Nagisa Oshima: The Man Who Left His Soul on Film

Virtually a crash course on the most important and talented living Japanese filmmaker after Kurosawa and related aspects of contemporary Japanese politics and culture. This superb feature-length documentary made in 1984 by Paul Joyce for England’s Channel Four offers an indispensable look at a fearlessly innovative and political filmmaker who is all but unknown in this country today, thanks to the reluctance of his U.S. distributor to make such vital works as Boy, Death by Hanging, and The Ceremony available on video. Making intelligent use of Anglo-American commentators (writers Donald Richie, Roger Pulvers, and Paul Mayersberg) as well as Oshima himself, this film somehow manages to cover everything in Oshima’s career from his early youth shockers to In The Realm of the Senses and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence–including his fame as a Japanese TV personality (at the outset we see him acting in a commercial for bug spray). Essential viewing. To be shown on three-quarter-inch video. (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Saturday, June 13, 6:00, 443-3737) Read more

Dirk Bogarde: By Myself

A must-see for Dirk Bogarde fans, and highly recommended to anyone who wants to hear an intelligent actor speak at length. This two-part British TV documentary by Paul Joyce features a fascinating discussion by Bogarde about his craft, with particularly interesting bits about Visconti’s blocking of his mise en scene to music by Mahler in Death in Venice; how Fassbinder allegedly destroyed Despair in the cutting room; the controversial early handling of a gay theme in Victim; experiences with Judy Garland and Joseph Losey; the Hollywood blacklist; and work with Bertrand Tavernier on Daddy Nostalgia, Bogarde’s farewell film. This riveting interview inspires thoughts on why this country can’t produce documentaries about film that are even a fraction as good (1991). To be shown on three-quarter-inch video. (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Saturday, June 13, 4:00, 443-3737) Read more