Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on a diverse group of Japanese experimental filmmakers who directed their attention to a thorough deconstruction and reexamination of the established cinematic practices in the 70s, abandoning - to a large extent - the ideological imperatives of the previous decade.

Paper long abstract:

After a period of political fervor that sparked a climate of collaborative, "romantic anarchism" in the 60s, experimental film authors of the following decade increasingly gravitated towards a more intimate cinematic expression and a conceptual reexamination of the basic principles of film as media - a sort of a "rediscovery" of the inherent mechanisms of cinema. Although partially resulting from the collapse of the New Left and the disenchantment with the revolutionary potential of art, this paradigm shift did not necessarily signify - as it's is often simplistically interpreted - a complete rejection of politics or resignation. It implied, above all, an abandonment of journalistic appropriation of daily politics in their art and a closer exploration of the complex relationship between the author/artwork/screen/observer - thus opening new possibilities for a critical reexamination of the relationship between an individual and the society as a whole. Leaving aside the broadly discussed avant-garde greats such as Matsumoto Toshio and Iimura Takahiko, this paper focuses on the cinematic practice of a group of experimental authors that received less attention outside of Japan - such as Okuyama Jun'ichi, Kota Isao, Nakai Tsuneo, Kawanaka Nobuhiro, Shuzo Seo and Usui Ranmaru. In some instances engaged primarily with the process of re-photographing and frame-by-frame animation - and in others practicing an almost schismatic deviation from the established approaches towards moving image making, their vitalism was reflected in an unimpeded creation of patterns that alternated between technical innovation and a return to primal immediacy, to an original state of beginning or "new" naming of "old" experiences. And for some authors, the disappointment with the "science of filmmaking" resulted in their shift from extreme positivism and a complete surrender to the possibilities of scientific and technical progress, towards the unrestrained irrationalism that projects all hope for advancement of art into experiment. And that means: a quest for the new - not just as one of the basic attributes of their rhetoric - but as an ultimate dream of integration of art and life.