Society In Cruel Story Of Youth Film Studies Essay

Cruel Story of Youth (1960) by Nagisa Oshima presents an image of youth which was unseen in Japanese cinema. Turim describe it as a suggestive symbolically imagery, of foreclosed spaces and sadistic, violent conflict delimiting the desire for human interaction (Turim, 1998, p. 35). This leads us to the question of how far Oshima went in reinventing the image of youth and how far he negotiated the space for youth inside the film and in the industry.

Nagisa Oshima emerged as a filmmaker in the late 1950s, a time when the social landscape of Japan was drastically changing and was highly politicized. His emergence as a young filmmakers goes parallel with the emergence of youth in Japanese films. He, by his provocative politicized topics and involvement of youth and their crisis, consolidated the trend of reflecting contemporary youth. His films as Turim describes:

Oshima’s films represent a running commentary, direct and indirect, on the intellectual and political life of postwar Japan. (Turim, 1998, p. 1)

Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth is a film which deals with identity and identification of youth in post Occupation Japan. The identity crisis which this film treads into had direct implication from the changes in politics and society. The identity of Japanese society was much debated and subsequently remanufactured by various political and societal ideologies. This not only resulted in a tussle in the political sphere but also generated politics over its representation. In both spheres, Oshima was negotiating a space with his depiction of youth in Cruel Story of Youth; he was in a dialogue with society by his ambivalent political remarks as well as with the industry by being intertextual to existing work.

The paper would look into how Oshima through this film was conversing with society in regards with the alienation of youth in the social sphere with a deep sense of identity loss, and with the industry for its representational politics of this displaced youth, simultaneously negotiating space for youth both inside and outside the film.

Cruel Story of Youth:

The story of cruel story of youth is complex and sad. The story is of two young delinquents, Makoto and Kiyoshi in pursuit of their individual life, entering into the series of events involving passion crime and money. The film starts with Kiyoshi rescuing Makoto from a middle aged businessman, only to find this experience a source for earning money as well. The brief romantic, innocent idea of love soon becomes an obsession with crime. In the story many disillusioned characters are appear and with their indifference with Japanese society are depicted as victims of a materialistic pursuit of lifestyle. Protagonists are shown constantly fighting for their space with other character and society in general. And unlike other characters fail to succumb to victim consciousness and in the end through series of disturbing event are dead almost unapologetically. The story is further tormented and complicated by Oshima’s treatment of anti-humanist and nihilistic approach.

The Question of Identity and the Politics of Identity

The question of identity in post-war Japan is a political and social phenomenon which cannot be ignored while examining the Japanese cinema of that time. Cinema which we see in postwar Japan and all the genres it produced resonates one common concern; a concern which stems out of complexity of truth for postwar Japanese society and their democratic freedom under American occupation. The idea of Japaneseness which people were trying to figure out was problematized by the presence of various conflicts; the conflict between modernity and traditional Japaneseness, the conflict of Japaneseness with western values, the conflict between a nationalistic/ patriotic way of existence with a democratic one. These conflicts coincided with each other and had implications for every aspect and section of society, including women and the youth. But was the nuclear defeat the conjuncture which made the idea of Japaneseness confusing and complicated? As Stringer points out that Japan’s entry into the modern world and the subsequent import of western values was not after the defeat and during the occupation, but was an ongoing process which dates back to the Emperor’s regime. However he consolidates the argument that defeat and occupation under General MacArthur provided a kind of break in the life of the Japanese polity. He further elaborates, “Postwar the Japanese began to negotiate the limits of their political community from a position of cultural subjection and disorientation, bounded within the intellectual world of Western liberal and democratic thought.” (Stringer, 1997, p. 135)

The collapse of the Emperor’s organization, coupled with defeat and occupation, put the Japanese society’s patriotic idea of existence into a test, with an overwhelming current of American thought in society, economics and politics. As Stringer suggests that the Hegelian idea of a modern state, which depends upon the idea of patriotic belonging with the state, was tough to realize in the democratic setting of post war Japan. The sudden shift in the idea of existence for the Japanese polity did not actually carry the existing patriotic sentiment which people had with the previous regime, and in the wake of western intellectual dominance, individuals and intellects had to struggle in order to reconfigure their bond with Japan. This identity crisis was pretty much visible in Japanese cinema which came out after the war as the occupation forces tried changing the face of Japanese cinema by bringing in American values into Japanese film. As Richie notes that script writers were instructed not to depict Japanese traditional and feudal customs which were going against the idea of democracy; further they were asked to show society not as it was but as it would be after successful democratization. (Richie, 1990, pp. 41,42, 43)

