Japanese Underground Cinema at University of California Irvine, Thursday & Friday

[Jonathan M. Hall]

The University of California Irvine Film and Video Center Presents:

"CINEMA/MOVEMENT: The Interaction between Artistic and Social Praxis  
in Japanese Filmmaking"

Thursday AND Friday November 29 & 30 - HIB 100
Screenings at 7:00pm both days

www.filmandvideocenter.com
(949) 824-7418
fvc at uci.edu

The FVC will host the West Coast screenings of "Cinema/Movement," a  
program of Japanese underground cinema from the 1960s and 1970s that  
is touring North America this autumn. "Cinema/Movement" is a project  
that seeks to recover and redefine the relationship between  artistic  
and social praxis in postwar Japanese film experiments of the 1960s  
and 1970s, and to examine the legacy and possibilities of this  
filmmaking practice for the present moment. These screenings re- 
examine and re-establish the inseparable link between artistic
experimentation and political movements in the postwar Japanese  
context and trace this connection to the present moment where  
progressive art and activism converge.  The Cinema/Movement series  
has been organized by Sharon Hayashi (York Univeristy) and curated by  
Hirasawa Go (Meiji Gakuin University).

The West Coast Screenings include a special screening on Friday of  
Katoh Yoshihiro's White Hare of Inaba.  A screening of this film had  
been planned initially for the Rajikaru series at the Getty Museum  
but was cancelled due to concern over its content.  We are delighted  
to finally screen this film in Southern California.  Dr. Rika Hiro,  
Research Associate at the Getty Research Institute, will introduce  
the film. The West Coast Screenings of Cinema/ Movement have been  
organized by Jonathan M Hall.


Thursday Program 1: Films by Oe Masanori

Oe Masanori moved to NY after graduating from college in 1966, working
at the Third World film studio with Jonas Mekas, Stan Vanderbeek and
others.  At the same time, he was drawn to the possibilities of the
psychedelic movement through figures such as Timothy Leary.  Meeting
up with Marvin Fishman at Studio M2, he entered film production
beginning with S No. 1, a news footage collage that exposed the
violence of American imperialism.  Head Games blithely follows soap
bubbles blown by the wind at a be-in in Central Park, opposing the
objectivity of recording an event with a more subjective and
psychological approach.  Likewise No Game, Oe's film of the October
21st International Anti-War Day demonstrations at the Pentagon, while
incorporating footage taken from planes of bombings over Vietnam, is
focused much more on the actual experience of participants in the
demonstration. For the psychedelically inspired Salome's Children,
which utilized multiple exposures and extreme close-ups of a woman
dancing to Indian music, Oe attached two strips of 8mm film to a
single 16mm roll, projecting it onto two screens.  As with its title,
Between the Frame concentrated on the space between the images on a
film strip to reveal the author's inner experience.  The Great
Society, made with Fishman, collaged newsreel footage of the Vietnam
War, the psychedelic and civil rights movements, and other events to
depict the America of the 1960s, projecting it in grand style on six
different screens.  The concluding sequence of the testing of the
hydrogen bomb is appropriately overwhelming.

"S No.1," 1967, Japan - 5 minutes - 16mm
"Head Games," 1967, Japan - 10 minutes - 16mm
"No Game," 1967, Japan - 17 minutes - 16mm
"Salome's Children," 1968, Japan - 7 minutes - 16mm
"Between the Frame," 1967, Japan - 10 minutes - 16mm
"Great Society," 1967, Japan - 17 minutes - DVD transfer from multi- 
projection 16mm


Thursday Program 2:  Crazy Love

Okabe Michio began his career in the fine arts.  Inspired by the works
of Kenneth Anger and the American underground, he gravitated towards
filmmaking.  Crazy Love was his second work and the first feature
length underground film in Japan. Eschewing narrative and meaning,
Okabe instead layered the film with the music he liked from the
Beatles and James Brown to Enka and Group Sounds and peopled it with
friends and artists, inserting sequences of performances and
happenings, making it a true document of the Shinjuku underground
scene.  Okabe himself appears recreating his favorite roles from
Bonnie and Clyde to Spaghetti Westerns, as well as incorporating
quotations by inserting stills of Godard, Kennedy's assassination and
the Vietnam War.  Correlated with Susan Sontag's theorization of
kitsch as well as employing the queer lingo of "camp," the film's
relentless equal opportunity pop-art montage shattered the foundations
of conventional cinema, including the experiments of the early 60s,
liberating infinite new possibilities.

