Tetsuji Takechi
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese theatrical and film director, critic and author. First coming to prominence for his theatrical criticism, in the 1940s and 1950s he produced influential and popular experimental kabuki
plays. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he continued his innovative theatrical work in noh
, kyōgen
and modern theater. In late 1956 and early 1957 he hosted a popular TV program, The Tetsuji Takechi Hour, which featured his reinterpretations of Japanese stage classics.
In the 1960s, Takechi entered the film industry by producing controversial soft-core theatrical pornography. His 1964
film Daydream
was the first big-budget, mainstream pink film released in Japan. After the release of his 1965
film Black Snow
, the government arrested him on indecency charges. The trial became a public battle over censorship between Japan's intellectuals and the government. Takechi won the lawsuit, enabling the wave of softcore pink films which dominated Japan's domestic cinema during the 1960s and 1970s. In the later 1960s, Takechi produced three more pink films.
Takechi did not work in film during most of the 1970s. In the 1980s, he remade Daydream twice, starring actress Kyōko Aizome
in both films. The first Daydream remake
(1981) is considered the first theatrical hardcore pornographic
film in Japan. Though Takechi is largely unknown in Japan today, he was influential in both the cinema and the theater during his lifetime, and his innovations in kabuki were felt for decades. He also helped shape the future of the pink film in Japan through his battles against governmental censorship, earning him the titles, "The Father of Pink" and "The Father of Japanese Porn."
on December 10, 1912 to a family headed by a wealthy industrialist. He studied economics
at Kyoto National University and graduated in 1936. Takechi first became known for his criticism and theoretical writings on the theater. In 1939 he began publishing a journal, Stage Review in which he printed his writings on the theater. In the early 1940s, he began publishing collections of these writings in book form. When World War II
came to an end, Takechi used his inheritance from his father to establish a theatrical troupe. Under his direction, the Takechi Kabuki, as the group was known, put Takechi's theatrical ideas into practise by giving innovative and popular performances of kabuki classics in Osaka from 1945 to 1955.
Also, during the early years of the Allied Occupation of Japan, the occupying authorities banned kabuki as feudalistic and detrimental to the public morals, though by 1947 this ban was lifted. Other traditional forms of theater, such as noh and bunraku
, seen as less flamboyant and violent than kabuki, received less attention from Occupation censors. Kabuki scholars credit Takechi's innovative productions of the kabuki classics with bringing about a rebirth of interest in the kabuki in the Kansai region after this low point in kabuki history. Takechi revitalized kabuki by reaching out to the other theatrical forms—noh
, kyōgen
, and the modern theater and dance—for new ideas and collaboration. He broke through long-established barriers which existed between these theatrical forms, and even between kabuki schools, to create an energetic new form of kabuki. Despite his maverick nature, Takechi gave great attention to the classic kabuki texts, and emphasized to his actors the need to inhabit the roles they played. His approach to a new interpretation of the old texts was to "psychologize" them. By bringing out the psychology already present in the classic texts, Takechi felt that actors could interpret their roles with vitality and energy which he felt was lacking in contemporary performances. Of the many popular young stars of the kabuki who performed under Takechi, Nakamura Ganjiro III (born 1931) was the leading figure. At first known as Nakamura Senjaku, this period in Osaka kabuki became known as the "Age of Senjaku" in his honor.
plays. With the Shigeyamas, Takechi created and directed the kyōgen, Susugigawa (The Washing River), in 1953. Based on a medieval French farce, this play became the first new kyōgen to enter the traditional repertoire in a century. Takechi saw in kyōgen a more direct link to a native Japanese folk theatrical tradition, and through the kyōgen wanted to link these folk traditions with the modern theater. As a Western analogy of his intentions, Takechi pointed to the works of Ibsen
and Tennessee Williams
which had their roots in the classical theater of Racine
, Molière
and Shakespeare
.
In 1954, Takechi followed Susugigawa with a noh-kyōgen version of Junji Kinoshita
's Yūzuru. Yūzuru is one of the most successful Japanese post-World War II plays, having received over a thousand performances at schools and theaters both within Japan and internationally since its debut in 1949. Composer Ikuma Dan
wrote an opera version of the play in 1952. Since its premiere, Dan's opera has been performed more than 550 times, making it possibly the most popular opera written in Japanese. Dan was recruited to write the original music for Takechi's production of the play. Dan combined the noh-style solo vocal lines with a Western orchestra and chorus. On the same program as Yūzuru was another Takechi-directed kyōgen, Higashi wa Higashi (East is East), a parody of the kyōgen style. Among the innovations Takechi made in this play was the inclusion of a former Takarazuka
actress in the usually all-male kyōgen cast. In the ultra-conservative noh and kyōgen communities, simply appearing in a rival school's production could result in an actor's excommunication from the profession. Because of the public attention drawn through Takechi's relentless publicity work and communication with the media, punitive actions against actors who worked with Takechi were avoided.
Besides his work as a theatrical theorist and director, Takechi occasionally appeared in acting roles on the stage and screen. In his series of essay
s, Chronicles of My Life in the 20th Century, American author and translator of Japanese literature, Donald Keene
mentions his own study of kyōgen at this time. In 1956, Keene appeared in a performance of the kyōgen play Chidori with Takechi in the role of the sake shop owner, before an audience including such prominent authors as Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata
and Yukio Mishima
.
Writing that "every form of art" should be popular with the public, Takechi next sought to rejuvenate noh in a similar manner with which he had kabuki and kyōgen. He worked with the avant-garde group Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop), which had been founded by composers Tōru Takemitsu
, Jōji Yuasa
and other artists in 1951. One of Takechi's more notable productions with the group was a 1955 noh version of Schoenberg
's Pierrot Lunaire
(1912).
In October 1955 he directed Mishima's modern noh play, The Damask Drum in a theater-in-the-round production at Osaka's Sankei Hall. Mishima, dubious of Takechi's experimental approach to classical theater, later commented that he felt like a father allowing a disreputable plastic surgeon to operate on his child. Also at Sankei Hall, Takechi directed Mishima's Sotoba Komachi, set as an opera by composer Mareo Ishiketa, in 1956.
