History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess

1970 Japanese film

Nobuyo Horiba
Motoo Ogasawara

Starring

Emiko Akaza
Etsuko Akaza
Akemi Akaza
Shōhei Imamura

CinematographyMasao Tochikawa}Edited by

Mutsuo Niwa
Noriaki Sugimoto

Music byHaruo Ibe

Production
companies

Nippon Eiga Shinsha
Toho

Distributed byToho

Release date

6 March 1970 (1970-03-06) (Japan)

^[1]^[2]

Running time

105 minutes^[1]^[2]CountryJapan

History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (にっぽん戦後史マダムおんぼろの生活, Nippon sengoshi – Madamu Onboro no seikatsu) is a 1970 Japanese documentary film by director Shōhei Imamura.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Synopsis

Director Shōhei Imamura interviews Emiko Akaza, the bar hostess of the film's title, who reflects on her life as a prostitute and madam in post-war Yokosuka and comments on news reel footage of Japan's history from 1945 to the present.

Production

After the poor box-office performance of his ambitious 1968 film, The Profound Desire of the Gods, Imamura decided to undertake a more modestly budgeted film. Characteristically, Imamura seeks to investigate an alternative interpretation of recent Japanese history through the eyes of a person living in the lower strata of that society.^[4]

Beginning with this film, Imamura was to spend the next decade working in the documentary format. He returned to purely fictional narrative with Vengeance is Mine (1979).^[4]

Release

History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess was released in Japan 3 June 1970 where it was distributed by Toho. The film was shown in Los Angeles in 1998 with any earlier American release being undetermined.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Galbraith IV, Stuart (2008). The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography. Scarecrow Press. pp. 267–268. ISBN 978-1461673743.
^ ^a ^b ^c "にっぽん戦後史マダムおんぼろの生活 (Nippon sengoshi: Madamu onboro no seikatsu)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
^ "にっぽん戦後史マダムおんぼろの生活 (Nippon sengoshi: Madamu onboro no seikatsu)" (in Japanese). Kinenote. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
^ ^a ^b Sharp, Jasper. "History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess". Midnight Eye. Archived from the original on 12 June 2006. Retrieved 5 July 2021.