Cinema and Sexual Expression: Between Literature and Pornography (1965-1950s)

Cinema and Sexual Expression: Between Literature and Pornography (1965-1950s)

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, Japanese cinema was at a turning point. With the spread of television, audiences moved away from movie theaters, and major film companies were losing business. Pink films and Roman pornography appeared in the midst of this situation. The former was a low-budget production, while the latter was a group of sexually explicit films produced by Nikkatsu with an eye toward artistic expression.

However, the young people who watched these films were not simply amorous. Some found solitude, anxiety, and dialogue with their own reality in these films. In an age when it was impossible to come into contact with the reality of sexuality, the movie theater was a highly anonymous "place of contact. Separated from their parents, school, and society, they literally encountered the "world.

The tradition of the Japanese performing arts as a "freak show" was also alive and well in these films. Just as geishas and dancers charmed the audience on stage, the actresses on screen confronted the audience in the context of "acting. By crossing the ambiguous boundary between obscene and artistic depictions of sex, the viewer was confronted with his or her own ethics and desires.

For the youth of the 1960s and 1950s, this kind of cinematic experience was neither "knowledge" nor "entertainment," but rather a "rite of passage. Pornography is not just a lewd thing. Pornography was not just something disgusting, but also a gateway to "how to see the world.