The controversy created by Takechi's experiments with noh made international headlines in 1956. The International News Service
reported that Takechi had introduced elements of burlesque
and striptease
into the slow, stylised artform. Confirming that Takechi's methods did make the artform popular, his "Burlesque Noh" productions at Tokyo's Nichigeki Music Hall played to a consistently full house. Again, however, the leaders of the conservative Noh Society of Tokyo threatened any performer who participated in Takechi's productions with excommunication.
From December 4, 1956 to February 26, 1957, Takechi served as the host of the Nippon Television
program, The Tetsuji Takechi Hour. The show featured the Takechi Kabuki's interpretations of such Japanese stage classics as Chūshingura
, and was also known for pushing the limits of the coverage of sexual subjects on television for its time. Takechi directed two more kabuki performances for the Nissei Theater in Tokyo, not long after it was opened in 1963. Though these would be his last kabuki productions, Takechi's influence on the art form continued to be felt for decades after his departure for the cinema.
Takechi ran afoul of the government throughout his film career. The Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, even characterize Takechi's entire film career as "a personal war with Eirin
" (the Japanese film-rating board). Turning from the Edo period art form of kabuki to another popular Edo period form of expression, pornography, Takechi decided to enter the film industry through the new genre of low-budget, independent softcore sex-films that were becoming popular in Japan. These films were called eroductions at this time, but are now more commonly referred to as pink films.
Takechi's first film was A Night In Japan: Woman, Woman, Woman Story
(Nihon no yoru: Onna onna onna monogatari, 1963
), a sex-documentary in the mondo
style popular at the time. The film focused on the women of Japan's night life and included scenes of a nude noh performance, stripper
s, and geisha
. Produced independently, Shochiku
studios distributed the film, allowing it an international audience. It was released in West Germany on March 6, 1964 as Frauen unter nackter Sonne (alle Frauen Japans). In the U.S., it opened in Los Angeles
under the title Women... Oh, Women! on September 18, 1964. Later that year, Takechi appeared in an acting role in director Kaneto Shindō
's Mother (1963).
The first Japanese mainstream film with nudity was Seijun Suzuki
's Gate of Flesh
, (1964
), and Takechi made the first big-budget, mainstream pink film, Daydream
, the same year. Like Women... Oh, Women!, Daydream was produced independently but Shochiku
studios distributed the film. This time, the studio gave Takechi's film a major publicity campaign. Based on a 1926 short story by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the film was a black comedy involving a series of sex scenes imagined by an artist under anesthesia in a dentist's office. After being drugged, the artist watches helplessly from the other side of a window as the dentist tortures and performs a series of sexual acts on a female patient.
Though modest in comparison with pink films which would come soon after, Daydream did contain female nudity. The government refused to allow one controversial shot, which gave a brief glimpse of pubic hair. Takechi fought the government's censorship of this shot, but lost. When the censors obscured the offending hair with a fuzzy white dot, Daydream became the first film in Japanese cinema to undergo "fogging
," a common element in Japanese erotic cinema for decades to come.
Despite the governmental tampering, Daydream became a major success in Japan, and was screened at the Venice Film Festival
in September 1964. The film was released in the U.S. later the same year, and in 1966
Joseph Green, director of the cult film The Brain that Wouldn't Die
(1962
) re-released Daydream in the U.S. with new American footage.
Takechi's third film, The Dream of the Red Chamber or Crimson Dream (Kokeimu, 1964
), was released less than two months after Daydream. The film depicts the lurid and violently erotic dreams of a writer, his wife and his sister, after having spent a night out drinking and visiting sex shows. The Dream of the Red Chamber underwent extensive censorship before the government would allow it to be released. About 20% of the film's original content was cut by Eirin, rendering the film virtually incoherent, and this footage is now considered lost.
. Takechi's third film had suffered heavily from the governmental censorship, yet no legal action had been taken. Takechi's fourth film, the Nikkatsu
-produced Black Snow (1965
), was even more controversial than his previous work. David Desser credits Black Snow with bringing a political theme to the pink film. Politics would be featured in many later films in the pink genre, most notably those of Koji Wakamatsu
.
The story of Black Snow concerns a young man whose mother serves the U.S. military at Yokota Air Base
as a prostitute. Impotent unless making love with a loaded gun, the young man shoots an American G.I., and is then shot down by U.S. soldiers. The film contained multiple scenes of sexual intercourse, and a lengthy scene of a nude woman running outside Yokota Air Base. However, more than the sex and nudity, it was the political nature of the film which attracted governmental action. Released at a time of widespread demonstration against the renewal of the U.S. Security Treaty, Black Snow had a clear anti-American theme. Film critic Tadao Sato
says that the film uses sex to make a political statement. "In Black Snow... the powerless position of Japan vis-a-vis America, and of the Japanese populace in relation to its rulers is represented by the outraged Japanese women and the G.I. rapists."
Other critics accused the film of racism and ultra-nationalism.
Jasper Sharp writes that though Takechi's films did criticize Japanese society, a theme they share with pink films, Takechi identified the problem as coming from foreign influences, rather than from within. This marks him as a reactionary rather than a revolutionary, as were many pink film directors. Takechi himself claimed to be a minzoku shugisha, or "ethnic nationalist", throughout his life. Buruma points out that this ideological affiliation contains a strong racial aspect, and notes that the G.I. the main character murders in Black Snow is African American
. Buruma comments further, "This, incidentally, has become a standard cliche: whenever G.I.s are shown in Japanese porno films, invariably in the act of outrageously raping Japanese maidens, they are very often blacks to make the outrage seem even worse."
Though the government had accused earlier films of obscenity, Black Snow became the first film after World War II to be prosecuted by the government on obscenity charges. All copies of the film were confiscated from Nikkatsu and from Takechi's own home, and Takechi was arrested. The controversy gained international attention with The New York Times
reporting that even the two censors who had passed the film were considered for prosecution, and that the government had announced plans to strictly censor the pink film movement. Japan's intellectual and artistic community came to Takechi's defense. Film directors Nagisa Oshima
and Seijun Suzuki
and authors Yukio Mishima
and Kōbō Abe
testified in Takechi's defense at the trial. Takechi took advantage of every opportunity to publicly speak out against censorship, and one Eirin official later admitted to being "terrified by the man.".
