Imamura Shohei

Imamura Shohei

Voyeurism and His Visual Style

Imamura’s Film Style

SHOT SIZE• Imamura’s films mainly consist of long and

medium shots


• Occasional close-ups – more impressive• Lower part of the body – sexual desire


• Natural light in both interior and exterior scenes• Source light - not artificially lit• Lighting in location shooting - shot in available

light


LIGHTING• Effective uses of high contrast of light and

shadow - low key lighting


The Insect Woman (1963) • Shot entirely on location with simultaneous

recording → sense of reality and spontaneity


‘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.’


‘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


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)


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 artVOYEURISM

• 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’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.


• 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.


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


• 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


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

Imamura Shohei

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