The Limits of Fiction: Politics and Absent Scenes in Susumu Hani’s Bad Boys (Furyōshōnen, 1960). A Film Re-reading through its Script

Centeno, Marcos

Abstract

This text proposes an updated analysis of Susumu Hani’s Bad Boys (1960) through the director’s theoretical contribution and the re-reading of his script. This film, made within the limits of reality and fiction, was instrumental in the cinematic language of the sixties in Japan. Hani implemented herein a style that he developed during his earlier decade as a documentary maker for Iwanami Eiga studios. Hani based his filmmaking method on a philosophical pragmatism extracted from the practices of an amateur writing called seikatsu kiroku (life document) that appeared in the early 1950s. In fact, Bad Boys is a loose adaptation of Tobenai Tsubasa (Wings that Cannot Fly) an example of seikatsu kiroku consisting of a compilation of experiences written by inmates from the Kurihama reformatory. Hani responded to the demands for a new realism of the time with this film, which he made collectively with the former inmates of that reformatory. Additionally, a close analysis of the script reveals significant “absent scenes” of student demonstrations, which are similar to those Oshima and Yoshida used in 1960. This fact evidences Hani’s shared concern with other filmmakers of the time about the necessities of bringing cinema closer to topical issues.

Citation

Centeno, M. (2018). The Limits of Fiction: Politics and Absent Scenes in Susumu Hani’s Bad Boys (Furyōshōnen, 1960). A Film Re-reading through its Script. Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 10, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17564905.2018.1437659

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 30, 2016
• Publication Date: Feb 15, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jun 16, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 16, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema
• Print ISSN: 1756-4905
• Electronic ISSN: 1756-4913
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Pages: 1-15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17564905.2018.1437659
• Keywords: Japanese cinema, Susumu Hani, Bad Boys, documentary film, avant-garde, script
• Related Public URLs: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjkc20