Noboru Tanaka

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Noboru Tanaka était un réalisateur de cinéma japonais, connu pour ses films "Roman Porno", dont trois en particulier, largement loués par les critiques et connus sous le nom de la Trilogie Showa : A Woman Called Sada Abe (aka Sada Abe: Docu-Drama) (1975), Watcher in the Attic (1976), et Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (parfois traduit en français par... "Bondage" 1977), dans lesquels figure chaque fois la reine du Roman porno Nikkatsu : Junko Miyashita. Le premier film de cette trilogie raconte l'histoire de Sada Abe un an avant que Nagisa Oshima ne sorte son film L'empire des Sens (1976), qui étrangement racontait la même histoire. Bien que lors de sa période active, sa carrière fut considérablement éclipsée par d'autres réalisateurs comme Tatsumi Kumashiro et Chūsei Sone, beaucoup de critiques aujourd'hui estiment que Tanaka est le meilleur des réalisateurs de Roman porno chez Nikkatsu.

Biographie

Jeunesse

Tanaka est né à Hakuba dans la préfecture de Nagano le 15 Aout 1937. Il obtint une licence en littérature française à l'Université Meiji de Tokyo mais disait que son intérêt pour le cinéma lui vint par des chemins détournés. Très tôt il voulu d'abord être romancier, puis son intérêt pour l'écriture birfuqua vers la poésie. Il se souvint d'ailleurs : "J'ai écrit beaucoup de poèmes. Chaque expression d'un poème peut contenir une infinité de significations, sinon ce ne serait pas un bon poème. En d'autres mots, chaque expression apporte son lot d'images. J'ai alors imaginé qu'au contraire, je pourrais utiliser les images pour exprimer mon univers poétique, et que utiliser le monde de l'image par la réalisation cinématographique pourrait être ce qu'il me fallait explorer."

Pendant qu'il travaillait sur sa thèse, approfondissant son intérêt pour la relation entre image et littérature, Tanaka pris un emploi à temps partiel dans un studio de cinéma pour acquérir une connaissance de première main dans la production de films. Il a été assistant de produceur sur Yojimbo de Kurosawa Kurosawa's (1961), une expérience qui déclencha l'enthouriasme de Tanaka pour la création cinématographique. Après son diplôme, il postula aux studios Nikkatsu comme assistant-réalisateur et réussi leur examen d'entrée. Il tint ce poste pour quelques uns des meilleurs réalisateurs du studio à l'époque, dont Seijun Suzuki et Shōhei Imamura. Parmi les films sur lesquels travailla Tanaka à cette époque il y eut par exmple Le Pornographe de Imamura.

Roman porno

"Je pense que la position de Nikkatsu dans l'industrie du cinéma est unique. C'est une compagnie importante, mais nous avons travaillé sur un seul concept, le sexe, pendant 18 ans, et produit un grand nombre de films. L'acte sexuel est une activité dans laquelle nous montrons notre vraie nature. Étudier les relations entre hommes et femmes est une des meilleures façons de mettre en évidence l'essence de l'être humain.

Nous pensions alors qu'en travaillant sur le thème du sexe nous avons pu nous explorer nous même plus profondément et exprimer l'âme du monde"
– Noboru Tanaka

Fin des années 60, Nikkatsu commençait d'avoir de sérieux problèmes financiers dûs à la perte d'audience avec à cause de la télévision et l'afflux de films occidentaux. Pour éviter la banqueroute, Takashi Itamochi, président de Nikkatsu, pris la décision de mettre les atouts d'une grande maison de production et de grands talents professionnels dans les films pour adultes, l'industrie du film Pink film afin d'attirer une nouvelle audience. Nikkatsu donne à cette gamme de pink films le nom de "Roman Porno", et lança les premières séries en Novembre 1971. Plutôt que travailler pour l'industrie des films pornographiques, beaucoup de réalisateurs quittèrent le studio à cette période, laissant la place pour de plus jeunes réalisateurs encore à leurs débuts. Tanaka se rappelait sa réaction à la décision de Nikkatsu : "j'étais excité et optimiste par ces changements, et très impatient de travailler dans ce nouveau genre comme réalisateur."