The post-occupation Japanese polity, left with imported western political and cultural thought, had to push its trajectory towards a liberal democratic turn. The idea of a modern state as Stringer points out is superimposed with the Hegelian ideals of identity, which depends on the presence of the ‘Other’, upon which the identity of the state is realized; however in the Japanese context, this was not easy to achieve. Stringer, further building upon the Hegelian idea of human freedom dependent on the existence of family, civil society and state, which is crucial for its realization, suggests that these ideals for the Hegelian state could be traced back to prewar modern Japanese intellect, although the civil society was largely missing in the family-state arrangement before. However, the post war period under the occupational reform witnessed the immaterialization of the aspirations of the Japanese polity to achieve a Hegelian state. Moreover, reforms like land reform, reform of the civil and family codes favouring gender equality and individual rights, created a mass of people ready to pursue their individual realizations amidst the confusing environment of Japanese politics. The left wing protests against the economic and political policy stems out of this dilemma present in every sphere of life. (Stringer, 1997, pp. 137-8, 143-4)

Stringer cites the pursuit of subjectivity in the postwar period as another failure of Japanese society towards Westernization, which he asserts lacked the Japanese principle of self-determination. This led to the spread of an individualistic, consumerist pattern of lifestyle in Japan, which almost negated the idea of Japanese communal existence. These changes via commercialization and urbanization could also be seen as a society failing to organize into a more plural and heterogeneous conformation. Further, this also led to a kind of alienation or de-politicization of the Japanese people with the politics of identity, especially after the renewal of the Japanese Security Treaty with the U.S., which sealed the faith of the degree of co-option with the West. (Stringer, 1997, pp. 144-5)

Oshima’s early work and more specifically, his Cruel Story of Youth presents a commentary and a critique of the changes happening in the 50’s and 60’s. He, by building an allegorical, unapologetic, anti-humanist, citational narrative of characters physically situated in 1960’s Japan, and events displaced all over the postwar period, reflects upon the discourse of identity in Japan. The social and political changes during this era could very well be located in Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth in almost as erratic a way as they actually occurred in Japanese society, sometimes upfront and sometimes symbolically disguised.

Going back to Oshima’s storyline, many repercussions of the social reconfiguration of that time assume an important role. First the institution of family; families present in the film were depicted as nuclear and dysfunctional, much of which is juxtaposed with living in an urban modern Japan. The protagonist, Kiyoshi’s family is not known except for the time when his brother comes to bail him out of jail. Makoto’s family is somewhat similar, the father and the two daughters do not seem to share a harmonious relation, and more so the conflict with the ideals and values of each individual is very evident. The portrayal of urban nuclear families in this way points towards the isolation of the youth in both the cases of Makoto and Kiyoshi, with the continuity of the past. More so, the incapability of their respective families to be of any help to the main characters reflects upon the extreme pursuit of individuality, which had left the institution of family redundant for the youth in democratic society.

Another aspect of this social change which Oshima was commenting upon, was the increasing unforgiving nature of society that the youth had to deal with. In the film, the society depicted does not prove to be a support system for the youth who are being marginalized in an urban city space. Instead, the society in this film is depicted as a confused entity, powerfully driven by money and materialistic desires and needs. There is not a single character in this film that is not entrapped in some way or the other, by the society and the power of money in the society. The film space in general is entrapped by forces governed by money. Both the protagonists are operating in a system in which their existence automatically gets attached with money and are rendered in a helpless situation resulting in powerless reactions to various events. The sequence, in which Kiyoshi rescues Makoto from a middle aged businessman, eventually ends in the businessman giving him money. This event is further connected in the later sequence when Kiyoshi and Makoto go out in a motorcycle to the beach to escape their dull, everyday lives. The manner in which money builds this sequence suggests that the youth invariably find identification with the popular notion of a consumeristic culture (motorcycle and motorboat). However, Oshima, by presenting Kiyoshi and Makoto in ordinary living situations (Kiyoshi’s cheap apartment) emphasizes the aspirations of the youth which is enclosed in materialistic pursuit and trapped in the urbanized city space.