Explicitly linking his interests in kabuki and pornography as forms of expression, in the July 1965 issue of the film journal Eiga Geijutsu, Takechi wrote:
By shutting down Black Snow and prosecuting Takechi, Eirin had intended to suppress the new pink film genre, but the trial had the exact opposite outcome. The publicity surrounding the trial brought the pink film genre to the attention of the general public, and helped inspire the wave of pink films which dominated Japan's domestic cinema for the next two decades.
, which, like Tanizaki's work, contains eroticism in the original, though not of a sexually-explicit nature. On September 17, 1967, Takechi won the Black Snow case. He also successfully countersued the government claiming that the accusation of indecency was politically motivated, due to the film's anti-American and anti-capitalist themes.
Takechi's next film after the trial was Ukiyo-e Cruel Story
(1968
), starring the current "Queen" of Pink films, Noriko Tatsumi
. The Weissers call this film, about a painter of erotic pictures who is persecuted by the government, "Takechi's personal message to Eirin." Though still containing significant erotic content, this is one of Takechi's few films to pass the censor relatively un-edited, perhaps because Eirin saw the obvious anti-governmental censorship message in the film, and did not wish to be provoked into another embarrassing public confrontation with the outspoken director.
Though he had won his court case, Takechi had become known as a risky and dangerous entity in the film world. Newspapers refused to advertise his films, and Takechi spent the next decade concentrating on writing projects. After his friend, the writer Yukio Mishima committed hara-kiri
in 1970, Takechi wrote The Head Of Yukio Mishima, a best-selling, fictionalized version of the incident. In 1972
, he again appeared in an acting role for director Kaneto Shindō
in his Art Theatre Guild
film based on a Tanizaki novel, Sanka.
, the then 68-year old Takechi decided to return to film with a series of theatrical hardcore films, beginning with a remake of his 1964 Daydream, also titled Daydream
. Noticing actress Kyōko Aizome
in one of her nude photo magazine appearances, Takechi chose her to star in the film. Japan's first theatrically released film featuring hardcore sex, Aizome added to the controversy surrounding the film by admitting to having performed actual sexual intercourse on camera. Though, as Japanese law required, sexual organs and pubic hair were fogged on screen, the Asahi Shimbun
called it a breakthrough film, and Japan's first hardcore pornographic movie. Takechi took a novel, yet traditional approach to the fogging by covering the forbidden areas with floating images of topless female shamisen players. Unlike Takechi's earlier Dream of the Red Chamber, the full, uncensored version of Daydream 1981 did survive, and circulated underground in Japan. This uncensored version of the film was released on video at one time in the Netherlands
.
Takechi's next film, Courtesan (Oiran, 1983
), like his Daydream films, was based on a Tanizaki novel. Three studios were involved in the production: Fujii Movies, Ogawa Productions, and Takechi Film. The film is set at the end of the 19th century, and tells the story of a Yokohama prostitute who services American sailors. The woman is possessed by the spirit of her dead lover, who, in erotic scenes echoing The Exorcist
(1973
), makes his presence known whenever she is sexually aroused. Because of the large budget involved in the production, the distributing studio submitted Courtesan to Eirin repeatedly, and agreed to every cut the reviewing board recommended. The heavy cutting the film received reduced it from near-hardcore to a very softcore historical drama. Takechi again took advantage of the situation to fight Eirin, and complained publicly about the censorship. When he noticed that the censors had painted over a penis with colors, he ridiculed them by promoting his film with the line, "See the first multicolored penis in Japanese Cinema!"
After this bout with the censors, Takechi vowed to produce a true, hardcore film for Japanese audiences. The result was Sacred Koya (Koya Hijiri), based on a work by Kyōka Izumi
. He refused to allow the film to be censored in any way, either through cutting or fogging. Refusing to release the film in Japan, he did not submit it for Eirin's approval. Instead, he released it in Guam
, where it played primarily to Japanese tourist audiences for several years under the U.S.'s more liberal pornography laws. Takechi's last film was another remake of Daydream in 1987
, again starring Kyōko Aizome. Though it was a low-budget, independent production which again underwent censorship in Japan, it became very popular in its uncensored form in France.
Takechi's come-back films of the 1980s were all in a theatrical hardcore style. Released during the dawn of the AV, or adult video, and the height of Nikkatsu
's softcore Roman porno films, his films fit into neither style. Jasper Sharp writes, "His big-budget pornos came from a different world to that of the pink and Roman Porno films. There was nothing else like them at the time, and consequently they had little influence on domestically-produced sex films. Takechi died of pancreatic cancer
the following year, on July 26, 1988. Without a major studio's backing or interest from the general pink film community, Takechi's name and films faded into obscurity in Japan. In 2006 his career was the subject of a full retrospective showing in Tokyo's Image Forum in 2006.
, and have been preserved and remained available to genre audiences on home video releases.
During his lifetime, Takechi's innovations and contributions to Japanese theater in general and to kabuki specifically were influential for decades. His theoretical work, as well as his mentoring of several important stars, helped bring about a rebirth in kabuki after World War II. His contributions to cinema were much more controversial. Considered a dilettante outsider by much of the film industry, and suspected of racism
and nationalism
by others, his work was nevertheless defended by the younger generation of filmmakers such as Seijun Suzuki and Nagisa Oshima. Though his films are today unknown to most Japanese filmgoers, through his career-long fight against censorship, the taboos which his films helped break, and the creative freedom which he helped enable, he remains an important figure in Japanese cinema.
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
plays. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he continued his innovative theatrical work in noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
, kyōgen
Kyogen
is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. It developed alongside Noh, was performed along with Noh as an intermission of sorts between Noh acts, on the same Noh stage, and retains close links to Noh in the modern day; therefore, it is sometimes designated Noh-kyōgen...
and modern theater. In late 1956 and early 1957 he hosted a popular TV program, The Tetsuji Takechi Hour, which featured his reinterpretations of Japanese stage classics.
In the 1960s, Takechi entered the film industry by producing controversial soft-core theatrical pornography. His 1964
1964 in film
The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....
film Daydream
Daydream (1964 film)
is a 1964 Japanese Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic films to have a big budget and a mainstream release in Japan, it was shown at the Venice Film Festival and given two releases in the United States. Director Tetsuji Takechi remade the film in hardcore versions in 1981 and 1987...
was the first big-budget, mainstream pink film released in Japan. After the release of his 1965
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
film Black Snow
Black Snow (film)
Black Snow is a 1990 Chinese drama film directed by Xie Fei. It was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement.-Cast:* Cai Hongxiang as Cui Yongli...
