The Pornographers (1966)

While avoiding the mob and local authorities, a world-weary pornographer finds being a family man the most difficult as he wrestles with his own desires and afflictions.

Director:

Shôhei Imamura

Writers:

Akiyuki Nosaka (novel), Shôhei Imamura (screenplay)

Stars:

Shôichi Ozawa, Sumiko Sakamoto, Keiko Sagawa

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Shôichi Ozawa	...	Ogata(Subu) / Husband
Sumiko Sakamoto	...	Haru / wife
Keiko Sagawa	...	Keiko / Ogata's stepdaughter
Masaomi Kondô	...	Koichi / Ogata's stepson
Haruo Tanaka	...	Banteki / Ogata's assistant
Ganjirô Nakamura	...	Elderly Executive
Chôchô Miyako	...	Brothel Madame
Kô Nishimura	...	Sanada / Detective
Ichirô Sugai	...	Shinun / Ogata's Father
Shinichi Nakano	...	Kabo / Ogata's workmate
Kazuo Kitamura	...	Doctor
Asao Uchida
Taiji Tonoyama
Jun Hamamura
Kin Sugai

Storyline

Mr. Ogata lives a complicated life: he is a pornographer making two skin flicks per day and trying to stay beneath the radar screen of the local mob; he deeply loves his ailing wife Haru who's cursed by the restless spirit of her dead first husband; he also has a mistress, a step-son who wants to go to university, and a step-daughter entering adolescence. He lusts after his step-daughter, and when Haru finds out about those sexual advances, she asks him to marry the girl. Haru even signs over her business to him, and a crisis ensues when Ogata uses her nest egg to buy equipment so he and his pals can set up their own film processing lab. Surreal images and events weave their way into Ogata's life.

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Plot Keywords:

female barber | cuckolded wife | stepfather stepdaughter incest | sex with stepdaughter | stepdaughter seduces stepfather | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

An English-subtitled print included among the opening credits the phrase, approximately, "presented by Doctors Phyllis and Eberhardt Kronhausen" - the well-known sexologists.

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Connections

Referenced in The Killing Floor (2007)

User Reviews

Japanese odd delicious treat

In The Pornographers, 1966, Shôhei Imamura manages to juggle intelligently with universal taboos (pornography, prostitution, incest, fetishism, orgies) challenging the viewer to think than just to consume the visual product by using minimum of nudity; the provocative situations are discretely suggested and not viscerally exposed, and it works because it is impossible to accuse of cheapness or exploitation such an interesting smart cinematographic approach on the subject of sex in a Japanese society full of contrasts, caught in-between the conservative ways of the past and the effervescence of the corrupt morals of the modern era; sex and money are the spinning wheels of the human convoy routing and sinking it into moral and physical decay; the film abounds in visual oddities, bizarre shooting angles providing its aesthetic a brisk geometry, intriguing spontaneous flashbacks, inspired touches of black comedy, and finds an equilibrate formula to wisely highlight subjects considered dirty and shameful in a very clean, frank, witty and somehow cheerful manner

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

12 August 1966 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Pornographers: Introduction to Anthropology

Company Credits

Production Co:

Imamura Productions, Nikkatsu

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1