Shinjuku, Blooming in the Darkness of the Movie Theater: Kazuko Shiraishi and the City of Film, 1950s–1960s

Kazuko Shiraishi frequently went to see movies in Shinjuku even during her student days at Waseda University. Shinjuku itself—not just the movie theaters, but also the shops and entertainment districts around Hanazono Shrine—is deeply intertwined with her memories of her youth. In her essays, she depicts the act of watching movies not merely as passive viewing, but as an experience that involves walking through the city, meeting people, drinking, and encountering chance events. Later in life, Shiraishi also interacted with film director Nagisa Ōshima; she mentions lending him her writings as reference material for his filmmaking and touches on her memories related to *The Shinjuku Thief’s Diary*. It becomes clear that Shinjuku was a place that connected people across the boundaries of literature, film, theater, and youth culture. Shiraishi, born in 1931, is a poet who published the poetry collection *The Town Where Eggs Shake* in 1951 while attending Waseda University. Further more, in the Shinjuku and Waseda areas, a culture of art-house cinemas—such as Waseda Shochiku, which opened in 1951—flourished, creating an environment where people could watch movies on a daily basis. By the late 1960s, Nagisa Ōshima’s *Shinjuku Thief Diary* had become one of the works symbolizing Shinjuku culture, intersecting with the avant-garde art and youth culture of the time.