, the government arrested him on indecency charges. The trial became a public battle over censorship between Japan's intellectuals and the government. Takechi won the lawsuit, enabling the wave of softcore pink films which dominated Japan's domestic cinema during the 1960s and 1970s. In the later 1960s, Takechi produced three more pink films.
Takechi did not work in film during most of the 1970s. In the 1980s, he remade Daydream twice, starring actress Kyōko Aizome
Kyoko Aizome
is a Japanese erotic actress, singer, AV director, and writer who has been called, "the first hard-core porn actress in Japan."-Early life:Kyōko Aizome was born on February 9, 1958 in Noda Chiba Prefecture. Aizome grew up in a troubled household. Her father was a police officer who beat his wife,...
in both films. The first Daydream remake
Daydream (1981 film)
is a Japanese film. A remake by director Tetsuji Takechi of his ground-breaking 1964 Pink film of the same title, this film is considered the first hardcore theatrical release in Japan.-Background:...
(1981) is considered the first theatrical hardcore pornographic
Hardcore pornography
Hardcore pornography is a form of pornography that features explicit sexual acts. The term was coined in the second half of the 20th century to distinguish it from softcore pornography. It usually takes the form of photographs, often displayed in magazines or on the Internet, or films. It can also...
film in Japan. Though Takechi is largely unknown in Japan today, he was influential in both the cinema and the theater during his lifetime, and his innovations in kabuki were felt for decades. He also helped shape the future of the pink film in Japan through his battles against governmental censorship, earning him the titles, "The Father of Pink" and "The Father of Japanese Porn."
Early life
Tetsuji Takechi was born Tetsuji Kawaguchi in OsakaOsaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
on December 10, 1912 to a family headed by a wealthy industrialist. He studied economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
at Kyoto National University and graduated in 1936. Takechi first became known for his criticism and theoretical writings on the theater. In 1939 he began publishing a journal, Stage Review in which he printed his writings on the theater. In the early 1940s, he began publishing collections of these writings in book form. When World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
came to an end, Takechi used his inheritance from his father to establish a theatrical troupe. Under his direction, the Takechi Kabuki, as the group was known, put Takechi's theatrical ideas into practise by giving innovative and popular performances of kabuki classics in Osaka from 1945 to 1955.
Takechi Kabuki
The immediate post-World War II era was a difficult time for kabuki. Besides the devastation caused to major Japanese cities as a result of the war, the popular trend was to reject the styles and thoughts of the past, kabuki among them.Also, during the early years of the Allied Occupation of Japan, the occupying authorities banned kabuki as feudalistic and detrimental to the public morals, though by 1947 this ban was lifted. Other traditional forms of theater, such as noh and bunraku
Bunraku
, also known as Ningyō jōruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:* Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai—puppeteers* Tayū—the chanters* Shamisen players...
, seen as less flamboyant and violent than kabuki, received less attention from Occupation censors. Kabuki scholars credit Takechi's innovative productions of the kabuki classics with bringing about a rebirth of interest in the kabuki in the Kansai region after this low point in kabuki history. Takechi revitalized kabuki by reaching out to the other theatrical forms—noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
, kyōgen
Kyogen
is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. It developed alongside Noh, was performed along with Noh as an intermission of sorts between Noh acts, on the same Noh stage, and retains close links to Noh in the modern day; therefore, it is sometimes designated Noh-kyōgen...
, and the modern theater and dance—for new ideas and collaboration. He broke through long-established barriers which existed between these theatrical forms, and even between kabuki schools, to create an energetic new form of kabuki. Despite his maverick nature, Takechi gave great attention to the classic kabuki texts, and emphasized to his actors the need to inhabit the roles they played. His approach to a new interpretation of the old texts was to "psychologize" them. By bringing out the psychology already present in the classic texts, Takechi felt that actors could interpret their roles with vitality and energy which he felt was lacking in contemporary performances. Of the many popular young stars of the kabuki who performed under Takechi, Nakamura Ganjiro III (born 1931) was the leading figure. At first known as Nakamura Senjaku, this period in Osaka kabuki became known as the "Age of Senjaku" in his honor.
Theater work after Takechi Kabuki
Takechi's innovations in kabuki brought him to the attention of the Shigeyama family, a longtime major force in comic kyōgenKyogen
is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. It developed alongside Noh, was performed along with Noh as an intermission of sorts between Noh acts, on the same Noh stage, and retains close links to Noh in the modern day; therefore, it is sometimes designated Noh-kyōgen...
plays. With the Shigeyamas, Takechi created and directed the kyōgen, Susugigawa (The Washing River), in 1953. Based on a medieval French farce, this play became the first new kyōgen to enter the traditional repertoire in a century. Takechi saw in kyōgen a more direct link to a native Japanese folk theatrical tradition, and through the kyōgen wanted to link these folk traditions with the modern theater. As a Western analogy of his intentions, Takechi pointed to the works of Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
which had their roots in the classical theater of Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
, Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
and Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
.
In 1954, Takechi followed Susugigawa with a noh-kyōgen version of Junji Kinoshita
Junji Kinoshita
was perhaps the foremost playwright of modern drama in postwar Japan. He was also a translator and scholar of the plays of Shakespeare.-Life and Career:...
's Yūzuru. Yūzuru is one of the most successful Japanese post-World War II plays, having received over a thousand performances at schools and theaters both within Japan and internationally since its debut in 1949. Composer Ikuma Dan
Ikuma Dan
was a Japanese composer.- Biography :Dan was born in Tokyo, the descendant of a prominent family, his grandfather Baron Dan Takuma having been President of Mitsui before being assassinated in 1932. He graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1946...
wrote an opera version of the play in 1952. Since its premiere, Dan's opera has been performed more than 550 times, making it possibly the most popular opera written in Japanese. Dan was recruited to write the original music for Takechi's production of the play. Dan combined the noh-style solo vocal lines with a Western orchestra and chorus. On the same program as Yūzuru was another Takechi-directed kyōgen, Higashi wa Higashi (East is East), a parody of the kyōgen style. Among the innovations Takechi made in this play was the inclusion of a former Takarazuka
Takarazuka Revue
The Takarazuka Revue is a Japanese all-female musical theater troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals, and sometimes stories adapted from shōjo manga and Japanese folktales. The troupe takes its name...
actress in the usually all-male kyōgen cast. In the ultra-conservative noh and kyōgen communities, simply appearing in a rival school's production could result in an actor's excommunication from the profession. Because of the public attention drawn through Takechi's relentless publicity work and communication with the media, punitive actions against actors who worked with Takechi were avoided.
