Japanese New Left's Political Theories of Subjectivity and Ōshima Nagisa's Practice of Cinema

Abstract

Although much has been written about the political theories of several thinkers associated with the Japanese New Left, to gain a better understanding of those theories a perspective that conceives them as a conversation within a unitary ideology is needed. Likewise, we know little about how media forms other than the written word contributed to this conversation. To address these gaps in our understanding, this article investigates how the practice of cinema, through the paradigmatic example of Ōshima Nagisa's film Kōshikei 絞死刑 (Death by Hanging) (1968), intervened in the Japanese New Left's conception of shutaisei 主体性 (subjectivity). This article first presents the theories of subjectivity of some of the most influential thinkers in the shaping of the Japanese New Left ideology (Umemoto Katsumi, Nakai Masakazu, Yoshimoto Takaaki, Tanigawa Gan, Tokoro Mitsuko) and then explores the contribution of Ōshima's Kōshikei to them, showing the limitations of some previous lines of interpretation of the film. Relating the different dimensions of an ideology, in this case the political theory and the practice of cinema of the Japanese New Left, will help us to gain a better understanding of both the ideology as a whole and the dimensions comprising it.