In the late 1960s, Nikkatsu began having severe financial trouble due to audiences lost to television and an influx of Western films. In order to avoid bankruptcy, Takashi Itamochi, president of Nikkatsu, made the decision to put the company's high production values and professional talent into the adult, or Pink film industry as a way of attracting a new audience. Nikkatsu called its line of pink films "Roman Porno", and started the series in November 1971. Rather than work in sex films, many directors left the studio at this time, opening up positions for younger directors in their wake. Tanaka remembers his attitude about Nikkatsu's decision, "I was excited and positive about the changes, and was very eager to work in this new genre as a director."

Le studio donna à ses réalisateurs de Roman Porno une grande liberté artistique. A part les contraintes de temps et de budget, la seule règle était que le film devait contenir un quota minimum de quatre scènes de nu ou de sexe par heure. Patrick Macias a souligné la variété des styles que ce format a permis de voir éclore. Le réalisateur Sone Chūsei Sone "spécialisé dans les anciennes histoires paillardes", Hasebe Yasuharu Hasebe "produisait des images effrayantes, brutes et violentes", et Tanaka créa des films qui étaient "aussi sophistiqués qu'ils étaient érotiques". Des années plus tard, en repensant à son exploration du genre, Tanaka soulignait : "Nous pouvons observer l'essence des êtres humains sans travestir quoi que ce soit et en s'exprimant nous même très honnêtement. Voilà pourquoi travailler dans le Roman Porno est une expérience aussi enthousiasmante".."

The studio gave its Roman porno directors a great deal of artistic freedom. Beyond budgetary and time restraints, the only rule was that the film meet the official minimum quota of four nude or sex scenes per hour. Patrick Macias notes the diversity of styles this format allowed. Director Chūsei Sone "specialized in ribald tales from the past", Yasuharu Hasebe, "delivered frightening, raw, and violent images", and Tanaka created films which were "as sophisticated as they were erotic." In later years, reflecting on his work in the genre, Tanaka pointed out, "We can look at the core of human beings without disguising anything and can express ourselves very honestly. That's why working on Roman porno is such an enjoyable experience."

Tanaka was given his first chance to direct in 1972 with the early Roman porno, Beads From a Petal. Originally called I Am Burning Up (Moeagaru Watashi), a title Tanaka always preferred, the story deals with the sexual awakening of a frigid woman. Tanaka meant the film to be an allegorical depiction of Japanese society in the post-war years, later saying, "After the war, Japan suffered from frigidity and the film described how the psychological bruises Japan suffered from would gradually be cured as time passed, through a young woman's life." Though criticized for some heavy-handed symbolism, this first film showed Tanaka's ability to give a movie a strikingly interesting look.

The same year, Tanaka directed Night of the Felines, an unusually realistic look at the lives of a group of prostitutes. This is considered one of Tanaka's early major films. Also in 1972, he gained critical approval for his Woman on the Night Train. Even in this early work Tanaka's direction is called, "some of the best in any pink film."

As his career progressed, Tanaka's films became known for their imaginative, sometimes surreal, use of color and poetic imagery within the setting of a harsh, brutal world. In 1973, Tanaka directed the second entry in the Secret Chronicle trilogy, Secret Chronicle: Torture Hell. In contrast to the first entry in the trilogy, a satirical depiction of a 19th-century brothel, Tanaka's film was a serious look at religious-sexual ceremonies at a temple. For this effort, Tanaka won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Citation in 1973. The last film of this trilogy, Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market (1974) returned to the satirical style of the first film. The cast included the popular poet Sakumi Hagiwara playing the memorable role of a man who simultaneously commits suicide and wipes out a gang of Yakuza when he explodes a gas-filled inflatable sex-doll.

Tanaka's visual flair raised Private Life of a School Mistress (1973) above its lackluster story of a female teacher and her romantic relationship with a male student. The mainstream film journal Eiga Geijutsu put the film at eighth place on its list of the top ten films of the year. While employed at Nikkatsu, Tanaka also made a few films outside of the pink genre for other studios. For Toei, he filmed Kobe International Gang (1975) and Escape of Gangster Ando Noboru, starring the yakuza-turned-actor Noboru Ando himself.