This entrapment in society is beautifully depicted in the sequence where Makoto and Kiyoshi, after coming out from jail try to escape from Mrs. Sakaguchi, depicted as a symbol of entrapment in their lives, who tries to follow them. Oshima, in a very craftily constructed scene seems to give them some momentarily concessions for a while but eventually, almost brutally, in an apparently comical shot in the film, squeezes any respite the characters might have got, by showing them without enough money even to pay for the taxi, they were escaping in. Ironically, Mrs. Sakaguchi comes and pays off the fare. This kind of helplessness ascribed to characters questions the escapability from the materialistic society.

Further, the penetration of money in the lives of the characters is also extended to their physical domain. Makoto, by modeling as bait for middle aged businessmen, commodifies her sexual interaction. Similarly, Kiyoshi’s unwilling sexual relationship with Mrs. Sakaguchi reflects another entrapment he had into enter for money. Oshima takes this relation to another allegorical level when Kiyoshi had to sleep with her in order to get money for Makoto’s abortion. In the conversation which follows, Mrs. Sakaguchi tells him about the abortion she had for him. This emotion deprived sequence reflects upon the compromises Kiyoshi had to make in order to live.

These self-reflexive images in Cruel Story of Youth, point towards the attempt which Oshima was trying to make. His jarring imagery of the youth present the cruel story of many youth had to face, who were left abandoned by the subsequent changes in the modern Japanese sphere of life, where the omnipresence of money was crushing the ideals of society. Having said that, this Japanese identity governed by money, was a direct result of the conflict between imported ideas of state and politics, and traditional Japanese values.

Coming to the politics within the film, Oshima Nagisha’s gesture of the insertion of protest footage against the Security Treaty with the U.S., not only politicized the film space but also points towards the idea of sovereignty, which was tampered with in Japan, reeling to maintain patriotic sentiment in post-war period. In a society where modernization was overlapping with Westernization and the consumption of western culture was at his height, the nationalistic association with modernizing the state seemed a tough task for an ordinary youth. In this case, a generation was by default left without continuity from the past, as in the politics and protest were eventually going in vain, and the aspirations of the previous generation did not correspond to the values which got established. This complex situation is very much visible in Cruel Story of Youth and thus this makes it a political film. The opening credit sequence starts with a blurred collage of newspaper cuttings, with bold red letters presenting the titles. This, along with the insertion of the footage of political protest in South Korea and in Japan against the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty makes the subject matter of the film connect to the politics of the contemporary times, although the jarring way in which these footages appear conceal more than what they are actually point towards. The significance of these footages inside the film, to some extent, seems very restricted; although they bring in the socio-political timeline of the film, but they keep politics distant from the protagonist. One reason which Yoshimoto asserts for clubbing the Korean protest footage into the film seems ‘metonymic displacement’, which as such does not really have political relevance with the plot and the characters in the film, but can be seen as a pointer towards the missing image of the Japanese Prime Minister, Kishi Nobusuke. (Yoshimoto, 2007, p. 174) However, another reason which Keser points out lies in fact of the existence of the youth depicted in the film, who were born in the urbanized, westernized and materialistic Japan, and were disconnected with regional politics and events in Korea. (Keser) Further, as Yoshimoto cites, the conversation between Makoto’s sister and her ex-boyfriend about the post war struggles places the political situation of 1960’s Japan in historical perspective. (Yoshimoto, 2007)

Oshima’s portrayal of the previous generation of Makoto’s sister, her ex-lover Akimoto and Makoto’s father, also present various historical tales of postwar Japan. The loss of aspirations in the postwar generation, who believed in the democratic values of freedom, can be seen in the scene where Makoto’s father presents a monologue on his generation’s increasing disillusionment after the initial hopes of the postwar period. “Times were hard after the war, but we thought we had a better way of life, that we were reborn as a democratic nation, that responsibility went hand in hand with freedom, but what can I say to this child now? What have we to offer?”

