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Abstract
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The term Japanese New Wave is used loosely to encompass a number of trends, movements and developments that emerged during the 1960s. Characteristics of these films include a preoccupation with political subject matter, predominantly with a leftist slant, history, cultural identity, youthful rebellion and sexuality, and a more formally experimental, self-reflective style that attempted to reconceive a national cinema within an international context and break from the classical cinema of the past. The first major instance of the term being used was in relation to the filmmakers Shinoda Masahiro, Yoshida Kiju and Oshima Nagisa, at Shochiku studios, who publicly promoted by the studio under brand of the Shochiku Nouvelle Vague, each of them making their debuts while still under that age of 30, in an attempt by the studio to appeal to a new demographic of postwar baby boomers. All three later left Shochiku to produce their work independently, led by Oshima. Other key figures associated with the New Wave include the independent pioneers Teshigahara Hiroshi, Shindô Kaneto and Hani Susumu, documentarists such as the Ogawa Pro collective that formed around Ogawa Shinsuke, the more experimental directors working in the field of the pink film, such as Wakamatsu Koji and Adachi Masao, as well as directors who either hailed from the major studio system and went independent, like Imamura Shôhei, and those that remained within in throughout the period, such as Masumura Yasuzô (at Daiei) and Suzuki Seijun (at Nikkatsu). Central of the development of this alternative cinema in Japan was the involvement of the Art Theatre Guild (ATG), founded in 1961, and the fortunes of the directors associated with the Japanese New Wave were closely linked to the fortunes of this exhibition, distribution and production organization.
Film: Cruel Story of Youth, Nagisa Oshima
Jasper Sharp is a White Rose PhD student at Sheffield and York, as part of the Mixed Cinema Network. He is also an independent researcher, freelance writer and curator based in the United Kingdom, and the co-editor of the specialist Japanese cinema website Midnight Eye. Book publications include The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003), joint-written with Tom Mes, Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (2008) and the forthcoming Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema. His writing on film has appeared in a number of publications all over the world, including Sight and Sound, Variety, Japan Times, Film International and 3d World, and he has contributed liner notes, commentaries and interviews to numerous Japanese film releases. As well as curating the Japanese program of London’s Raindance Film Festival and advising for the Japan Foundation UK’s annual touring program since 2005, he has curated seasons at the British Film Institute, the Deutches Filmmuseum, the Cinematheque Quebecois and Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
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