Sing a Song of Sex
| Sing a Song of Sex | |
|---|---|
| 日本春歌考 | |
| Directed by | Nagisa Oshima |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Masayuki Nakajima |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Akira Takada |
| Edited by | Keiichi Uraoka |
| Music by | Hikaru Hayashi |
| Distributed by | Shochiku |
Release date |
|
Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Sing a Song of Sex, also called A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs is a 1967 Japanese avant-garde New Wave musical film directed by Nagisa Ōshima.[1][2] The story follows four high school seniors on their peripatetic outings across Tokyo. They have one fateful night of drinking and singing with their teacher, who "sings a song of sex," the main musical theme of the film. The film was screened at Harvard in 2008 as part of their "Nagisa Oshima and the Struggle for a Radical Cinema" Program.[3]
Plot
Four high school students have travelled to Tokyo on a snowy day to take their university entrance exams. They are Nakamura (Ichiro Araki), Ueda (Kōji Iwabuchi), Hiroi (Kazuyoshi Kushida) and Maruyama (Hiroshi Sato).
The boys are not politically engaged and openly mock both an anti-Vietnam petition request and a political march against National Foundation Day (the accession date of the legendary first Emperor of Japan).
One of the boys during his exam espies a very pretty girl that he knows only as “Number 469” (her exam seat number), and the four become obsessed with her. They talk frequently about the girl and fantasize a plan to rape her. But even in their fantasies their desires are thwarted.
They also join one of their high school teachers, Ōtake, and three other high school girls, on a night of drinking and singing. Ōtake, drunk, sings a short five-part bawdy song. The four boys become smitten with the song, and it becomes the major musical theme of the film.
Cast
- Ichirō Araki as Toyoaki Nakamura
- Hiroshi Satō as Kōji Maruyama
- Kazuyoshi Kushida as Katsumi Hiroi
- Kōji Iwabuchi as Hideo Ueda
- Juzo Itami as Ōtake (Teacher)
- Akiko Koyama as Takako Tanigawa (Teacher’s lover)
- Nobuko Miyamoto as Sanae Satomi
- Hideko Yoshida as Sachiko Kaneda
- Hiroko Masuda as Satoko Ikeda
- Kazuko Tajima as Mayuko Fujiwara
References
- ^ "日本春歌考デジタル大辞泉プラス 「日本春歌考」の解説". Kotobank. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
- ^ "日本春歌考". www.shochiku.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2024-09-14.
- ^ "Nagisa Oshima and the Struggle for a Radical Cinema". Harvard Film Archive. 2008-12-07. Retrieved 2024-09-14.
External links
- Sing a Song of Sex at IMDb
- Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties an essay by Michael Koresky that touches on the film
