samedi 2 janvier 2016

Tokyo 2015 #5. Les sourires de Kabukicho.

A l’origine, Kabukicho a été construit après-guerre sur un quartier de Shinjuku rasé par les bombardements. Il devait accueillir, un grand théâtre Kabuki qui ne fut jamais construit. Mais le nom est resté, et au fond il lui va à merveille, comme si l’esprit sulfureux du vieux kabuki, la pratique du travestissement et la prostitution des jeunes actrices et acteurs avaient implicitement décidé de l’orientation du quartier. Lorsque je me rends à Golden Gai, j’aime toujours le traverser pour en sentir l’électricité presque palpable, au sens propre d’abord puisque les néons des boîtes en font sans doute l’une des plus grandes dépenses de Tokyo. J’aime regarder les hosts, ces jeunes garçons travaillant dans les clubs pour femmes esseulés, mince et habillés de noir, les cheveux oranges ébouriffés comme des chats de gouttières. Je suis toujours intrigué par la façon dont les rabatteurs sénégalais s’arrêtent à la lisière de Golden Gai, devant le bar karaoké philippin Champion, comme si une barrière magnétique de science-fiction séparait les deux mondes. Ce soir-là, la veille de mon retour en France, j’ai voulu emporter avec moi les sourires de Kabukicho.




Balthus, version japonaise



Balthus a de longue date noué des liens avec la culture japonaise. Envoyé par Malraux en mission au Japon en 1961, il y rencontra son épouse, Setsuko Ikeda, qui deviendra le modèle de plusieurs de ses œuvres (La Japonaise au miroir, par exemple). Le photographe Shinoyama Kishin fit le voyage jusqu’à Genève pour mettre en scène le peintre avec une jeune fille blonde très «alicienne». On comprend ce qui attire les Japonais chez Balthus, en premier lieu cette représentation féminine juvénile, où l’érotisme nait d’une série de contraintes du corps. Nous ne sommes pas dans le shibari mais le corps est néanmoins dominé par les lignes dures des décors ou des meubles. Il y a aussi les chats aux traits presque humains, compagnons des jeunes filles, ironiques et un peu voyeurs.
L’imaginaire balthusien a imprégné la culture japonaise, au même titre que celui de Bellmer ou de Bataille, et on en retrouve la trace chez Suehiro Maruo, l’illustrateur eroguro, dont les adolescentes se retrouvent brisées en des postures douloureuses. 
L’une des dernières variations japonaises sur l’œuvre de Balthus est l’une des plus spectaculaires. Le photographe Hisaji Hara s’est livré à une série de relectures de peintures et dessins célèbres, en mettant en scène un couple de lycéens. C'est d'ailleurs lui-même qui interprète, de façon assez médusante, le garçon, l'autoportrait de Balthus devenant ainsi le sien. Quant à la jeune fille, c'est la compagne du photographe, Natsumi Hayashi (connue pour ses autoportraits en suspension) qui tient son rôle. Si les décors et mobilier ne sont pas reproduits à l’identique, la dureté persiste dans les contrastes du noir et blanc, sa finesse comme découpée au scalpel. Hara s’autorise aussi d’étranges libertés, comme de transposer les personnages de «La Montagne» dans l’intérieur glacé et carrelé d’une salle d’opération chirurgicale. Si leurs regards sont parfois lointain, des sourires amusés flottent légèrement sur les visages de ses modèles. Ces déplacements ironiques, font des photographies d’Hara bien autre chose que de simples «tableaux vivants». En traversant le miroir balthusien, les jeunes filles - et les jeunes garçons - en uniformes entrent dans le monde qui leur convient le mieux, celui d’une théâtralité des sentiments où l’émotion affleure sous la froideur et la cruauté. 








Ajouter une légende










Le site de Hisaji Hara ici

Romain Slocombe, illustrations japonaises

Des illustrations de Romain Slocombe pour Folio, ma préférée est sans doute celle du Marin rejeté par la mer de Mishima, avec ses couleurs incroyablement vivantes et sa ligne claire. L’avantage de ces illustrations est bien sûr qu’on peut les «saisir» et qu’elles sont chargées de la dimension du texte.  Aujourd’hui, je me rends compte combien ces illustrations furent une première approche du cinéma japonais et constituaient les affiches idéales d’ adaptations rêvées.


 

 
 

Au début des années 90,  je découvrais au Studio Keaton, un petit cinéma d'Aix-en-Provence, la première vague de Roman Porno Nikkatsu. C'est Romain Slocombe qui avait conçu les premières pages du dossier de presse. En feuilletant des celluloïds, on pouvait déshabiller sa propre actrice pink .