Besides his work as a theatrical theorist and director, Takechi occasionally appeared in acting roles on the stage and screen. In his series of essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s, Chronicles of My Life in the 20th Century, American author and translator of Japanese literature, Donald Keene
Donald Keene
Donald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
mentions his own study of kyōgen at this time. In 1956, Keene appeared in a performance of the kyōgen play Chidori with Takechi in the role of the sake shop owner, before an audience including such prominent authors as Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata
was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award...
and Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
.
Writing that "every form of art" should be popular with the public, Takechi next sought to rejuvenate noh in a similar manner with which he had kabuki and kyōgen. He worked with the avant-garde group Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop), which had been founded by composers Tōru Takemitsu
Toru Takemitsu
was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
, Jōji Yuasa
Joji Yuasa
is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:Born in Kōriyama, Fukushima, he is self-taught as a composer.In 1951 or 1952, together with the composer Tōru Takemitsu and other contemporary artists and musicians, he founded Jikken Kobo , an organization dedicated to the...
and other artists in 1951. One of Takechi's more notable productions with the group was a 1955 noh version of Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Pierrot Lunaire
Pierrot Lunaire
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
(1912).
In October 1955 he directed Mishima's modern noh play, The Damask Drum in a theater-in-the-round production at Osaka's Sankei Hall. Mishima, dubious of Takechi's experimental approach to classical theater, later commented that he felt like a father allowing a disreputable plastic surgeon to operate on his child. Also at Sankei Hall, Takechi directed Mishima's Sotoba Komachi, set as an opera by composer Mareo Ishiketa, in 1956.
The controversy created by Takechi's experiments with noh made international headlines in 1956. The International News Service
International News Service
International News Service was a U.S.-based news agency founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.Established two years after the Scripps family founded the United Press Association, INS scrapped among the newswires...
reported that Takechi had introduced elements of burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
and striptease
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...
into the slow, stylised artform. Confirming that Takechi's methods did make the artform popular, his "Burlesque Noh" productions at Tokyo's Nichigeki Music Hall played to a consistently full house. Again, however, the leaders of the conservative Noh Society of Tokyo threatened any performer who participated in Takechi's productions with excommunication.
From December 4, 1956 to February 26, 1957, Takechi served as the host of the Nippon Television
Nippon Television
is a television network based in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan and is controlled by the Yomiuri Shimbun publishing company. Broadcasting terrestrially across Japan, the network is commonly known as , contracted to , and abbreviated as "NTV" or "AX".-Offices:*The Headquarters : 6-1,...
program, The Tetsuji Takechi Hour. The show featured the Takechi Kabuki's interpretations of such Japanese stage classics as Chūshingura
Chushingura
is the name for fictionalized accounts of the historical revenge by the Forty-seven Ronin of the death of their master, Asano Naganori. Including the early , the story has been told in kabuki, bunraku, stage plays, films, novels, television shows and other media...
, and was also known for pushing the limits of the coverage of sexual subjects on television for its time. Takechi directed two more kabuki performances for the Nissei Theater in Tokyo, not long after it was opened in 1963. Though these would be his last kabuki productions, Takechi's influence on the art form continued to be felt for decades after his departure for the cinema.
Entrance into the cinema
In the early 1960s, Takechi turned from the stage to the cinema. Though the mainstream film industry considered Takechi an amateur and an outsider, he would continue to produce ground-breaking films sporadically for the rest of his life. Some of the innovations and trends in Japanese erotic cinema which Takechi's films pioneered include big-budgets and releases, literary and artistic aspirations, fogging, political themes, and theatrical hardcore.Takechi ran afoul of the government throughout his film career. The Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, even characterize Takechi's entire film career as "a personal war with Eirin
Eirin
is the abbreviated name for , Japan's movie regulator. Eirin was established on the model of the American Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America's Production Code Administration in June, 1949, on the instructions of the US occupation force...
" (the Japanese film-rating board). Turning from the Edo period art form of kabuki to another popular Edo period form of expression, pornography, Takechi decided to enter the film industry through the new genre of low-budget, independent softcore sex-films that were becoming popular in Japan. These films were called eroductions at this time, but are now more commonly referred to as pink films.
Takechi's first film was A Night In Japan: Woman, Woman, Woman Story
Women... Oh, Women!
is a 1963 Japanese documentary Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic film directed by Tetsuji Takechi, it was released in the United States in 1964.-Origins of the Pink film:...
(Nihon no yoru: Onna onna onna monogatari, 1963
1963 in film
The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
), a sex-documentary in the mondo
Mondo film
A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
style popular at the time. The film focused on the women of Japan's night life and included scenes of a nude noh performance, stripper
Stripper
A stripper is a professional erotic dancer who performs a contemporary form of striptease at strip club establishments, public exhibitions, and private engagements. Unlike in burlesque, the performer in the modern Americanized form of stripping minimizes the interaction of customer and dancer,...
s, and geisha
Geisha
, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
. Produced independently, Shochiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
studios distributed the film, allowing it an international audience. It was released in West Germany on March 6, 1964 as Frauen unter nackter Sonne (alle Frauen Japans). In the U.S., it opened in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
under the title Women... Oh, Women! on September 18, 1964. Later that year, Takechi appeared in an acting role in director Kaneto Shindō
Kaneto Shindo
, Hiroshima, Japan) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His best known films include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note.Shindō has often made films dealing with Hiroshima or the atomic bomb...
's Mother (1963).
Daydream (1964)
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
's Gate of Flesh
Gate of Flesh
is a 1964 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki.-Synopsis:In an impoverished and burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-World War II Japan, a band of prostitutes defend their territory, squatting in a bombed-out building. Somehow they eke out a living together...