Similarly, for Makoto’s sister and Akimoto, who were part of the left wing protest in 1952, had their own versions of postwar Japan. Their objectives did not materialize and their values were abandoned. This event was seen from a future lens going back into the past, only to dissect the superficiality as well as the fragility of their idea of society. Both Akimoto and Makoto’s sister are shown as disillusioned and are forced to cope with reality. Makoto’s sister does this by leaving Akimoto for a wealthier man and Akimoto resorts to practicing illegal abortions.

Hence, the contribution of Cruel Story of Youth in the discourse of postwar Japanese identity can be seen as highly didactic; the film functions as a loosely connected reportage of events, which has complicated the question of identity for the Japanese youth and has pushed them into materialistic isolation.

Representational Politics within the Industry:

The identity which was problematic for Japanese society was equally complex for the industry and the directors working within it. Oshima’s early work had few distantly connected precursors to it and had several repercussions. First there was an industry which recovered from the war and the postwar period, and then in the 1950s reached what is known as its Golden Heights. With film going international, recognition for filmmakers and studios, along with monetary gain kept coming in. But even for the industry, the post war reality was tough to accommodate in the whirlwinds of internationalization, and we see films like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Honda’s Gozirra, which were to some extent echoing the irreconcilable nature of truth and reality which Japanese society was witnessing.

Similarly, the youth in society was facing a highly politicized series of events, which, post Japanese defeat, kept on occurring; they include Occupation, the rise of left wing politics, democratization, Americanization, the Security Treaty with the U.S. These events, to a very large extent, involved the youth and were definitely affecting their identity. This, coupled with the marginalization of the youth, both in terms of film space in the film and young filmmakers in the industry, led to a discontent against the programming of films in the studio system. Further towards the end of the 1950s, with the growth in television, the film industry was facing a sharp decline. As Richie argues, this discontent amongst young people working in the industry, the unprofitability of films with many cinemas being closed, and the increasing popularity of television, led to the emergence of a new kind of cinema in Japan. (Richie, 1990, p. 64) As he further notes on this development:

Film companies were thus inclined to listen to young, dissatisfied directors, something they would not have done a decade earlier or, for that matter, a decade later. Complaints that Japanese films offered no real reflection of Japanese life, that Mizoguchi was engeki-teki (stagey) and Ozu furukisai (old fashioned), were listened to with patience. (Richie, 1990, p. 64)

However, filmmakers like Kurosawa and Tadeshi did make films about the youth and as Yoshimoto suggests, the youth appeared in films as a distinct theme after the war itself in films like Kurosawa’s No Regret for Our Youth, but as he asserts further, they were confirming the idea of a new democratic beginning for the youth and for society in general. (Yoshimoto, 2007, p. 170) What followed was the appearance of Taiyozoku or ‘sun tribe films’ which made the youth as the theme more visible. These films which originated from Ishihara Shintaro’s novella ‘Season of the Sun’, depicted contemporary youth, sex and violence, and further resonated the themes and motif of this novella.

The emergence of ‘sun tribe films’ revolutionalized the trajectory of the depiction of contemporary youth. This could be seen as the first sign of rebellion within the industry over the representation of youth. These films presented a different youth which was urbanized, modern and materialistic. The star of these films, Yujiro became the new cultural icon of the post war generation. These films were extending the limits of the depiction of sex and violence in the system. Although these films were few, but their presence marks the shift over the representation of youth, which was carried further by filmmakers like Oshima.

As Yoshimoto suggests Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth carried forward some of the motifs of ‘sun tribe films’, like youth rebel against society and adults, a generational difference and the absence of a patriarchal authority. However, Cruel Story of Youth is not a typical youth film, which is evident not only in its unpredictable style, but also in the very concept and conflicts that the film addresses. The film depicts the youth not just as a social phenomenon that needs to be criticized from the position of a distant observer, but as active agents of action in postwar Japanese society. Further, although Oshima admits to sun-tribe films marking a change in the depiction of youth, he considers the youth rebellion in these films as superficial, which do not grasp the socio-political context of the restlessness of youth, and are shown to grapple with rather conservative, old fashioned problems such as parent-child relationships or sibling rivalry. Often, the heroes of such films are then converted into dutiful sons. In Cruel Story of Youth, however, such co-optation is absent. In fact, the absence of family support in the film, makes the protagonists face the situation as individuals. (Yoshimoto, 2007)

The style of filmmaking we associate with Oshima is very often compared with directors from the French new wave, and his growth as a director coincides with the rise of auteur in film theory. Yes, definitely what emerged in the late 1950s in Japan and carried on for few decades, for ease of historical categorization, could be classified as ‘Japanese New Wave’ corresponding to ‘French New wave. No doubt that it had some stylistic commonness with the French New Wave and these films, especially Cruel Story of Youth was marketed as Japanese New Wave.

