Pink 50th Birthday and Re: Top 32 Nikkatsu Roman Porno

[Jasper Sharp]

> Jasper, do you remember any specific comments from the audience about
> the Wife to Be Sacrificed screening that you would be willing to share
> here?
> 
There was a very good attendance for it, I do remember that, around 90-100 people, and a surprisingly varied audience of couples (of varying ages), young guys, groups or pairs of college-age girls, the usual solitary BFI veteran viewer - quite a typical BFI audience, and the fact it was so busy and it was november, so everyone had brought piles of coats, scarves that sat at their feet throughout the screening, meant that everyone was fairly wedged in against their neighbours. It was a very British reaction to the onscreen perversion in fact - no one made a noise during the screening, and filed out in deathly silence, undoubtedly waiting to get out of earshot of their fellow viewers before exploding with embarrassment, indignant anger or disbelief. So very difficult to gauge an overall response, although I did notice later a blog posting from someone complaining that the BFI were wasting tax payers money on such "rubbish". Oh, and when I did the Q&A for Masao Adachi's GUSHING PRAYER, one older audience member complained that the BFI had marketed the season has "erotic classics from Japan", while the film was neither erotic nor classic. I think he might have been missing the point somewhat. Other films went down a lot better, including Kumashiro's WOODS ARE WET.
Actually the Eurospace programme does seem to contain a lot of the usual suspects of Roman Porno retros, the same films by Kumashiro, Tanaka, Sone, and Konuma that often get trotted out on such occasions, and indeed were trotted out by myself for the BFI season - from my side, this was because these were the only subtitled prints available. It's very difficult to encapsulate the full range of the almost-1000 strong Roman Porno back catalogue, so the Eurospace is a bit of a missed opportunity. Those unable to make it to Tokyo for the season might be interested to learn that Synapse Films are releasing a lot of the "lesser" Roman Porno films on DVD in the US, for which I've been providing liner notes. They might not be the classics of the genre, but there's some interesting films there, nonetheless.
Thanks also for the info on the 50th anniversary of pink cinema - I did see a tweet about this today in fact.As Mike suggests, the pink film industry is not exactly in peak form at the moment, with Shintoho and Kokuei now no longer producing. Okura is now the main player, and the US company Pink Eiga have now moved to distributing this companies work overseas.Cine Pathos also seems a bit of a comedown for the annual Pink Taisho awards compared with Shin-Bungeiza, where I saw the awards in 2003.One indeed wonders whether the pink film has the ability to limp on for another couple of years or not,.







> The Eurospace Roman Porno program looks exciting, even if it is missing
> a few of my favorites. The timing is puzzling though. 2012 may be the
> 100th anniversary of Nikkatsu's first film, but Roman Porno didn't start
> until 1971. I think most or all of the titles on this list are currently
> available on DVD too.
> 
> 2012 is also the 50th anniversary of the first so-called Pink Film,
> Kobayashi Satoru's Nikutai no ichiba, which was released Feb. 27 1962.
> 
> The new Ueno Okura theater has planned a couple of weeks of special
> screenings to celebrate the history of the Pink Film. The most
> interesting looking title in this week's program is Yamamoto Shinya's
> 1974 "Mysteries of the Butt" (Oshiri no shinpi). The Okura staff tweeted
> that Shintoho had to dig up an old 16mm print for the screening, but
> couldn't find any publicity materials or information about the film. (I
> assume they then transferred it to video, since the new Ueno Okura
> doesn't show film prints.)
> 
> http://uenookura.blog108.fc2.com/blog-entry-1246.html
> 
> According to the P.G. website, Cine Pathos in Ginza is planning some
> anniversary screenings in May, but the schedule hasn't been finalized
> yet. Cine Pathos is also set to host the 24th annual Pink Taisho awards
> ceremony on May 13.
> 
> The scale of this event seems to be shrinking in recent years. Cine
> Pathos has three screens, but the biggest room only seats about 175. In
> 2009-2011 the Pink Taisho was at Teatoru Shinjuku (218 seats). For most
> of the 2000s it was at Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (266 seats).
> 
> I suppose this makes sense considering that the industry only put out 43
> new films in 2011 (49 in 2010, 52 in 2009, if I counted correctly). Most
> of those films are from Okura. Only two films from 2011 are Xces, and
> three are Shintoho. The Shintoho films played at Pink theaters, but I
> believe they were all shot on video with sync sound, and I'm not sure if
> they were completed within the usual budget, so it might be a stretch to
> even call them Pink.
> 
> I imagine there will be more Pink-related events in the coming months.
> 
> Michael Arnold
 		 	   		  
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