Imagining Reality as a Set of Chinese Boxes: An Interview with Matsumoto Toshio (original) (raw)

2014, positions: asia critique

In this interview the Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and scholar, Toshio Matsumoto, discusses his creative practice, as well as his ideas about the complexities of representing reality, memory, and time. He has numerous short experimental works to his credit, and four feature-length narrative films including Bara no soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses, 1969), Shura (Demons, 1971), Juroku-sai no senso (The War of the Sixteen-Year-Olds, 1973), and Dogura magura (Dogra Magra, 1988). He has contributed significantly to the critical study of film in Japan as well, writing among things Eizo no hakken (Discovery of the Image, 1963/2005), Hyogen no sekai (World of Expression, 1967), and Genshi no bigaku (Aesthetics of Illusion, 1976). Despite these many accomplishments, Matsumoto has gone largely unrecognized in US scholarship. The conception and representation of reality, memory, and time are significant tropes in Matsumoto's films. Bara no soretsu, for instance, set in the gay district o...