In memory of masanobu Nakamura
From Ghost of Memories (1997).
This May, CCJ welcomes back Akihiro Suzuki of Art Saloon to commemorate filmmaker Masanobu Nakamura, who passed away in March. In addition to our program for CCJ Members, Suzuki has programmed a special online screening, accruing some of Nakamura’s most notable works from various stages of his career.
The program will be available for viewing on CCJ’s viewing platform. $12 for non-members; $10 for members.
This Members Viewing program is supported, in part, by a grant from the Toshiba International Foundation.
Nakamura made his final film, Ghost of Memories, in 1997, some 25 years ago. His body of work is indicative of what Suzuki in the following introduction refers to as 'personal film': an inward-looking style of filmmaking that prioritised individual subjectivity above all. Nakamura himself identified the idea at the heart of his work as 'freedom,’ a kind of process or exercise that governed the outcome of his films. In the four works in this program, we see the free human imagination at work, as it moves through its repertory of memories and inventions.
'Personal film' was a unique moment in experimental cinema, distinct from what came before it, and from what would come after. These films strayed from the political commitment that characterised much of 1960s filmmaking, and turned instead toward intimate subject matter and self-examination. Some well-known examples of this personal turn are Shigeko Kubota's "video diary" series, Ko Nakajima's My Life (1971-2014), and documentarist Kazuo Hara's Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974. The increasing availability of portable recording media like 8mm and video made this work possible.
Unlike these artists, however, Nakamura's personal films dealt with darker and more fantastical themes, and were also more committed to formal experimentation with the film medium in particular. The staggering range of techniques showcased by this program, from re-shooting, to flicker, to in-camera editing, show a fascination with film's capacity to convey the ‘personal’ in its complexity and opacity.
Now that we are almost universally both able and encouraged to document our own lives, it is difficult to grasp today the radical nature of free expression that gave personal filmmaking its power in the pre-digital era. In this way, Nakamura's works remain a truly singular testimony.
PROGRAM: In Memory of Masanobu Nakamura
ANOTHER LIFE, 1976, 12min
Commemorative Photo (記念写真), 1978, 3min
SNAKE SOUP, 1981, 20min
Ghost of Memories (記憶の亡霊), 1997, 27min
Introduction by Akihiro Suzuki
Masanobu Nakamura, a unique figure among Japanese experimental and independent filmmakers, died on March 21, 2023. Between 1969 and 1997, he produced 46 short and feature-length films. His works, created using experimental techniques such as reshooting, repetition, and multiple exposures, overflow with his distinctive fetishism, eroticism, and humor, unleashing visions of worlds in which the everyday and the fantastic intertwine. Employing a style unfettered by convention, always searching for new approaches and perfecting his works as embodiments of his own interests and desires, his oeuvre can be seen as the ultimate in independent filmmaking, carrying on the legacy of freedom unlocked by the underground cinema movement. A truly anarchic artist, despite creating highly technically accomplished and expressive films he never made filmmaking his profession, nor did he aspire to success as an artist, but simply “shot films for the love of shooting.”
For this memorial screening, we have selected works that showcase the diverse range of approaches and the singularity of the world that Masanobu Nakamura presented. For Nakamura, who suddenly began making films with an 8mm camera resembling a child’s plaything and never studied film theory or technique, cinema was a series of discoveries and inventions. Techniques arrived at by chance gave rise to innovative expression and took shape as works of art, as if Nakamura’s practice was his own private reimagining of cinematic history.
His Another Life transforms a small room into a daemonic fantasy realm through extensive use of reshooting, multiple exposures, motion control, and repetition. While it is Nakamura’s best known and most frequently screened film, its technique of reshooting was one he accidentally discovered while attempting to make a copy of an 8mm blue film. The inspiration for production of Commemorative Photo, a time-lapse animation made with still photographs, was a walking doll called “Margaret-chan” that he also found by chance. Meticulously calculating the number of photographs and the manner in which they would move to create the 100-foot work, he edited it entirely in-camera with no post-production, with results that display astounding precision and technical prowess. In Snake Soup, his trademark repetition technique and variety of moving-image materials convey hints of a mysterious and transgressive narrative. The textures of desire and death stirring within the tableau-like arrangements of figures embody the underlying tone that pervades Nakamura’s films. Ghost of Memories, his final work, is a mixture of footage evoking fukeiron (the “theory of landscape”) which he began shooting on video in the 1990s, personal movies , and memories of past films. The Japanese suburban landscape of the late 1990s, shot on Hi8 video, echoes the filmmaker’s inner emptiness and sorrow, which is heightened by the strange picture quality and rough, quick-cut editing. The dismantled 8mm camera and the split screen appearing at the end of the film speak eloquently of his will to part ways with filmmaking.
