seriously
>> than it was intended to be, as this was all in the
>> context of a casual
>> conversation at a Shinjuku bar late at night, but it
>> did get me thinking.
>>
>> I believe one point he was trying to make was close
>> to the issue Aaron
>> raised about the problems in the auteurist approach
>> (especially as
>> justification for an interest in pink). Essentially,
>> is that a productive
>> way to observe the pink film _genre_? Why focus on
>> pink when there are
>> presumably more profitable ways for auteurist
>> filmmakers to succeed?
>> Certainly we have our Zezes and our Satos, but
>> they're few and far between.
>> Most pink films don't warrant that kind of
>> attention. (On the other hand,
>> does the auteurism model fit with an image of pink
>> cinema-as-art cinema that
>> studios themselves are consciously trying to
>> produce? Drinking with pink
>> people recently, I keep overhearing comments about
>> Kokuei's conscious
>> attempts to create the image of an auteurist cinema
>> . . . ) Another part of
>> the problem is that the work of the auteurs is
>> usually what lasts over the
>> years, so when you want to go digging through
>> archives to research pink
>> film, Wakamatsus and Zezes are the first things
>> you'll find. The "average"
>> films are much harder to dig up.
>>
>> I admit, my interest in pink film started from an
>> auteurist angle when I
>> read about interesting directors from some Western
>> scholars and people like
>> Yomota Inuhiko, who tied certain pink directors into
>> political issues,
>> although now that I've seen more uneven work from
>> the auteurs as well as a
>> jumble of other titles recently, that's starting to
>> change. I need to take a
>> closer look at the critical discourse on pink film
>> in Japan too--I'm not
>> sure that Japanese critical writing on pink is
>> biased towards auteurism to
>> begin with.
>>
>> After experiencing the wonderful world of Japanese
>> pink theaters a few times
>> in recent months too, I'm stumped to understand how
>> this genre manages to
>> exist. If the catch is the thrill of watching
>> audiovisual representations of
>> certain kinds of sexual activities, is a handful of
>> poorly-acted, dubbed,
>> simulated sex scenes worth a 1800 yen triple feature
>> when you could go to
>> Tsutaya and rent three hardcore videos with real sex
>> scenes (or at least
>> more convincing fake sex scenes) and sync sound to
>> watch in privacy for half
>> the price? Some say that pink theaters are still
>> dangerous "deai no ba"
>> where lonely men go to look for 'action' (according
>> to an acquaintance who
>> went a few weeks ago, the Shinjuku Kokusai Gekijo is
>> still quite busy on
>> weekend nights), but I'm sure there are any number
>> of ways to find that kind
>> of attention in Tokyo these days. Are people just
>> looking for a dark, quiet
>> theater where they can drink, smoke, and kill an
>> afternoon or evening
>> without worrying about the staff throwing them out
>> after each screening? Is
>> anyone even watching the movies?
>>
>> I'm coming back to this discussion now because I
>> enjoyed a couple of
>> pink-related events in December that kept my
>> attention on such questions.
>> After Meike's "Hanai Sachiko" film finished its run
>> at Pole Pole, his
>> "Bitter Sweet" played for two weeks. I went out to
>> see the film for the
>> first time since viewing it at the stinky Kokusai
>> Gekijo last year, and was
>> surprised that my initial positive reaction wasn't
>> far off. The general
>> response among people I spoke to was that "Bitter
>> Sweet" was a much better
>> film than "Hanai Sachiko" (at least the extended
>> director's cut of Hanai
>> Sachiko), and I agree. It completely lacks the
>> comedy and political angle of
>> the earlier film, but makes up for it with a
>> narrative that makes sense
>> without being overly simplistic, effectively subtle
>> direction, and acting
>> that is--excuse me for saying this--outstanding for
>> a pink film. At times I
>> almost thought it reminded me of Cassavetes or Suwa
>> Nobuhiro. The only part
>> I couldn't swallow was Sano Kazuhiro's ridiculous
>> wig at the beginning of
>> the movie. I hope Bitter Sweet has a shot at
>> overseas screenings as well.
>>
>> I also had the opportunity to observe the shoot of a
>> new pink film from
>> start to finish during the winter break. It was very
>> educational to watch a
>> crew and cast of about seven each put together a 60+
>> minute feature film in
>> four days. This is a "gay pink" film and has
>> slightly over the standard pink
>> budget (3,500,000 yen is what I was told), but the
>> budgetary limitations
>> were immediately apparent. The main staff was made
>> up of director, two or
>> three assistant directors, cameraman and two
>> assistant cameramen (who also
>> did the lighting). Costume and sometimes
>> transportation were the actors'
>> responsibilities, and one of the actors helped out
>> with everyone's makeup.
>> Lunch and dinner were cheap nori bento. Shooting was
>> done at a handful of
>> locations--one rented "studio" (basically a big
>> apartment in Tokyo), two
>> small bars, one stretch of road and small shrine two
>> hours from Tokyo on the
>> Chiba coast, and a road by a Tokyo park (a few
>> permit-less guerilla shots on
>> the last night of shooting). Of course no sound was
>> recorded. There was only
>> one take per shot with no retakes at all as far as I
>> saw. Most of the shots
>> were fixed, with a few handheld and pan shots, one
>> shot from a moving car,
>> and (at least) one makeshift tracking shot that was
>> abandoned after a couple
>> of tests. Apparently the director hadn't really
>> planned things out
>> beforehand, and the cameraman was figuring out the
>> angles and cuts as he
>> went along. The opening and closing credits were
>> created on a computer, and
>> then the camera filmed the monitor as they played
>> back. Nonetheless, the
>> whole thing was shot on a real Arriflex with 35mm
>> film and Zeiss lenses.
>> Perhaps this is obvious, but the crew spent much
>> more time and effort
>> (=money) shooting the sex scenes than they did
>> shooting the non-sex scenes.
>>
>> The various devices and optical tricks used during
>> one karami scene was a
>> fascinating lesson in itself. Of course the actors
>> were covered up with
>> maebari (the usual combination of gauze and tape to
>> conceal their private
>> parts), but when the time came for one to 'perform'
>> fellatio on another,
>> apparently a fist and bobbing head wasn't convincing
>> enough. One of the
>> assistant directors colored the top of actor A's
>> tan-colored maebari with a
>> black marker pen (pubic hair), taped a worn-out pink
>> dildo to the front, and
>> then tucked that all under the actor's underwear, to
>> be later 'revealed'
>> during the shot by actor B. What realism! At the end
>> of
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