Newcastle: 1960s and 1970s Japanese Experimental Films

A night of experimental Japanese films from the 1960s and 1970s, from filmmaker Motoharu Jonouchi (born 1935).

An insight into a decade that was defined by political ferment and avant-garde activity in all sectors of its art world, this is an introduction to Japanese experimental filmmaking, through the eyes of one of the landmark figures in the independent Japanese art scene.

Five short films will be screened (total length 87min):

Hi-Red Centre Shelter Plan (1964, 19min, 16mm)
WOLS (1965, 19 min, 16mm)
Gewaltopia Trailer (Motoharu Jonouchi, 1968, 12min, 16mm)
Shinjuku Station (Motoharu Jonouchi, 1974, 15min, 16mm)
The Mass Collective Bargaining at Nihon University (1968, 22min, DVD)

Gewaltopia Trailer (Motoharu Jonouchi, 1968, 12min, 16mm)
The title Gewaltopia Trailer has a dual meaning in the Japanese language; one meaning for the word yokoku (trailer) could mean a compilation of extracts to promote a film, but it can also mean a prediction, a prophecy for the future as a Gewaltopia. The film accumulates footage from his earlier films and arranges them in different contexts, a characteristic style of Jonouchi's who often re-edited his films for each screening and provided different soundtracks.

The jarring aural atmosphere, exemplary of the emergent noise-music scene, haunts the screen in an oppressive hypnosis and will seduce you into entrancement.

Shinjuku Station (Motoharu Jonouchi, 1974, 15min, 16mm)
The Shinjuku district was the epicentre of Tokyo's art scene and the political fever pitch where protests took place on a regular basis during the 1960s. Jonouchi's compilation footage of the area defies documentary imagery and transforms itself into something altogether more poetically subjective, attempting to capture the chaos of the location through his camerawork and editing.

WOLS (1965, 19 min, 16mm)
Wols is the pseudonym for a German artist active in the early 20th century, Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, and Jonouchi meticulously filmed nearly fifty of his paintings to construct this cine-collage. The result is reminiscent of Alain Resnais' rendition of Pablo Picasso's Guernica, as both filmed interpretations refuse to provide the viewer with a full picture of the paintings, instead fragmenting and splintering the frame.

Hi-Red Centre Shelter Plan (1964, 19min, 16mm)
Hi-Red Centre were comprised of Genpei Akasegawa, Natsuyuki Nakanishi and Jiro Takamatsu, who enacted 'happening'-style performance art in unusual spaces during the early 1960s in Japan. The film is an extremely rare document of one of their early events, where they hired out a room in the Imperial Hotel and invited many friends and professionals in the art scene to participate in the occasion.

The performance parodies Cold War fears and the construction of private bomb-shelters, as they diligently measure each guest’s weight and proportions in pretence that they are to build human-size shelters for each individual.

Key figures of the art scene make an appearance, including Yoko Ono, video-artist Nam June Paik, noise artist Yasunori Tone, filmmaker Masao Adachi and graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo. A rarely seen and exceptional insight into the Japanese art scene of the era, Jonouchi records the event in his characteristically erratic style.

The Mass Collective Bargaining at Nihon University (1968, 22min, DVD)
The late 1960s saw Japan in a fever pitch of political agitation where student protests were a frequent occurrence. A somewhat timely insight into radical protest and mass meetings from almost half a century ago, the film reveals the aftermath of protests and shares extremely rare footage of mass meetings that were held at universities.

Motoharu Jonouchi was one of the leaders of the Nihon University Film Studies Club and the legendary VAN Film Research Centre where artists enacted cross-disciplinary collaborations to explore the art of film.

Jonouchi, also the assistant director on Hiroshi Teshigahara's feature-debut Pitfall (1962), picked up his camera to record artistic events, such as 'happening' art by Hi-Red Centre in Hi-Red Centre Shelter Plan (1964) and butoh dance in Hijikata Tatsumi (1967), as well as socio-political protests in Mass Collective Bargaining at Nihon University (1968) and the emergence of drug experimentation in Document LSD (1962).

Yet what was most remarkable about Jonouchi was his ability to integrate his personal vision into his documentation, creating a concoction of personal and collective, imaginary and tangible spaces.

"In their meticulous assemblage of individual shots of different spaces imbued with the symbolic significance of political confrontation, [Jonouchi's films] rejected the theatrics of spectacle, instead establishing a radical materialism of spaces in both structure and methodology." - Jonathan Hall

The films will be introduced by a specilist of independent Japanese cinema, Julian Ross, coming all the way from Leeds especially for tonight!

Julian Ross is a PhD student at the Centre for World Cinemas, University of Leeds, researching Japanese independent cinema of the 1960s and their interactions with other arts. He is a freelance film programmer, for which his recent projects include Takahiko Iimura's UK Tour and Motoharu Jonouchi's touring programme. He is a commissioning editor for Vertigo magazine (re-launching online) and a contributor to the online blog Director's Notes and Intellect's Directory of World Cinema: Japan (2010).

This event programmed with the support of Zipangu Fest, and will be held on Saturday 15th January 2011, 7:30 pm at the Star and Shadow Cinema Star CIC, Stepney Bank, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 2NP. For more information, visit the website (http://www.starandshadow.org.uk/on/film/746).