Politics, Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-Garde Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

Out of the background of war, occupation and the legacies of Japan's post-defeat politics there emerged a dissentient group of avant-garde filmmakers who created a counter-cinema that addressed a newly constituted, politically conscious audience. While there was no formal manifesto for this movement, various key filmmakers (Oshima Nagisa, Imamura Shohei, Yoshida Yoshishige, Hani Susumu, Wakamatsu Kiji, Okamoto Kihachi) experimented with very different conceptions of visual-style. It is possible to identify a sensibility that motivated many of these filmmakers.