Although Oshima’s trajectory of filmmaking from film criticism was quite similar to the French New Wave filmmakers like Godard, Rivette and Truffaut, but unlike them there was a big disconnect amongst the filmmakers who were categorized as Japanese New Wave.

As Keser points out that even Oshima dismissed this term, Japanese New Wave as mere marketing tactics deployed by the industry to sell films involving youth, sex and violence. (Keser) He describes Oshima’s attempt as:

His goal was to bring to the surface the hidden currents of repression and shame, concealed under tradition, in all their contradictory and “cruel” power, providing neither comic escape valves nor strategies for easy identification or facile Freudian psychological resolutions. (Keser)

Oshima’s treatment of this film had many unconventional attributes attached to it. His idea of taking the camera away from the tripod was an attempt not only to make the imagery close to realism but also an attempt to make it suggestive of cinematic liberation, which he/filmmakers were trying to achieve with the studio system. Further, this idea of liberation was superimposed with handheld jittery camera movement depicting protest, consolidating the argument that Oshima was connecting ideals of political liberation with cinematic liberation.

By the use of footage displaced in space and time and the referential remark to various films and events from Japanese society, Oshima was rejecting the genre cinema. Yoshimoto suggests that this film was also a dialogue with established filmmakers, in terms of its intertexuality. He cites these elements of intertextuality in the film through: Akimoto’s remark, ‘For our vanished youth!’ as the antithesis of the theme of Kurosawa’s No Regrets for Our Youth, Makoto and Kiyoshi sitting on the seashore with Ozu’s characters, Shukichi and Tomi from Tokyo Story, Kiyoshi and Makoto speeding down the street in a motorcycle with the images from Masumura’s Kisses. (Yoshimoto, 2007, p. 178)

But then what was Oshima doing with Cruel Story of Youth? This calls for further scrutiny of his work in terms of what was depicted, what was suggested and apparently hidden in the film. Rather Oshima’s work could be seen in the Foucaultdian sense of authorship, who was constructing a complex counter hegemonic narrative of youth up till 1960. (Foucault, 1979) He was an auteur who was by his writing and films, was projecting an image of youth by breaking the aesthetics and convention of Japanese cinema.

As Oshima writes:

We must destroy the illusion that films are characterized by the flat storytelling of the naturalist novel and affirm that what is cinematic is bold fiction and free structure. Next, we must do away with the naturalism present in each shot and in the way the shots are linked… (Oshima, 1992)

Building upon his written argument he creates this cruel story which is extremely post-structuralist in both content and form. The argument about rethinking the medium, which Oshima was promoting along with nihilistic, almost anti-humanist identity of youth he craved out, did not give much redemption to the audience. Redemption was also deprived to the main characters in the films, Makoto and Kiyoshi, who were not able to redeem themselves and in the ending sequence were dead separately. This statement not only suggests the tragic consequence youth were facing amidst the crisis of identity but also reflects a severe discontinuity from their past.

This unredeemed end was another depiction which most Japanese films of that time avoided. Yoshimoto describes it as victim consciousness which was new and hardly seen in any previous movie except for A Japanese tragedy(1953), also made at Shochiku. Yoshimoto suggests this as a deliberate attempt by Oshima to surpass this idea of victim identity. He describes the “primary motivation behind Oshima’s cinematic practice in the early days of his career was to transform Japanese cinema into an intellectually powerful force comparable to the art, literature and critical discourse that had enormous influence on Japanese post war public opinion.” (Yoshimoto, 2007, p. 177) He further suggests it to be part of Oshima’s self-conscious project to reject the product of both the studio system as well as leftist filmmakers as commoditized entertainment and the illustration of leftist ideals. His attempt with films and the film culture he was trying to develop was to overcome the victim consciousness and to develop authentic subjectivity. (Yoshimoto, 2007)

