- ART THEATRE GUILD -
THE ANTICIPATION OF FREEDOM: ART THEATRE GUILD AND JAPANESE INDEPENDENT CINEMA.
The 1980s saw the formation of several independent distribution and production companies in Japan. This provided the basis for an alternative movie market and an increased diversity of film production. The starting point of this development was the Art Theatre Guild, which was established in 1961 as an independent distributor of foreign art films as well as Japanese films that were produced outside the studios. These films were shown at the movie theatres owned by the Art Theatre Guild. From 1967 onward ATG started to produce their own films and became the most important producer of Japanese independent movies. Until the mid-1980s ATG strongly influenced the whole of Japanese cinema.
In April 1962, ATG started their program with “Mother Joan of the Angels” by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Apart from foreign movies, ATG also acted as distributor for several independently produced Japanese films such as Teshigahara's “The Pitfall” as well as films by Kaneto Shindo, Susumu Hani, Kazuo Kuroki, YoshishigeYoshida, Nagisa Oshima and Akio Jissoji, whose later films ATG also produced.
Not only the method of selecting the films was new, the way in which they were presented was novel, too. One of ATG's basic rules was to show each film for at least a month, irrespective of attendance. ATG's flagship was the Art Theatre Shinjuku Bunka in Tokyo, which was managed by Kinshiro Kuzui. The Shinjuku Bunka had been built in 1937 as contract cinema of Toho. Kuzui readapted it according to his own plans and created a completely new type of cinema. The whole cinema was painted dark grey, bills and posters and any other kind of flashy. The foyer acted as a gallery where well-known painters and illustrators exhibited their work.
In order to present even 8mm or 16mm films in the best possible quality (the screen of the Shinjuku Bunka was too big for these formats), in the basement of the Shinjuku Bunka Kuzui had a small theatre built for film and theatrical performances, concerts, and other events. The Sasori-za was inaugurated on June 10, 1967. It was the first underground theatre in Japan, a center of experimental drama and experimental film, and one of the major centers of the Japanese avant-garde.
Five days after the opening of the Sasori-za ATG released Shohei Imamura's controversial documentary “A Man Vanishes”. This was the first film that ATG also co-produced. The first film planned and produced by ATG was Oshima's “Death by Hanging”, which was released in 1968. Projects were chosen by an independent planning committee of film critics. In the beginning, the directors of the Japanese Nouvelle Vague were at the center of ATG's production activities. Many of their major works were made in collaboration with ATG: “Death by Hanging”, “Shonen”, “The Man Who Left His Will On Film”, “The Ceremony” , and “Little Summer Sister” by Oshima, “Heroic Purgatory” and “Coup d'Etat” by Yoshishige Yoshida, “Double Suicide” and “Himiko” by Masahiro Shinoda, as well as “The Inferno of First Love” and “Morning Schedule” by Susumu Hani. Furthermore, ATG distributed several films by Oshima and Yoshida. ATG's importance for the Japanese Nouvelle Vague can hardly be exaggerated.
At the same time, ATG gave several experimental directors the chance to realize their extremely individual fantasies, most importantly Toshio Matsumoto (“Funeral Procession of Roses”, “Shura”) and Shuji Terayama (“Throw Away the Books, Rally in the Streets”, “Pastoral: To Die in the Country”, “Farewell to the Ark”). Akio Jissoji and Kazuo Kuroki also were very experimental in their approach; in the 1970s they became ATG's leading directors. ATG continued to co-operate with experimental directors such as Yoichi Takabayashi and, later, Nobuhiko Obayashi, but the films made after 1973 were much less radical than the films before. The main reason was the closing of the Shinjuku Bunka in 1974. ATG thus lost one of its most important assets.
“Young Murderer” marked the beginning of a new development in the history of ATG: the promotion of young directors who had not yet gained a lot of experience in the making of feature films. In 1979 producer Shiro Sasaki replaced Taneo Iseki as president of ATG. He belonged to a different generation, and this is reflected in the new films. Yoshimitsu Morita, Sogo Ishii, Shunichi Nagasaki and other major representatives of the independent cinema of the 1980s worked with ATG, but they were not tied to ATG in the same way their colleagues were a decade or two earlier. New independent production and distribution companies as well as cinemas took over from ATG and established themselves outside the studios, which largely gave up producing and became mere distributors and cinema operators.
When ATG was founded in the 1960, Japanese cinema was still dominated by the studios even if they were already on their way out. ATG was the most important producer and distributor outside the studio world and decisively shaped the development of Japanese cinema. When the studios virtually stopped producing films and new companies filled the gap, the Art Theatre Guild could retire with a clear conscience and surrender the field to others who followed and expanded their policy of quality films. The spirit of ATG lives on in the independent cinema of today.
