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- Convenor:
-
Johan Nordström
(Tsuru University)
Send message to Convenor
- Section:
- Media Studies
- Sessions:
- Thursday 26 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel engage with specific Nikkatsu Roman Porno cinematic texts, performing close readings while at the same time situating them in their historical context, critically examining their form and function, both as sexually transgressive art and exploitational commodity.
Long Abstract:
2021 will mark the 50th anniversary since Nikkatsu launched their "Roman Porno" series (from the French word 'roman' for 'novel' and the English word 'porno'), a generic name for the soft-core pornographic films originally produced by the studio from 1971 to 1988. Nikkatsu turned to the production of Roman Porno as a way to tap into the commercial potential of films focusing on adult themes, female screen nudity and sexual exploitation.
Unlike other studios that dabbled in sexploitation film production, at Nikktsu sex film quickly became the dominant mode of production, and its vibrant output came to traverse multiple genres, all the while continuing to focus on sex, violence, S&M and romance. Famous for their comparatively high production value, compared to independent sexploitation films, the Nikkatsu Roman Porno quickly captured the attention of the general public as well as that of the critics from venerable film publications like Kinema Junpō, where several titles ranked highly in the annual best ten.
While being vehicles of both exploitation and transgression, Nikkatsu Roman Porno constitutes a rich field for studying representations of sexuality, the intersection between sex and power/politics, as well as the historical contexts of the Japanese film industry in the 1970s to 1980s. Each presenter in this panel engage with specific Nikkatsu Roman Porno cinematic texts, performing close readings while at the same time situating them in their historical context, critically examining their form and function, both as sexually transgressive art and exploitational commodity.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 26 August, 2021, -Mio Hatokai (Waseda University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses Kumashiro Tatsumi's Woman with Red Hair. It attempts to challenge the film's reputation as being feminist by addressing misogynistic elements found in the film text. It also traces Kumashiro's career as a director and situates Woman with Red Hair as a crucial turning point.
Paper long abstract:
The subject of this paper is Kumashiro Tatsumi's Nikkatsu Roman-Porno film, Woman with Red Hair ("Akai kami no onna," 1979). Widely regarded as an auteur representative of Roman-Porno, Kumashiro also has a reputation as a filmmaker who excels in depicting women. On many occasions, critics have even labeled his work as "feminist" for its focus on strong-willed female characters, and Woman with Red Hair, one of the most-acclaimed films of his as well as Roman-Porno's, has often been regarded as a typical feminist oeuvre of Kumashiro.
This paper, however, aims to challenge such existing discourses through close reading of the film text and paratexts. Adapted from Nakagami Kenji's short story "Red Hair" ("Akagami"), the screenplay of Woman with Red Hair was written by Arai Haruhiko. Though the finished film is fairly faithful to the original story, it exhibits misogynistic tendencies that distinguishes itself from both Nakagami's story and Arai's screenplay. Through detailed analysis of a number of crucial sequences, this paper addresses misogynistic elements found in the film text and attempts to establish Woman with Red Hair as a "man's film." It is a "man's film" not only in the sense it is designed to appeal to a (heterosexual) male audience, but also in the sense that women in the narrative exist for the sake of catering for the needs of male characters and of male viewers.
To this day, Kumashiro is remembered as one of the most important figures of Roman-Porno. Academically, however, there has been virtually no attempt to throw light on his entire career as a director. Therefore, in conclusion, this paper traces common thematic threads in Kumashiro's films and further points out that Woman with Red Hair marked a turning point in his career.
Johan Nordström (Tsuru University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper critically examines the form and function of the early Nikkatsu Roman Porno films marketed as "Sweden Porno" (Suêden Poruno). Produced by Nikkatsu and filmed on location in Sweden with an all Swedish cast, these films came to capitalize domestically on the exoticism of the "Swedish sin".
Paper long abstract:
The frank depictions of nudity and sexuality in Swedish films such as "One Summer of Happiness" (Arne Mattsson, 1951) and "Summer with Monika" (Ingmar Bergman, 1953), helped to cement Sweden's sexual reputation internationally, and the epithet "the Swedish sin" became an internationally known phenomenon after US president Eisenhower in 1960 famously claimed in a speech that "sin, nudity, drunkenness and suicide" in Sweden were due to welfare policy excess.
In Japan, the concept of the "Swedish sin" was thriving during the 1960s and 1970s, and during a few years in the early days of Nikkatsu Roman Porno production the studio produced several films under the moniker "Sweden Porno" (Suêden Poruno). With titles such as "Sweden Porno: Desire First Sex Experience", "Sweden Porno: Forest of Beastly Desire", "Sweden Porno: Blonde Animal", "Sweden Porno: Sex Beast's Agony", "Drops of Honey" and "Inn of Perverted Beasts", these films were shot on location in Sweden with a Swedish cast, yet production, script and direction was done by an all Japanese staff.
This presentation critically through close readings and contextualization examines the form and function of the films marketed as "Sweden Porno" (Suêden Poruno), and how these films came to capitalize domestically in Japan on the exoticism of the "Swedish sin" and how the idea of the sexualized Swedish woman and man came to be inflected for a Japanese audiences sensibility.
Miyoko Shimura (Nihon university)
Paper short abstract:
A critical analysis of how director Urayama Kirio adapted Yoshiyuki Junnosuke's famous novel Anshitsu into a celebrated Nikkatsu Roman Porno feature film. In the adaptation, as in the book, its frank depictions of sexuality become a means to explore deeper issues of solitude and despair.
Paper long abstract:
The Nikkatsu Roman Porno film Anshitsu/Dark Room was released in 1983 to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Film Studio Nikkatsu.. It also marked a return to the studio for director Urayama Kirio, famous for his sensitive 1962 debut film Foundry Town/Kyupora no aru machi, after a 14 year break. Dark Room was based on the book by Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, published in 1970 with the same title, and considered to be one of his representative works. Through its unfettered view of the sexual life of its male middle aged writer protagonist, the novel explores deeper questions relating to the meaning of life. Depicting a world of various compositions of sex and sensuality, its dissection of the true essence of desire becomes an abstraction for the depths of solitude, so characteristic of Yoshiyuki's literary work. The "dark room" of the title is an allegory for the womb, however, in the film version it becomes uniquely expressed through the diaphragm of the lens.
This presentation will utilize theoretical structures from adaptation theory to elucidate how director Urayama Kirio came to adapt the novel and direct his first pornographic film, focusing especially on the main protagonists solitude and the films elaborate visual representation of the "dark room".