Cruel story of youth does overcome this victim consciousness; in the scene where Makoto is resting in Akimoto’s clinic, Kiyoshi rejects the idea of being the victim, rather protests against the victim consciousness of once student activist Akimoto. He, in protest, keeps on biting an apple in front of Makoto in a long take lasting of over four minutes. This gesture along with the generational confrontation he had with Makoto’s sister and Akimoto was defiance to the previous generation, who he thought had succumbed to being a victim and had shrugged all their responsibility in defeat to money’s unrelenting power in the society. This remark further consolidates the idea of Oshima’s conversation with the past generation. He was trying to challenge the value system that the previous generation adopted; be it war, Occupation or the failure of a protest movement, the previous generation has found refuge in being a victim, which Oshima was in no mood to offer to his protagonists. This also could be seen as his dialogue with other filmmakers who were engaged in this kind of portrayal.

Another thing which Oshima was countering was the representational politics of political subject in the film; his insertion as noted before was although making inkling to politics around society but at the same time was not letting it be involved with the protagonists in the film directly. As Yoshimoto notes that simultaneously foregrounding politics and concealing contemporary socio political issues could be considered as Oshima’s critique of the leftist post-war cinema by filmmakers like Yamamoto Satsuo and Imai Tadeshi. These films either presented the protagonist with victim’s consciousness or presented them self-righteously condemning a social injustice by corrupt authorities. (Yoshimoto, 2007) Rather Oshima makes the political in film very ambiguous and the characters in the film, politically either disconnected like Makoto and Kiyoshi, or opportunist like Kiyoshi’s friend Ito, Makoto’s sister and her friend from the protest time Akimoto.

Another theme which comes out differently in the film is that of love and desire. Oshima’s depiction of love and sexual relationship was new; his use of these motifs as slave to the forces of society, normalize the ambiguity in the nature of youth interacting in contemporary urban space. Filmmakers in post war Japan had many ways of depicting the subject of relationships, in the changing nature of values in the society, many portrayals emerged and got normalized, but Oshima’s attempt was not to associate this subject with any kind of value system and heroism. As Keser notes, relationships cut across generations and characters, and in a very anti-romantic view of relationship Oshima weaves them in a story where their physical connection is linked in a disillusioned, opportunistic, nihilistic way. (Keser)Further, the lack of emotional space for the characters to comprehend their relation results in emotionally deprived consumeristic pattern of love.

Oshima’s rebellion with industry, which although began with films like Cruel Story of Youth, made under the studio system for Shochiku, lasted beyond it. How have his films created the movement he wanted to bring in representation politics of youth in Japanese cinema? His films definitely brought a shift towards more self-reflexive cinema containing contemporary youth. He set the stage for his next film which was overtly political about postwar politics and involvement of youth in it. Keser asserts his use of sexual motifs in this film as providing a precursor to pinku genre. He connects this plausible connection with sequences inside the films, “This film’s soft-core sexual tussles in grubby student lodgings and hourly-rate love hotels laid the groundwork for the emergence of the teasing pinku-eiga genre of erotic films in 1962, a form which would soon account for 70 percent of Japanese film production.” (Keser) He also attaches films like Shohei Imamura’s Pigs and Battleships( 1961), Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes(1964), Seijun Suzuki Fighting Elegy,(1966) and Yoshishige Yoshida Eros Plus Massacre,(1970) with the legacy of Cruel Story of Youth, in term of exploring the question of national identity with ‘surreal means and forms’. (Keser)

Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth had a major contribution in the negation of space for young filmmakers. Space for politics in film definitely increased after this film; more than it, the space for film where politics is not delivered from a leftist or humanist angle, but from a very nihilistic perspective got established. The politics over the identity of contemporary youth which began with the ‘Sun Tribe films’ was further taken to a polemical level, where Oshima was trying to press upon the idea of depicting the youth without any moral or ideological lenses.

Conclusion:

Oshima’s dialogue with society and with industry, which comes out through his early films, especially with Cruel Story of Youth marks the starting of his representational politics with the system. His highly symbolic almost amoral story lines, connected deeply with politics and society, with his filmography writes a counter-heg