Imamura Shohei

Voyeurism and His Visual Style

Imamura’s Film Style

SHOT SIZE• Imamura’s films predominantly consist of long

and medium shots; hardly any close- and no extreme-close ups.

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

COMPOSITION

• Preference not to use elaborate and artful images and design

• Camera position - fixed around the waist level of characters - symbolic positioning (lower part of human body)

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 / sense of tension /

spontaneity

Imamura and Voyeurism• Film as a form of voyeurist

or scopophiliac art

VOYEURISM• A practice in which an indi

vidual derives sexual pleasure from observing other people. Such people may be engaged in sexual acts, or be nude or in underwear, or dressed in whatever other way the "voyeur" finds appealing.

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

• Michael Powell and Emeric Presburger’s Peeping Tom (1960)

• About a young man who murders women while using a portable movie camera recording the expressions of the dying victims.

Imamura and Voyeurism

• Other films on voyeurism or scopophiliac behaviour

• Krzysztof Kielowski’ A Short Film about Love

• Jacques Rivette, Celine and Jule Go Boating

Imamura and Voyeurism

• Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape• Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow up

Imamura and Voyeurism

• Peter Weir’s Truman Show

• David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

• Sam Mendes’ American Beauty

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

A camera placed outside records actions which take place inside.

• The camera records actions from outside the room• The camera imitates the way in which human

eyes look - including limitations in sight.

Imamura and Voyeurism

• 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)

• ‘Voyeuristic’ filming style is particularly clear in these films.

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