Feb 18 2009
Find Ecstasy — Shinjuku-style — in New York
Back in 1961, a film distributor dubbing itself the Art Theater Guild started up in Japan to bring edgy European cinema to the country’s masses. I guess the organization — which came to be known as the ATG — got bitten by the movie-making bug and found influence in the esoteric foreign fare it released, because in 1967 the Guild started to independently produce its own feature films.
The movies made by ATG were innovative, experimental and quite often taboo-busting, dealing with a myriad of controversial subjects including incest, homosexuality, and anarchy. Some of Japan’s most highly-regarded directors, such as the always provocative Nagisa Oshima and the avant-garde Shuji Terayama, had their first tastes of international recognition through the work they made for Art Theater Guild. And yet, the distributor/production company is still relatively unknown, even in its native Japan.
The daring folks at New York’s Japan Society are hoping to rectify that oversight, starting today, February 18, with their series “Shinjuku Ecstasy,” which is named for the ATG’s main theater, the Shinjuku Bunka, which allowed countercultural artists of all stripes to gather, create and exhibit their ground-breaking work.
The series runs until March 1, and you can go here to check out the schedule and buy tickets. Some of the highlights include the groundbreaking 1969 queer cinema feature Funeral Parade of Roses (pictured at the top), and 1971’s rebelliously-titled Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Street, which probably deserves your time and money just for its name alone! You can toss some molotovs and let flashbacks melt your brain while you watch the psychedelic English-subtitled trailer for the latter here.