A black-and-white film employing handheld camera and a fragmented, impressionistic narrative structure, Tanaka's Confidential Report: Sex Market (1974) is among the most unique-looking films in the Roman Porno series. The first film in Tanaka's Showa Trilogy, A Woman Called Sada Abe is more conventional than most of his films, but highly regarded by critics. Tanaka was proud of his ability to produce a high-quality film on a minimal budget. Nikkatsu allotted 7,500,000 yen (approximately US$65,000) for their Roman porno films, but Tanaka used only about 6,600,000 yen to make A Woman Called Sada Abe. Tanaka later explained, "I managed to make it for about 900,000 yen under budget. I believe it depends on the initial concept. I was confident that as long as the concept was good, it would become a great film and beat any of those films made for 10,000,000 yen. I think that's the most interesting thing about film-making: it's so unpredictable. 'Abe Sada's' simple lip movement could say more and be more appealing to an audience than thousands of horses running around a field. It's possible that lip movement could be more effective than thousands of horses and that's why film-making is very creative and incredibly interesting."

The second entry Tanaka's Showa Trilogy, Watcher in the Attic (1976), also starring Sada Abe's Junko Miyashita, was a breakthrough for Tanaka. Magill's Survey of Cinema calls this adaptation of a Rampo Edogawa novel "a frenzied fantasy treat." In 1970 the story had been given a straight pink film treatment by actress Rumi Tama's husband, director Akitaka Kimata, founder of Pro Taka and Million Film. Mainstream critics recognized that Tanaka's work in this film made it stand out from its modest pink film origins. The Peer Cinema Club Annual, a conservative publication which did not normally concern itself with Pink films, judged it "a perfect marriage of decadence and art." Tanaka's depictions of Edogawa's ero guro nansensu style, Voyeurism and the Taishō period were influential on later films such as Kazuyoshi Okuyama's Mystery of Rampo (1994), Akio Jissōji's Rampo films, including The D-Slope Murder Case (1998), and Rampo Noir (2005).

The third film in the Showa Trilogy, Beauty's_Exotic_Dance:_Torture! (1977) while still a box-office hit, was not as well-received by the critics of the time as the two preceding entries, perhaps because of its more extreme, sado-masochistic theme.

Rape and Death of a Housewife (1978), despite its sensationalistic title, is considered one of Tanaka's masterpieces, and was his major mainstream critical break-through. Kinema Jumpo gave the film their "Best Film" award for 1979, and Tanaka was nominated for Best Director at the second Japanese Academy of Films and Motion Pictures ceremony for this film and Pink Salon: Five Lewd Women (also 1978). Pink Salon: Five Lewd Women was praised for its sympathetic view to the women characters, somewhat unusual for a Roman porno. Some critics have commented on the story's similarity to Ridley Scott's 1991 Thelma & Louise.

Later years

After a few lean years, Tanaka made a come-back effort with the third entry in the Angel Guts series, the critical and box-office success, Angel Guts: Nami (1980). Jasper Sharp writes that, from the point of character, plotting and construction, Tanaka's film is the most satisfying entry in the series, based on an adult Manga by Takashi Ishii. He notes, however, that Tanaka's visuals are over-active make the film a difficult one for most viewers. Tanaka recalled, "I was determined to make a film which was much more impressive than the comic. One image of a film has to be much more impressive than one frame of the comic. That's what film is all about. For the scene in which we see Nami's eye in close-up on the screen, I shot about 3,000 feet of film just to show the details of her eye and [its] movement, including the pulsing of a blood vessel."

After making nearly 25 films for Nikkatsu, Tanaka left the studio to try his hand at directing mainstream films for other studios. He directed several hits including the 1983 Shochiku film, Village of Doom. He returned to Nikkatsu to direct Monster Woman '88 (1988) and then retired from the film industry. Allmovie writes that Tanaka was a director of films "so adventurous and bizarre that he soon became one of Japan's most celebrated directors," while Jasper Sharp judges him, "[t]he most visually-gifted of Nikkatsu's directors of the period." Just as international recognition was beginning to come to Tanaka, he died of a Brain aneurysm on October 4, 2006.