, (1964
1964 in film
The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....
), and Takechi made the first big-budget, mainstream pink film, Daydream
Daydream (1964 film)
is a 1964 Japanese Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic films to have a big budget and a mainstream release in Japan, it was shown at the Venice Film Festival and given two releases in the United States. Director Tetsuji Takechi remade the film in hardcore versions in 1981 and 1987...
, the same year. Like Women... Oh, Women!, Daydream was produced independently but Shochiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
studios distributed the film. This time, the studio gave Takechi's film a major publicity campaign. Based on a 1926 short story by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the film was a black comedy involving a series of sex scenes imagined by an artist under anesthesia in a dentist's office. After being drugged, the artist watches helplessly from the other side of a window as the dentist tortures and performs a series of sexual acts on a female patient.
Though modest in comparison with pink films which would come soon after, Daydream did contain female nudity. The government refused to allow one controversial shot, which gave a brief glimpse of pubic hair. Takechi fought the government's censorship of this shot, but lost. When the censors obscured the offending hair with a fuzzy white dot, Daydream became the first film in Japanese cinema to undergo "fogging
Fogging (censorship)
Fogging is a type of visual censorship. An area for a picture or movie is blurred to obscure it from sight. This form of censorship is used for sexually related images/scenes, hiding genitals, pubic hair, or sexual penetration of any sort. Pixelization is a form of fogging...
," a common element in Japanese erotic cinema for decades to come.
Despite the governmental tampering, Daydream became a major success in Japan, and was screened at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in September 1964. The film was released in the U.S. later the same year, and in 1966
1966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
Joseph Green, director of the cult film The Brain that Wouldn't Die
The Brain That Wouldn't Die
The Brain That Wouldn't Die, also known as The Head That Wouldn't Die, is a 1962 science-fiction/horror film directed by Joseph Green and written by Green and Rex Carlton. The film was completed in 1959 under the title The Black Door, but was not released until May 3, 1962, when it was renamed...
(1962
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
) re-released Daydream in the U.S. with new American footage.
Takechi's third film, The Dream of the Red Chamber or Crimson Dream (Kokeimu, 1964
1964 in film
The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....
), was released less than two months after Daydream. The film depicts the lurid and violently erotic dreams of a writer, his wife and his sister, after having spent a night out drinking and visiting sex shows. The Dream of the Red Chamber underwent extensive censorship before the government would allow it to be released. About 20% of the film's original content was cut by Eirin, rendering the film virtually incoherent, and this footage is now considered lost.
Black Snow (1965)
Takechi's Daydream had been considered a national embarrassment by the Japanese government because of its highly-publicized release while the world was focused on the country for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics1964 Summer Olympics
The 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
. Takechi's third film had suffered heavily from the governmental censorship, yet no legal action had been taken. Takechi's fourth film, the Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
-produced Black Snow (1965
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
), was even more controversial than his previous work. David Desser credits Black Snow with bringing a political theme to the pink film. Politics would be featured in many later films in the pink genre, most notably those of Koji Wakamatsu
Koji Wakamatsu
is a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses...
.
The story of Black Snow concerns a young man whose mother serves the U.S. military at Yokota Air Base
Yokota Air Base
, is a United States Air Force base in the city of Fussa, one of 26 cities in the Tama Area, or Western Tokyo.The base houses 14,000 personnel. The base occupies a total area of and has a runway...
as a prostitute. Impotent unless making love with a loaded gun, the young man shoots an American G.I., and is then shot down by U.S. soldiers. The film contained multiple scenes of sexual intercourse, and a lengthy scene of a nude woman running outside Yokota Air Base. However, more than the sex and nudity, it was the political nature of the film which attracted governmental action. Released at a time of widespread demonstration against the renewal of the U.S. Security Treaty, Black Snow had a clear anti-American theme. Film critic Tadao Sato
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
says that the film uses sex to make a political statement. "In Black Snow... the powerless position of Japan vis-a-vis America, and of the Japanese populace in relation to its rulers is represented by the outraged Japanese women and the G.I. rapists."
Other critics accused the film of racism and ultra-nationalism.
Jasper Sharp writes that though Takechi's films did criticize Japanese society, a theme they share with pink films, Takechi identified the problem as coming from foreign influences, rather than from within. This marks him as a reactionary rather than a revolutionary, as were many pink film directors. Takechi himself claimed to be a minzoku shugisha, or "ethnic nationalist", throughout his life. Buruma points out that this ideological affiliation contains a strong racial aspect, and notes that the G.I. the main character murders in Black Snow is African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
. Buruma comments further, "This, incidentally, has become a standard cliche: whenever G.I.s are shown in Japanese porno films, invariably in the act of outrageously raping Japanese maidens, they are very often blacks to make the outrage seem even worse."
Though the government had accused earlier films of obscenity, Black Snow became the first film after World War II to be prosecuted by the government on obscenity charges. All copies of the film were confiscated from Nikkatsu and from Takechi's own home, and Takechi was arrested. The controversy gained international attention with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reporting that even the two censors who had passed the film were considered for prosecution, and that the government had announced plans to strictly censor the pink film movement. Japan's intellectual and artistic community came to Takechi's defense. Film directors Nagisa Oshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
and Seijun Suzuki
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
and authors Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
and Kōbō Abe
Kobo Abe
, pseudonym of was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities....
testified in Takechi's defense at the trial. Takechi took advantage of every opportunity to publicly speak out against censorship, and one Eirin official later admitted to being "terrified by the man.".
Explicitly linking his interests in kabuki and pornography as forms of expression, in the July 1965 issue of the film journal Eiga Geijutsu, Takechi wrote:
By shutting down Black Snow and prosecuting Takechi, Eirin had intended to suppress the new pink film genre, but the trial had the exact opposite outcome. The publicity surrounding the trial brought the pink film genre to the attention of the general public, and helped inspire the wave of pink films which dominated Japan's domestic cinema for the next two decades.
After Black Snow
During the legal battles of the trial, Takechi filmed a pink film re-telling of The Tale of GenjiThe Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...