"Crazy Love," Directed by Okabe Michio - 1968, Japan - 93 minutes
-16mm (selected clips)

Friday Program 1: Films by Jonouchi Motoharu

Jonouchi was instrumental in the formation and gathering of multiple
artistic and anti-art endeavors including the Nihon University Cinema
Club, VAN film research center, and the Neo-Dadaists, often living and
sharing work space with others to establish a space of creative
exchange.  Hi Red Center Shelter Plan documented the formation of the
Hi Red Center by visual artists Akasegawa Genpei, Nakanishi Natsuyuki
and Takamatsu Jiro as they produced an individual shelter for the
fallout of nuclear war.   Wols is composed of small fragments of shots
by the Informel photographer and painter Wolfgang Otto Schulze
(1913-1951), who called himself Wols.  Gewaltopia Trailer and Shinjuku
Station, part of the Gewaltopia (gewalt=violence+utopia) series, are
both born from the anti-establishment struggles at Nihon University.
In their meticulous assemblage of individual shots of different spaces
imbued with the symbolic significance of political confrontation, they
rejected the theatrics of spectacle, instead establishing a radical
materialism of spaces in both structure and methodology.

"Hi Red Center Shelter Plan," 1964, Japan - 18minutes - 16mm
"Wols," 1964, Japan - 18minutes - 16mm
"Gewaltpia Trailer," 1969, Japan - 13minutes - 16mm
"Shinjuku Station," 1974, Japan - 14minutes - 16mm

Friday Program 2:
"Inaba no shirousagi/White Hare of Inaba" Directed by Kato
Yoshihiro. 1970, Japan - 132 minutes - 16mm and DVD (selected clips)

Cinema/Movement Organization by Sharon HAYASHI, York University
Curation and program notes by HIRASAWA Go, Meiji Gakuin University
Translation of program notes by Phil KAFFEN, New York University
West Coast Screenings Organized by Jonathan M. Hall with Assistance  
from Rika Hiro and the Getty Research Institute


Ticket Prices:
$3 Students w/ ID, $5 General Admission, $4 UCI Staff and Seniors
Series Pass: $25 general/$20 UCI Staff & Seniors/$15 Students
There are no advance ticket sales. Tickets are available in front of
HIB 100 a half hour prior to the screening.

Driving Directions:
 From the 405 or I-5, exit Jamboree and go WEST. Turn LEFT on Campus
Dr. Turn RIGHT onto the UCI Campus at W. Peltason Drive. Turn LEFT
onto Pereira Dr.  From SR73, exit University Dr. and go EAST. Turn
RIGHT on Campus Dr. Turn RIGHT onto the UCI Campus at W. Peltason
Drive. Turn LEFT onto Pereira Dr.
The Pereira/Student Center Parking Structure is the first left on
Pereira Dr. Parking is available for $5. Follow the "Film and Video
Center" pedestrian signs to the bottom floor of the Humanities
Instructional Building.
Downloadable maps are available on the UCI web site:
http://www.uci.edu/campusmaps.shtml

About the Film and Video Center:
The Film and Video Center is UC Irvine and Orange County's premiere
art house cinema, screening new, independent, experimental and
groundbreaking films and videos. The FVC also presents much loved
classic films and lesser known gems. Finally, the FVC co-sponsors film
festivals representing a diverse range of international and
multicultural themes each year. The mission of the FVC is to provide
Orange County and surrounding communities with quality, original works
of art unavailable anywhere else, promote independent film making and
create a culture receptive to new and unique movie-going experiences.

-----
Jonathan M. Hall
Japanese Film, Media, and Modern Literature
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature / Film & Media Studies
University of California Irvine



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