Post on 16-Dec-2015
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