Cette première save de Romans Pornos comprenait trois films de Noboru Tanaka, 
Confidentiel : Marché sexuel des filles (1974), La Maison des perversités (1976) et La Véritable histoire d’Abe Sada (1975).
Il y avait aussi la Rue de la joie (1974) de Tatsumi Kumashiro et la La Barrière de chair (1964) de Seijun Suzuki (qui n’est cependant pas un Roman Porno).
La collection ne connut pas un grand succès et il fallut attendre 20 ans pour découvrir, en DVD, d’autres films de Noburo Tanaka. Le très noir Confidentiel : Marché sexuel des filles n’a cependant pas été réédité. Tanaka quittait pour un temps ses univers décadents pour filmer un Japon contemporain en ruine : une adolescente prostituée couchait avec son frère attardé et se suicidait en faisant exploser une poupée gonflable remplie de gaz.




vendredi 1 janvier 2016

Katsumi Watanabe, mauvaises filles et mauvais garçons

Katsumi Watanabe - Gangs of Kabukicho 


Dans le magnifique recueil consacré au travail de Katsumi Watanabe à Kabukicho (PPP Editions, 2006), on trouve cette très belle préface de  lizawa Kotaro qui éclaire sur l'étrange profession de "photographe de rue" mais aussi sur l'histoire de Shinjuku et de son quartier des plaisirs. 