Filmography

Title	Cast	Release date
Beads From a Petal Modèle:Nihongo2 Kaben no Shizuku	Rie Nakagawa Keiko Maki Kazuko Shirakawa	1972-02-09
Night of the Cats Modèle:Nihongo2 Mesunekotachi no Yoru	Tomoko Katsura Hidemi Hara Ken Yoshizawa	1972-05-17
Woman on the Night Train Modèle:Nihongo2 Yogisha no Onna	Mari Tanaka Keiko Tsuzuki Toshihiko Oda	1972-07-19
The Amorous Family: The Fox and the Badger Modèle:Nihongo2 Koshoku Kazoku: Kitsune to Tanuki	Mari Tanaka Mikiko Sakai Hidemi Hara	1972-09-06
Excitement Class: Love Techniques Modèle:Nihongo2 Kanno Kyoshitsu: Ai no Technique	Mari Tanaka Nobutaka Masutomi Ryoji Nakamura	1972-11-08
Love in the Afternoon: Metamorphosis Modèle:Nihongo2 Hirusagari no Joji: Henshin	Miyoko Aoyama Keiko Aikawa Akira Takahashi	1973-01-24
Confidential: The Hell of Tortured Prostitutes Modèle:Nihongo2 Maruhi: Jorozeme Jigoku	Rie Nakagawa Yuri Yamashina Hijiri Abe	1973-04-14
Strange Feelings During the Night Modèle:Nihongo2 Mayonaka no Yosei	Yuri Yamashina Morio Kazama Setsuko Ohyama	1973-07-14
Private Life of a School Mistress Modèle:Nihongo2 Onna Kyoshi: Shiseikatsu}]	Ayako Ichikawa Morio Kazama Hitomi Kozue	1973-08-25
Confidential: Sexual Market Modèle:Nihongo2 Maruhi: Shikijo Mesu Ichiba	Meika Seri Genshu Hanayagi Junko Miyashita	1974-09-11
A Woman Called Sada Abe Modèle:Nihongo2 Jitsuroku: Abe Sada	Junko Miyashita Hideaki Ezumi Nagatoshi Sakamoto	1975-02-08
International Gang in Kobe Modèle:Nihongo2 Kobe Kokusai Gang		1975-10-14
Watcher in the Attic Modèle:Nihongo2 Edogawa Rampo Ryoki-kan: Yaneura no Sanposha	Junko Miyashita Renji Ishibashi Tokuko Watanabe	1976-06-12
Sex Life and Escape of the Gangster Ando Noboru Modèle:Nihongo2 Ando Noboru no Waga Toto to Sex no Kiroku		1976-10-01
Beauty's_Exotic_Dance:_Torture! Modèle:Nihongo2 Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru!	Junko Miyashita Hatsuo Yamaya Maya Kudo	1977-02-23
School Mistress Modèle:Nihongo2 Onna Kyoshi	Eiko Nagashima Yasuo Furoya	1977-10-29
Rape And Death Of A Housewife Modèle:Nihongo2 Hitozuma Shudan Boko Chishi Jiken	Hideo Murota Noriko Kurosawa Akira Sakai	1978-07-08
Pink Salon: Five Amorous Women Modèle:Nihongo2 Pink Salon: Koshoku Gonin Onna	Erina Miyai Kyoko Aoyama Miyako Yamaguchi	1978-11-03
Angel Guts: Nami Modèle:Nihongo2 Tenshi no Harawata: Nami	Eri Kanuma Takeo Chii Minako Minushima	1979-07-07
Target of Lust Modèle:Nihongo2 Aiyoku no Hyoteki	Erina Miyai Minako Mizushima Shin Nakamaru	1979-12-22
Hard Scandal: Drifter of Sex Modèle:Nihongo2 Hard Scandal: Sei no Hyoryu-sha	Ako Rie Kitahara Yudo Yoshikawa	1980-10-04
"Love Me Strong... Love Me Hard" Modèle:Nihongo2 Motto Hageshiku Motto Tsuyoku	Maki Kawamura Izumi Shima Tatsuo Yamada	1981-05-15
Village of Doom Modèle:Nihongo2 Ushimitsu no Mura		1983-01-15
View of the Bud Modèle:Nihongo2 Tsubomi no Nagame	Yōko Kon Mitsuru Hirata Kōichi Satō	1986-04-26
Monster Woman '88 Modèle:Nihongo2 Yojo Densetsu '88		1988-09-23

 

Sources

• Modèle:Cite web Modèle:Dead link
• Modèle:Cite web (Retrospective program of Tanaka's work)
• Modèle:Cite web
• Modèle:IMDb name
• "Noboru Tanaka -Director". 2005. in Angel Guts - The Nikkatsu Series - 5 Disc Collector's Edition. www.artsmagicdvd.com ATU 017. Disc three: Angel Guts: Nami. Biographies.
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite video
• Modèle:Cite web
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite web
• Modèle:Cite web

See also

• List of Nikkatsu Roman Porno films

 

Tanaka nom de famille, Noburu prénom

Activités

Cinéaste, Réalisateur, Artiste