A complete picture of Masanobu Nakamura has never been revealed, and this screening merely offers an opportunity to get acquainted with this extraordinary and gifted filmmaker. Nakamura described his own world of moving images, in which disparate elements chaotically coexist outside the framework of experimental and independent films, as “a joke made in earnest,” and it is one of pure peculiarity and fascination. The title of Nakamura’s first film was Disorder, fitting for a creator for whom filmmaking was “a playground where he could exercise his indecent sensibilities.” Surely this kind of escape valve is what creative expression is all about. Nakamura stated, “When I watched one of my finished films, I always found bizarre things that went beyond my intentions. Eventually I stopped finding those things, and that is why I stopped shooting films.” However, when lying ill in a hospital bed, he expressed his desire to make a new film: “If only I had a little more time...” Perhaps, in that moment, he longed to return to that “playground” once more.
Our hope is that this program will encourage a wider audiences to discover and enjoy the films of Masanobu Nakamura in the future.
Translated by Colin Smith
日本の実験映画・個人映画の中でも異色の存在として、唯一無二の映像作品を作り続けた映像作家・中村雅信が2023年3月21日に逝去した。1969年から1997年にかけて短編長編合わせて46本の作品を制作。再撮影、反復、複数の映像素材の混入など、実験的な手法を駆使して生み出される作品は、独自のフェティシズムとエロスとユーモアに溢れ、日常と幻想が混じり合う世界を作り上げていた。常識に捉われず、常に新しい手法を模索し、自らの興味と欲望を映像作品として完成させるその創作スタイルは、アンダーグラウンド映画が生み出した映画の自由を継承するものであり、個人映画の究極の形だったといえる。そして、高度な技術と表現力を持った作品を作りながら、映像制作を職業にすることもなく、アーティストとして成功するという野心も持たず、ただ〝面白いから撮る〟という姿勢を貫いた彼は、真の自由でアナーキーな表現者だった。
今回の追悼上映では、中村雅信作品の表現手法の多様性と、描き出される世界の独自性を観ていただける作品を選定した。映画の理論も撮影の技術も学ぶことなく、おもちゃのような8㎜カメラでいきなり映画を作り始めた彼にとって、映画は発見と発明の連続だった。偶然発見した技法によって新しい表現が生まれ、作品として形になる。それは、自ら新しい映画史を創造してゆくような行為だったのかも知れない。
『ANOTHER LIFE』は、再撮影の手法を駆使し、多重露光、モーション・コントロール、反復などによって、小さな部屋をデーモニッシュな幻想空間に変える。最もよく上映される中村の代表作だが、再撮影という手法は、8㎜のブルーフィルムのコピーを作ろうとして発見したものだった。『記念写真』は、スチール写真を使ったコマ撮りのアニメーション作品だが、作品作りの決定打になったのは偶然見つけた歩行人形の〝マーガレットちゃん〟だった。100フィートの作品を作るために写真の枚数や動かし方を緻密に計算したこの作品は、全てがカメラ内で編集されていて、後から行った編集はない。その精度と技術力は驚異的だ。『SNAKE SOUP』では、トレードマークとも言うべき反復と多様な映像マテリアルが、ミステリアスで犯罪的な物語の気配を浮かび上がらせる。タブローのような人物たちの内面にうごめく欲望と死の感触。それは、中村雅信作品の通底音として常に流れているものである。『記憶の亡霊』は中村の最後の作品。90年代からビデオで作りはじめた〝風景論〟的な映像とパーソナル・ムービー、過去のフィルム作品の記憶が交錯する。Hi8ビデオで撮影された90年代後半の日本の都市郊外の風景は、作家の内面にある空虚や哀しみと呼応し、独特の画質と短く荒々しい編集がそれを増長している。最後に登場する解体された8mmカメラと2分割された画面が、決別の意志を感じさせて心に迫る。
中村雅信の全貌はまだ見えない。今回の特集は、この異能の映像作家を発見するきっかけにしか過ぎない。実験映画や個人映画という枠からはみ出し、様々な要素が混沌として存在するその映像世界は、本人曰く「真面目に行った冗談」であり、単純に奇妙で面白くもある。中村雅信が最初に作った映画のタイトルは『猥雑（Disorder)』だが、彼にとって映画とは〝猥雑な感覚を解放できる遊び場〟だったのだろう。そして、表現とは本来そういうものなのだ。「出来上がった映画を観ると、いつも自分の意図を超えた異様なものを発見する。映画を撮らなくなったのは、それがなくなったからだ」と中村は語っていた。だが、病院の病床で「もう少し時間があればな…」と新作への意欲もみせていたという。また、あの〝遊び場〟に帰りたかったのかも知れない。
このプログラムをきっかけに、今後、より多くの観客が、中村雅信の映画を発見し、楽しんでくれることを望んでいる。
（Akihiro Suzuki/Art Saloon)
ANOTHER LIFE, 1976, 12min
Another Life transforms a small room into a daemonic fantasy realm through extensive use of reshooting, multiple exposures, motion control, and repetition. While it is Nakamura’s best known and most frequently screened film, its technique of reshooting was one he accidentally discovered while attempting to make a copy of an 8mm blue film.
