Pleasures of the Flesh Written and Directed by Nagisa Oshima Japan, 1965 Nagisa Oshima became well known for the sexually provocative In the Realm of the Senses and how he tortured David Bowie as a British POW during World War II in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, but Oshima also came to be known as The …
That director Shohei Imamura’s 1963 film, The Insect Woman, can be found in a Criterion Collection box-set called “Pigs, Pimps & Prostitutes” should do more than hint at the content and themes of his work.
There are many names that come to mind when one looks back at the Japanese New Wave era: Nagisa Oshima, Koreyoshi Kurahara, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda, and many, many more. The movement truly began with the adaptation of Shintaro Ishihara’s novel Crazed Fruit, released with the same name by director Ko Nakahira in his 1956 …
There comes a point in each country’s film history when the filmmakers seem to collectively create a cultural and formal renaissance of film at the same time. Out comes a film movement that cinematically defines the country’s culture, and iconography emerges from those films that go on to influence future filmmakers. The Japanese New Wave …