Shinjuku's Photographer - Watanabe Katsumi by lizawa Kotaro
Watanabe Katsumi's workplace during the 1960s and 70s was the living streets of Kabukicho in Shinjuku. Each night he went out into the neighborhood, working as a photographer, taking portraits and selling them, "three pictures for 200 yen." These pictures, in staggering volume, cast an overwhelming spell on the viewer; they embody miraculous power.
Watanabe Katsumi was born in 1941, in Morioka City of Iwate Prefecture, some 600 kilometers north of Tokyo. His family was poor, and after graduating middie school, he helped support them by working as an assistant at the Morioka City bureau of the Mainichi Shimbun, a national newspaper. The duties of such assistants, dubbed children were varied; sometimes Watanabe developed and printed photographs. Gradually, he became fascinated with the medium.
Watanabe moved to Tokyo in 1962 and joined Tojo Kaikan, the legendary portrait photography studio near the Imperial Palace. At the time, vestiges of the apprenticeship System persisted at photo studios and Watanabe had to survive a grueling training regimen, which began with rinsing photo paper, before they allowed him to actually make prints himself. Once he mastered the technique, he began to feel restless with the mechanical part of the production process.
Around that time, he became attracted by the work of Mr. S., an acquaintance who worked as a street photographer in Kabukicho. Visiting S.'s room, Watanabe saw rows of photographic prints from the previous day's work lined up on tatami mats: "They looked like money to me." Besides S., there were three or four other street photographers who were regulars in Shinjuku, they had worked there since World War II, when it was hosting black markets in its ruins.
Watanabe learned the basics of the trade from S., and, borrowing a camera and strobe light, he began working as a street photographer in the entertainment districts of Shibuya, Shinbashi and Ueno. Soliciting bar hostesses and cabaret busboys before working hours, he would photograph them and sell them the prints. As his customers increased, he could no longer keep his position at Tojo Kaikan, and in 1967, he quit his job and began working exclusively as a street photographer.
With S.'s permission, Watanabe began to photograph in lucrative Shinjuku. Through 1968, he commuted to Kabukicho nearly every night. Watanabe said his peak years of success, when he produced some of his best portraits, were between 1968 and 1970. In those days, cameras with strobe lights were still rare and Watanabe's beautiful photographs were popular. Some subjects wanted to send them to their families back home, others wanted to mount them on wooden panels and hang them in their establishments. His customers were picky about how they posed, but Watanabe was accommodating and formed warm ties with them, as if they were family.
In the 1970s, the atmosphere of the Shinjuku streets changed; the predominantly one or two story buildings were demolished and replaced with taller buildings. The rich human connections that occurred in easily accessible ground floor establishments became strained when they moved to the upper floors. Compact cameras with built-in strobes became increasingly popular and street photographers' customers dwindled. Watanabe's work entered a transitional period.
 Shoji, the editor of Camera Mainichi, and applied to Album 73, a Camera Mainichi, project that solicited photographs from the general public. His acceptance leads to a significant shift in his status as a photographer. Watanabe's seven-page spread Shinjuku Kabukicho," in the June, 1973 issue, received the Album Prize, awarded for the best photographs of the year, and his name became widely known.
1973 was also the year that Watanabe's first photographic book, Shinjuku Guntoden 66/73, [Shinjuku; The Story of a Band of thieves 66/73] published by Camera Mainichi (in association with Barakei Gahosha) and edited by Nishii Kazuo, was realized. In January 1974 his solo show, "Hatsunozoki Yoru no Daifukumaden" [First Peek at the Nocturnal Demon’s Lair] dazzled visitors to the Shimizu Gallery, where innumerable photos were pasted on every surface, including the floor and ceiling.
And yet, although his photographs were critically acclaimed, his commercial prospects in Shinjuku did not recover. As a consequence Watanabe temporarily stopped working as a street photographer and sold roasted sweet potatoes in the streets. In 1976, he picked up where he had left off and opened a small studio in Higashi Nakano, two stations away from Shinjuku. He managed his studio for five years but continued to visit Kabukicho at night.
After folding his studio in the early 80s, Watanabe made ends meet with magazine assignments and successfully published tree books: Discology, a selection of photographs he made in discotheques along with text he wrote about h's experiences, and a revised edition of his first book Shinjuku: The Story of a Band of Thieves, also accompanied by his own recollections and series. They were both published in 1982 as part of a series by Bansei-sha. And later on, in 1997, Shinchosha published a hefty, 500-page retrospective monograph titled simply: Shinjuku 1965-97. 
Anyone who sees Watanabe's photographs of Shinjuku - especially those taken between the late 60s and throughout the 70s - will feel powerfully drawn into that world. To help understand the energy they radiate, the source of their charm, we cannot overlook the history of Shinjuku.
In 1698 a new station was established along the Koshukaido Road, one of five major arteries leading from Edo (now Tokyo) to the provinces. This is how Shinjuku was born; it flourished as a way station for travelers, where inns jostled or space and eating and drinking establishments. During the Meiji Era [1868-1912], railroad stations (on what are now the Yamanote and Chuo lines) were built in Shinjuku. Later, as the private rail lines of Odakyu, Keio and Seibu linked the city center with Tokyo suburbs, Shinjuku developed into a leading entertainment hub. Department stores, movie theatres, cafes, and bookstores all thrived there ; during the 1920s, Shinjuku became the center of modernist culture in Japan. 
But there was another face to Shinjuku. Before World War II, in contrast to the celebrated world of glamorous consumer culture the reclaimed swampland on the north side of the station had given rise to specialty eating and drinking establishments that also provided sexual services. Shinjuku was devastated by the war but its resurrection from the ruins was swift. Off the main boulevards in a warren of bars, illegal prostitutes entertained their clients on second floors, and the area came to be known as the Blue Light district (in contrast to a Red Light district where prostitution was legal). So, the two faces of Shinjuku, the front and the back, the light and the dark, the commercial district and the sexual entertainment district co-existed.
Immediately after the war, there was talk of creating a Kabuki Theater in Shinjuku, like the original in Ginza. Although the project never materialized the area was then dubbed Kabukicho. The idea of situating Kabuki, already solidly established as Japanese classical entertainment near the Blue Light district, was preposterous. Nevertheless, Kabukicho continued to develop as a gigantic nightlife district centered on the sex trade. Along the way, Kabukicho began to be known as Nihon no kahanshin [Japan from the waist-down]. 
The Kabukicho area of Shinjuku was Watanabe's stomping ground. He felt an affection for the hard-bitten survivors that inhabited its streets, surviving on violence and Eros; with the sympathies of an insider Watanabe went about his business with ease.
The subjects of Watanabe's photographs are always clearly aware they're being photographed; their poses present their innate body language. Watanabe was fond of saying "All Shinjuku is a stage." His strobe managed to illuminate the essential vulnerability that lurked beneath his subjects' blustery performance.
In the mid-1970s, as Watanabe's Shinjuku clients began to dwindle, one of his resident models exhorted him, "Nabe-chan (his nickname) take our pictures, save them as mementos!" Kabukicho today is hardly recognizable as the area where Watanabe once worked as a street photographer. Since the 1990s, as Chinese and Koreans have made their way into the neighborhood, its population has grown increasingly heterogeneous: in some areas forests of signs are posted in languages other than Japanese. The young people's carefree looks, as they chatter on their cell phones and walk down the streets, betray no trace of the past.
But step into the back alleys and there is a distinct sense that marginal characters are still lurking about. Although significantly reduced in scale, nightlife areas such as Golden Gai still retain vestiges of the postwar black markets and Blue Light districts. No doubt Shinjuku will continue to transform itself like a giant creature perpetually in flux, a fate shared by many cultural centers of great cities. 
Watanabe Katsumi died on January 29, 2006 at the age of 64.
This essay is based on the last interview he made in his office in Roppongi, Tokyo, on December 13, 2005.



Parmi les gangs de Kabukicho, on croise l'un des rois de Shinjuku : Terayama Shuji !