Death by Hanging and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief

Fri, Mar 31
7pm and 9:10pm
$8 general, $5 Cinematheque members, Seniors, Disabled, Students (w. ID)

Nagisa Oshima's films of the 1960s combine incisive political
commentary and riveting psychosexual explorations with a radical
Japanese New Wave aesthetic. At 7 pm we present his early masterpiece
Death by Hanging (1968), a Brechtian tour-de-force and one of the
strongest indictments of capital punishment ever made on film. Based
on an actual criminal case, the film tells the story of the execution
of a Korean worker found guilty of rape as it denounces the
oppression of Koreans in Japan and suggests that murder is the
outcome of social repression. At 9 pm we screen Diary of a Shinjuku
Thief (1969), a look into the sexual and cultural politics of young
Japanese radicals of 1968 through the tale of a book thief/fetishist,
with references to Japanese avant-garde theatre, French political
writing and cinema (Genet, Godard), and Mohammed Ali.

Venue:

California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco

Additional Info:

415-552-1990
www.sfcinematheque.org