criterionforum.org

Yume Pictures: Oshima Nagisa DVDs

stephan73 wrote:According to the catalogue (in their Kisses DVD), they will release three more Bunuel titles (Daughter Of Deceit, Illusion Travels By Streetcar and River And Death).. Also they will release five titles by Nagisa Oshima (Violence At High Noon, Pleasures of the Flesh, Naked Youth, Night and Fog in Tokyo and The Sun's Burial)!

This is absolutely *huge* news (and if Koch Lorber's Teorema disc gets its own thread, these certainly deserve the honor). The titles of the films are "Cruel Story of Youth (1960)", "The Sun's Burial (1960)", "Night and Fog in Japan (1960)", "The Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)", and "Violence at Noon (1966)". The latter literally translates as Floating Ghost in Broad Daylight, and is one of my favorite Oshima films. Be sure and check out the Old Films, Oshima Nagisa thread. One hopes his 67 to 72 output isn't far behind.

The Japanese discs of these look great, so hopefully we'll have something to look forward to (apparently Yume know how to transfer NTSC to PAL.)

From Twitch:

Fantastic news this, that Yume Pictures have five films lined up from Nagisa Oshima for 2008 release in the U.K - Violence at High Noon (1966), Pleasures of the Flesh (1965), Naked Youth (1960), Night and Fog in Tokyo (aka 'Night and Fog in Japan‘, 1960), The Sun's Burial (1960) - which will make up for the relative modern or missing representations of his work in the shape of ‘Gohatto' and the hard(ish)-to-find ‘In the Realm of the Senses'. No dates seem set yet, but I have hopes (and have written an email or two) to get my hands on these as soon as possible.

I gave up trying to sort through all the crap at twitch a long time ago, so thanks for the link. Also, for the record, some of these films are available in China with english subs (Cruel Story of Youth and Night and Fog in Japan), which are terrible releases, and three from RARO video in Italy. shirobamba had this to say about them:

Night and Fog:
Recommended for die-hard Oshima fans only.
Once again a non anamorphic, nonprogressive transfer from an analogue master w/ heavy combing and ghosting problems (especially severe in this case, for Oshima´s aesthetic main device were 360 degree lateral pans in this film). In addition the transfer is far too dark, due to contrast boosting..
Only plus of this release are the excellent engl. subs. With them, it now, is possible, for the first time, to follow the complicated relations between the characters.
12 page booklet is okay, but not great.

The same is true for Cruel Youth and Burial of the Sun: all suffer from bad analogue transfers. Save yr money until the real thing comes along.

This is indeed huge news. US rights for these films are still held by New Yorker, so chances are that these are the best English-friendly discs we are likely to see. I too hope that the films of Oshima's most important period (1968-1971) follow shortly thereafter. The fact that most of these films were recently re-released on Japanese discs with new, restored transfers bodes well.

Yes, they're all highly recommended. I haven't seen Pleasures of the Flesh, but there's no reason to assume it's not as good as its reputation. The first two films in the batch grow out of Japanese youth genre films of the era (see Crazed Fruit), but they're superb examples and are already pushing at the boundaries, with a startling vitriol and desperation. Oshima breaks through decisively with Night and Fog in Japan into the technically and politically radical territory he'd explore for years to come, and Violence at Noon (for which the seemingly bizarre literal title is completely appropriate) is a towering masterpiece, with Oshima creating cinema of sprawling complexity and simultaneous scalpel-like intensity.

Sure, I'd love to see the crucial late-60s / early 70s material get a release too, but this will be a great start.

ptmd wrote:This is indeed huge news. US rights for these films are still held by New Yorker, so chances are that these are the best English-friendly discs we are likely to see. I too hope that the films of Oshima's most important period (1968-1971) follow shortly thereafter. The fact that most of these films were recently re-released on Japanese discs with new, restored transfers bodes well.

Actually, my understanding was that New Yorker doesn't own the rights to any Oshima films anymore. TCM recently broadcast a beautiful letterboxed transfer of A CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH from Janus films, so that should be a big fat hint as to who has picked them up. My advice is to wait a little, if you can be patient. Otherwise you'll just end up buying the same films twice, and perhaps sooner than you might think!