EFP 74: Professor Jennifer Coates on Nagisa Oshima

On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone goes back to Japan in 1969 to discuss a lesser-known film from the iconoclastic New Wave filmmaker Nagisa Oshima. Oshima is best-known for subversive, controversial works such as the erotic drama In The Realm of the Senses (1976) and the David Bowie-starring war film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983)The episode focuses on Boy (1969) an earlier picture from Oshima which is based on a remarkable true story. The film follows a con artist couple who travel across Japan with their two young sons. Their main money making scheme involves provoking minor car accidents and feigning injury to claim compensation from befuddled drivers. The eldest boy, 10-year-old Toshio, is trained up by his parents to take part in the scams.Boy was recently released on Blu-Ray by Radiance as part of a box set of Oshima films titled Radical Japan.Joining Pasquale to discuss Boy is Professor Jennifer Coates. Jennifer is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield. Her many publications include books such as Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968: An Ethnographic Study (2022) and Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (2016).Jennifer and Pasquale explore the landscape of postwar Japanese cinema and Oshima’s beginnings as a critic. They then turn to Boy, first placing the film in the context of Oshima’s broader career and then discussing key scenes, commenting on elements such as use of location, voiceover as well as the director’s masterful use of widescreen.