, which, like Tanizaki's work, contains eroticism in the original, though not of a sexually-explicit nature. On September 17, 1967, Takechi won the Black Snow case. He also successfully countersued the government claiming that the accusation of indecency was politically motivated, due to the film's anti-American and anti-capitalist themes.
Takechi's next film after the trial was Ukiyo-e Cruel Story
Ukiyo-e Cruel Story
is a 1968 Japanese Pink film directed by the "Father of Pink", Tetsuji Takechi, and starring the current "Queen" of Pink, Noriko Tatsumi. Made after Takechi had won an obscenity trial over Black Snow , the film has been called "Takechi's personal message to Eirin." Though still containing...
(1968
1968 in film
The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
), starring the current "Queen" of Pink films, Noriko Tatsumi
Noriko Tatsumi
is a Japanese actress known primarily for her appearances in pink films of the 1960s. During the "First Wave" of pink film, Tatsumi became known as the first "Queen" of Japanese softcore sex movies, a title which she held from 1967 through 1970...
. The Weissers call this film, about a painter of erotic pictures who is persecuted by the government, "Takechi's personal message to Eirin." Though still containing significant erotic content, this is one of Takechi's few films to pass the censor relatively un-edited, perhaps because Eirin saw the obvious anti-governmental censorship message in the film, and did not wish to be provoked into another embarrassing public confrontation with the outspoken director.
Though he had won his court case, Takechi had become known as a risky and dangerous entity in the film world. Newspapers refused to advertise his films, and Takechi spent the next decade concentrating on writing projects. After his friend, the writer Yukio Mishima committed hara-kiri
Seppuku
is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...
in 1970, Takechi wrote The Head Of Yukio Mishima, a best-selling, fictionalized version of the incident. In 1972
1972 in film
The year 1972 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet MillsB...
, he again appeared in an acting role for director Kaneto Shindō
Kaneto Shindo
, Hiroshima, Japan) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His best known films include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note.Shindō has often made films dealing with Hiroshima or the atomic bomb...
in his Art Theatre Guild
Art Theatre Guild
Art Theatre Guild was a film production company in Japan that started in 1961 and ran through to the mid 1980s. ATG, as it is abbreviated, released mostly Japanese New Wave films. Films released by ATG include Nagisa Oshima's Diary Of A Shinjuku Thief , Toshio Matsumoto's masterpiece Funeral...
film based on a Tanizaki novel, Sanka.
Return to film
In 19811981 in film
-Events:*January 19 - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquires beleaguered concurrent United Artists. UA was humiliated by the astronomical losses on the $40,000,000 movie Heaven's Gate, a major factor in the decision of owner Transamerica to sell it....
, the then 68-year old Takechi decided to return to film with a series of theatrical hardcore films, beginning with a remake of his 1964 Daydream, also titled Daydream
Daydream (1981 film)
is a Japanese film. A remake by director Tetsuji Takechi of his ground-breaking 1964 Pink film of the same title, this film is considered the first hardcore theatrical release in Japan.-Background:...
. Noticing actress Kyōko Aizome
Kyoko Aizome
is a Japanese erotic actress, singer, AV director, and writer who has been called, "the first hard-core porn actress in Japan."-Early life:Kyōko Aizome was born on February 9, 1958 in Noda Chiba Prefecture. Aizome grew up in a troubled household. Her father was a police officer who beat his wife,...
in one of her nude photo magazine appearances, Takechi chose her to star in the film. Japan's first theatrically released film featuring hardcore sex, Aizome added to the controversy surrounding the film by admitting to having performed actual sexual intercourse on camera. Though, as Japanese law required, sexual organs and pubic hair were fogged on screen, the Asahi Shimbun
Asahi Shimbun
The is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
called it a breakthrough film, and Japan's first hardcore pornographic movie. Takechi took a novel, yet traditional approach to the fogging by covering the forbidden areas with floating images of topless female shamisen players. Unlike Takechi's earlier Dream of the Red Chamber, the full, uncensored version of Daydream 1981 did survive, and circulated underground in Japan. This uncensored version of the film was released on video at one time in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Takechi's next film, Courtesan (Oiran, 1983
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...
), like his Daydream films, was based on a Tanizaki novel. Three studios were involved in the production: Fujii Movies, Ogawa Productions, and Takechi Film. The film is set at the end of the 19th century, and tells the story of a Yokohama prostitute who services American sailors. The woman is possessed by the spirit of her dead lover, who, in erotic scenes echoing The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
(1973
1973 in film
The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
), makes his presence known whenever she is sexually aroused. Because of the large budget involved in the production, the distributing studio submitted Courtesan to Eirin repeatedly, and agreed to every cut the reviewing board recommended. The heavy cutting the film received reduced it from near-hardcore to a very softcore historical drama. Takechi again took advantage of the situation to fight Eirin, and complained publicly about the censorship. When he noticed that the censors had painted over a penis with colors, he ridiculed them by promoting his film with the line, "See the first multicolored penis in Japanese Cinema!"
After this bout with the censors, Takechi vowed to produce a true, hardcore film for Japanese audiences. The result was Sacred Koya (Koya Hijiri), based on a work by Kyōka Izumi
Kyoka Izumi
is the pen name of a Japanese author of novels, short stories, and kabuki plays who was active from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa periods. He is best known for a characteristic brand of Romanticism preferring tales of the supernatural heavily influenced by works of the earlier Edo period in...
. He refused to allow the film to be censored in any way, either through cutting or fogging. Refusing to release the film in Japan, he did not submit it for Eirin's approval. Instead, he released it in Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, where it played primarily to Japanese tourist audiences for several years under the U.S.'s more liberal pornography laws. Takechi's last film was another remake of Daydream in 1987
1987 in film
-Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....
, again starring Kyōko Aizome. Though it was a low-budget, independent production which again underwent censorship in Japan, it became very popular in its uncensored form in France.
Takechi's come-back films of the 1980s were all in a theatrical hardcore style. Released during the dawn of the AV, or adult video, and the height of Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
's softcore Roman porno films, his films fit into neither style. Jasper Sharp writes, "His big-budget pornos came from a different world to that of the pink and Roman Porno films. There was nothing else like them at the time, and consequently they had little influence on domestically-produced sex films. Takechi died of pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
the following year, on July 26, 1988. Without a major studio's backing or interest from the general pink film community, Takechi's name and films faded into obscurity in Japan. In 2006 his career was the subject of a full retrospective showing in Tokyo's Image Forum in 2006.
