Imamura Shohei Voyeurism and His Visual Style. Imamura’s Film Style SHOT SIZE Imamura’s films...
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Transcript of Imamura Shohei Voyeurism and His Visual Style. Imamura’s Film Style SHOT SIZE Imamura’s films...
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.
Imamura and Voyeurism
• 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’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