Imamura Shohei Voyeurism and His Visual Style Imamuras

Imamura Shohei Voyeurism and His Visual Style

Imamura’s Film Style SHOT SIZE • Imamura’s films mainly consist of long and medium shots

Imamura’s Film Style • Occasional close-ups – more impressive • Lower part of the body – sexual desire

Imamura’s Film Style • Natural light in both interior and exterior scenes • Source light - not artificially lit • Lighting in location shooting - shot in available light

Imamura’s Film Style LIGHTING • Effective uses of high contrast of light and shadow - low key lighting

Imamura’s Film Style The Insect Woman (1963) • Shot entirely on location with simultaneous recording → sense of reality and spontaneity

Imamura’s Film Style ‘I decided to give up the convenience of studio shooting and shot The Insect Woman entirely on location. I also abandoned the convenience of post-recording. Actually existing buildings and places were used in this film and dialogue and sound were recoded by wireless microphone. I did not mind if the quality of sound is lousy. I preferred the tension created by the use of wireless microphone, which picked up even the breathing of actors. ’

Imamura’s Film Style ‘Location shooting and simultaneous recording are a lot more painful. However, I was sure that we would find a new filming method different from the one we took for granted. ’ Imamura Shohei Kinema Junpo

Imamura’s Film Style Physical limitations of location shooting • INTERIOR SPACE (positioning of cameras and their manoeuverbility; positioning of lights) • EXTERIOR SPACE (dictated by weather conditions; reality that you cannot alter)

Imamura’s Film Style Limitations of simultaneous recording • Inclusion of unnecessary noises • Higher chances of re-take (time-consuming) • Inarticulate and inaudible dialogues Limitations turned to advantages • Reality effects / tension / spontaneity • Greater realism

Imamura and Voyeurism • Film as a voyeurist or scopophiliac art VOYEURISM • A practice in which an individual gains sexual pleasure from seeing other people who are engaging in sexual acts, without clothes, or dressed in whatever other ways the ‘voyeur’ finds appealing; or from observing other people’s private life.

• Films about voyeurism or peeping • Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) • A wheelchair-bound photographer discovers a woman suddenly disappears from an apartment across from his, while closely watching the activities of the apartment bloc opposite. Imamura and Voyeurism

Imamura and Voyeurism • Imamura’s films are not directly about voyeurism. • They make the way in which a voyeur acts (peeping, recording) into a film style. • A hidden (half-hidden) camera follows characters.

Imamura and Voyeurism • The camera placed outside a room or a house records actions which take place inside. • The camera imitates the way in which we spy or peep - including limitations in sight.

Imamura and Voyeurism • Pigs and Battleships (1961), Insect Woman (1963), Intentions of Murders (1964), Pornographer (1966), A Man Vanishes (1967)

Imamura and Voyeurism • Karayuki-san (1975), Vengeance Is Mine (1979), The Eel (1997), Black Rain (1997) Warm Water under the Bridge (2001) • ‘Voyeuristic’ filming style is particularly clear in these films.

Animal and Insect Images and Men • Frequent insertions of an image of an animal or insect • Equation of animal instinct with human desire; desire for food, survival and regeneration

Animal and Insect Images and Men • Existence which lives to live, eat to live, and copulate to live • Pigs in Pigs and Battleships, insects in Insect Woman, mouse in Intentions of Murder, dead eel in Vengeance Is Mine, snake eating a mouse, mantis eating another mantis in Ballad of Narayama, fish and eel in The Eel

Imamura’s Film Style • • • Opposition and indebtedness to Ozu Orderliness against chaos in film styles Obsession with camera position ‘Pillow shots’ Films after Black Rain - moving towards Ozu