Legacy
Jasper Sharp points out that the Japanese and western views of Takechi's legacy are quite different. While western sources assess him as a major figure in the early development of the pink film, many current Japanese sources on the subject ignore his work. Sharp notes, however, that during his lifetime, he was covered prominently in Japanese sources. He speculates that his legacy has been largely forgotten in his homeland partly because of his status as an outsider in the Japanese film communities—both mainstream and pink. Since his films were self-produced and distributed by major film companies rather than through the eroduction circuit, they are not technically pink films. Also, his right-wing political background conflicts with the generally revolutionary stance more often associated with the pink film. Since his death in 1988, the lack of a studio or other publicist, or coverage by writers on the pink film has kept his work out of the public's eye in Japan. In the west, however, some of Takechi's films, such as Daydream were shown during their first runs, reviewed by major publications such as VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, and have been preserved and remained available to genre audiences on home video releases.
During his lifetime, Takechi's innovations and contributions to Japanese theater in general and to kabuki specifically were influential for decades. His theoretical work, as well as his mentoring of several important stars, helped bring about a rebirth in kabuki after World War II. His contributions to cinema were much more controversial. Considered a dilettante outsider by much of the film industry, and suspected of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
by others, his work was nevertheless defended by the younger generation of filmmakers such as Seijun Suzuki and Nagisa Oshima. Though his films are today unknown to most Japanese filmgoers, through his career-long fight against censorship, the taboos which his films helped break, and the creative freedom which he helped enable, he remains an important figure in Japanese cinema.
Filmography
| Title | Cast | Release date |
|---|---|---|
| Women... Oh, Women! Women... Oh, Women! is a 1963 Japanese documentary Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic film directed by Tetsuji Takechi, it was released in the United States in 1964.-Origins of the Pink film:... 日本の夜 女・女・女物語 Nihon no yoru: Onna onna onna monogatari |
May 15, 1963 | |
| Daydream Daydream (1964 film) is a 1964 Japanese Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic films to have a big budget and a mainstream release in Japan, it was shown at the Venice Film Festival and given two releases in the United States. Director Tetsuji Takechi remade the film in hardcore versions in 1981 and 1987... 白日夢 Hakujitsumu |
Kanako Michi Akira Ishihama |
June 21, 1964 |
| The Dream of the Red Chamber aka Crimson Dream 紅閨夢 Kōkeimu |
Yōkichi Goto Mina Yanagi Chiyo Aoi |
August 12, 1964 |
| Black Snow Black Snow (film) Black Snow is a 1990 Chinese drama film directed by Xie Fei. It was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement.-Cast:* Cai Hongxiang as Cui Yongli... 黒い雪 Kuroi yuki |
Akira Ishihama Chitose Kurenai Kotobuki Hananomoto Chōjirō Hanagawa Yōichirō Mikawa |
June 9, 1965 |
| The Tale of Genji 源氏物語 Genji monogatari |
Kotobuki Hananomoto Ruriko Asaoka Izumi Ashikawa |
January 14, 1966 |
| Postwar Cruel Story 戦後残酷物語 Sengo zankoku monogatari |
Chitose Kurenai Kanako Michi Masako Arisawa |
February 10, 1968 |
| Ukiyo-e Cruel Story Ukiyo-e Cruel Story is a 1968 Japanese Pink film directed by the "Father of Pink", Tetsuji Takechi, and starring the current "Queen" of Pink, Noriko Tatsumi. Made after Takechi had won an obscenity trial over Black Snow , the film has been called "Takechi's personal message to Eirin." Though still containing... 浮世絵残酷物語 Ukiyo-e zankoku monogatari |
Tamawa Karina Noriko Tatsumi Noriko Tatsumi is a Japanese actress known primarily for her appearances in pink films of the 1960s. During the "First Wave" of pink film, Tatsumi became known as the first "Queen" of Japanese softcore sex movies, a title which she held from 1967 through 1970... Ryuji Inazuma |
September 9, 1968 |
| Madam Scandal スキャンダル夫人 Scandal fujin |
Junko Nishitani Michiko Sakyō Toyozo Yamamoto |
February 28, 1973 |
| Daydream Daydream (1981 film) is a Japanese film. A remake by director Tetsuji Takechi of his ground-breaking 1964 Pink film of the same title, this film is considered the first hardcore theatrical release in Japan.-Background:... 白日夢 Hakujitsumu |
Kei Satō Kyōko Aizome Kyoko Aizome is a Japanese erotic actress, singer, AV director, and writer who has been called, "the first hard-core porn actress in Japan."-Early life:Kyōko Aizome was born on February 9, 1958 in Noda Chiba Prefecture. Aizome grew up in a troubled household. Her father was a police officer who beat his wife,... Takemi Katsushika |
September 12, 1981 |
| Courtesan 華魁 Oiran |
Takako Shinozuka Satoshi Mashiba Midori Yuzaki Kozue Azusa |
February 19, 1983 |
| Sacred Koya 高野聖 Koya Hijiri |
1984 | |
| Daydream 2 aka Captured For Sex 白昼夢２ Hakujitsumu zoku |
Kei Satō Kyōko Aizome Kyoko Aizome is a Japanese erotic actress, singer, AV director, and writer who has been called, "the first hard-core porn actress in Japan."-Early life:Kyōko Aizome was born on February 9, 1958 in Noda Chiba Prefecture. Aizome grew up in a troubled household. Her father was a police officer who beat his wife,... Kenji Hayami |
February 7, 1987 |
Selected writings
| Title | Publication date |
|---|---|
| The Dawn of the Kabuki 歌舞伎の黎明 Kabuki no reimi |
1955 |
| Eros Accused 裁かれるエロス Sabakareru Eros |
1967 |
| Tradition and Disruption 伝統と断絶 Dentō to danzetsu |
1969 |
| Yukio Mishima: His Death and His View of the Kabuki 三島由紀夫・死とその歌舞伎観 Mishima Yukio: Shi to sono kabukikan |
1971 |
External links
- The Complete Works of Tetsuji Takechi retrospective at the Theatre Image Forum held beginning on October 28, 2006 (in Japanese)