Description
Book SynopsisIn the 1960s, Suzuki Seijun met with modest success in directing popular movies about yakuza gangsters and mild exploitation films featuring prostitutes and teenage rebels. In this book, Peter Yacavone argues that Suzuki became an unlikely cinematic rebel and, with hindsight, one of the most important voices in the global cinema of the 1960s.
Trade Review“Fans, aficionados and, yes, even scholars will treasure this long-awaited study of the work of one of Japan’s greatest, and most wonderfully eccentric, directors. Yacavone demonstrates the startling originality of Suzuki’s cinema and continuity of his vision—a genuine auteur study that does not ignore other factors, like genre, industry, and social context.”—David Desser, Emeritus University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
“This is an excellent, passionate study that illuminates Suzuki’s work in its broad features as well as its nuances and striking idiosyncrasies. Yacavone develops an analytic template that he terms the ‘Suzuki Difference’ which deals with the manifold ways that Suzuki challenged, subverted, undercut, and blithely disregarded the norms of professional studio filmmaking that bound most other filmmakers in the period.”—Stephen Prince, Virginia Tech
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- A Note on the Text and Translations Throughout this Book
- Chapter 1. The Recusant
- Chapter 2. The Dog (Rajo to kenjū, Ankokugai no bijo, Kagenaki koe, Kaikyō chi ni somete, Kutabare gurentai, Tokyo kishitai, Subete ge kurutteru, Akutarō, Toge wo wataru wakai kaze, Akutarō-den: warui hoshi shita demo)
- Chapter 3. The Mirror (Yajū no seishun, Tantei Jimusho 2-3: Kutabare akutō-domo, Kemono no nemuri)
- Chapter 4. The Tattoo (Kanto mushuku, Oretachi no chi ga yurusanai, Hana to doto, Irezumi ichidai)
- Chapter 5. The Flesh (Nikutai no mon, Shunpuden, Kawachi karumen)
- Chapter 6. The Break (Tokyo nagaremono, Kenka erejii, Sandanjū no otoko, Mikkō 0-Rain, 13-go taihisen yori sono gosōsha wo nerae)
- Chapter 7. The Hinge (Koroshi no rakuin, Pisutoru opera)
- Chapter 8. The Double (Zigeunerweisen, Kagerō-za, Yumeji, Hishū monogatari, Rupan sansei: Babiron no ōgon no densetsu)
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Appendix: A Complete Filmography of Suzuki Seijun, Director