Commemorative Photo (記念写真), 1978, 3min
The inspiration for production of Commemorative Photo, a time-lapse animation made with still photographs, was a walking doll called “Margaret-chan” that he also found by chance. Meticulously calculating the number of photographs and the manner in which they would move to create the 100-foot work, he edited it entirely in-camera with no post-production, with results that display astounding precision and technical prowess.
SNAKE SOUP, 1981, 20min
Nakamura’s trademark repetition technique and variety of moving-image materials convey hints of a mysterious and transgressive narrative. The textures of desire and death stirring within the tableau-like arrangements of figures embody the underlying tone that pervades Nakamura’s films.
Ghost of Memories (記憶の亡霊), 1997, 27min
His final work, this is mixture of footage evoking fukeiron (the “theory of landscape”) which he began shooting on video in the 1990s, personal movies , and memories of past films. The Japanese suburban landscape of the late 1990s, shot on Hi8 video, echoes the filmmaker’s inner emptiness and sorrow, which is heightened by the strange picture quality and rough, quick-cut editing.
Masanobu Nakamura was born in Shizuoka in 1949. After joining a film society at his university he spontaneously purchased an 8mm camera, and completed his first film, Disorder (1969), without any filmmaking expertise, learning by doing. Another Life (1976), which employs the technique of re-shooting filmed images on screen, was highly praised by Toshio Matsumoto and others, and he gained attention as an innovative new presence in experimental film.
He participated in the 100 Feet Film Festival, showing the 16mm works Bizarre Disease 1 (1977) and Commemorative Photo (1978). Takahiko Iimura arranged for Nakamura’s Summer is Gone (1978) to be screened overseas.
In the 1980s, Nakamura prolifically released experimental and provocative 16mm films. In 1985 he made Preview using a home video camera, and went on to make other films in various formats including 8mm, 16mm, and video. After premiering the controversial 142-minute For the Films That Are To Be Buried Alive (1989), which blends 8mm and 16mm, he began exploring new modes of landscape theory. He created works dealing with landscape and memory using 8mm film and Hi8 video, concluding with The Ghost of Memories (1997).
AKIHIRO SUZUKI
Born in 1961, Akihiro Suzuki is a producer and filmmaker who predominantly works in the field of underground culture-related projects, and has directed, distributed, produced, and organized film festivals and screenings. He is also the director of S.I.G. Inc., and the underground online cinematheque, Art Saloon. Representative directorial works include Looking for an Angel (1999), Lunar Child (2009) and Artaud Double (2013), a film of the performance by Masahiko Akuta and Ko Murobushi. Production projects include I Like You, I Like You Very Much (directed by Hiroyuki Oki) and Syabondama Elegy (directed by Ian Kerkhof). Film festival projects include the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Underground Archives, among others.
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