Somewhere in that grey ambiguous zone between acting on an impulsive whim and executing a well thought out plan, I'm sitting down on a chilly evening in March 2016 to wrap things up on this blog. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm done here. I've made a decision to conclude my chronological series of essays on films included in the Criterion Collection, and perhaps there's no more fitting title to end with than Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging. Well, maybe if I had actually written about all of the titles issued up until now and finished here with one last post on the upcoming release of the most recent Criterion film, Christian Petzold's Phoenix, that would have been better. But Oshima's surrealistic, satirical take on the topic of capital punishment and other regressive tendencies in Japanese society of the late 1960s will have to suffice. Its central theme, of a botched execution where the victim by all rights ought to be dead but somehow survives anyway and finds himself facing profound uncertainties about his future and his very identity, also happens to metaphorically fit my situation as well. I'll explain further in just a bit.
I've already written a brief review of the film on my alternative home base on the internet, CriterionCast.com. That article was composed with a somewhat promotional bias, as I published it on the day that Death by Hanging hit the retail shelves. When I do a new release review, I tend to not get as deep into my analysis of the film as I generally have done on this site. I'm careful to avoid spoilers, for the sake of viewers who haven't seen the film yet and are simply curious to get an informed idea of what to expect (and potentially enjoy) about the movie in question. For now, I'm pretty content to let that post represent my most extensive written commentary on the film, but I did also facilitate a brief discussion about it on a podcast that I recorded with a few of my Criterion Cast colleagues just last night. That episode will go up very soon and when it does, I will include the link here. Furthermore, I'm scheduled to record yet another podcast on the Eclipse Series volume of Oshima's Outlaw Sixties tomorrow evening, and I'm sure that this film will come up in the conversation, since it was produced in between two of the films contained in that set. So to expand my ruminations on Death by Hanging even further beyond those three entries seems gratuitous at this point, so I'll wrap up my discussion here by simply giving the film a very high recommendation as an excellent point of entry into the work of a fascinating director and creative personality, and an unforgettably entertaining cinematic experience on its own terms, even for those who really don't have a strong curiosity about Oshima or this era of Japanese film culture.
Instead, I'll fill up this column with a few thoughts about why I decided to change up my approach to blogging about the Criterion Collection and what I plan to do with this series going forward. It's been very apparent to me since the beginning of this year that the initial mission I set out to accomplish back in 2009, of watching and writing about all those films in the order of their original release, has been supplanted as a priority, in favor of other assignments that I find more appealing, convenient, manageable or just plain fun. I still do get a lot of enjoyment from the process of digging into a film, doing some research into the surrounding context, and watching movies that came out around the same time in order to more effectively tap into the zeitgeist that prevailed at the moment of their creation. But with an abundance of opportunities to interact more directly with friends and colleagues who are active in the cinematic podcast scene, I've found it very difficult to maintain that focus on the chronological scheme that I once had, when I was more of a solitary blogger dedicated to the task of contemplating a single film at a time, until I could confidently distill my thoughts into a thousand words or two, hit the Publish button, and then move on to whatever was next on my list. Thus, the gaps between posts have grown longer, even as I'm accepting invitations to appear on various podcasts to talk about movies from all over the eclectic territory covered by the Criterion Collection in between my increasingly scarce periods of dedicated writing.
I'm also butting up against a sense of fatigue with the format here, and specifically the limitations of a primarily text-driven site like Blogger. It feels so 2009! Over the intervening years, WordPress seems to have become the platform of choice, and I've even given a bit of thought to the possibility of converting my old posts over to a new site. But that just seems tedious, time-consuming and ultimately pointless. This series was written and published in a certain format and I'm content to let the articles remain as is. I'm just kind of bored with the basic set-up and I'm ready to take a different approach.
So with my series just now entering into the pivotal year of 1968, I still remain quite intrigued and enthusiastic about the idea of studying the Criterion Collection films of that year in a coherent and comprehensive way. There was way too much of lasting historical significance going on at that point in history for me to just hang it up and be done with my project, just when things were hitting a fever pitch in societies all around the world. This is in many ways an ideal time to reorient myself to the task at hand and envision a new way of tackling the material. So that's ultimately what led me to make the decision to move my coverage of Criterion '68 (and however far into the future I'm able to extend this effort) over to the Criterion Cast website. Ryan Gallagher and I have enjoyed a mutually beneficial working relationship and personal friendship ever since I formally started writing for the site back in 2010, and there's no other web address that I'd rather publish at or contribute to, none whatsoever. I appreciate Ryan's willingness to let me use the site he's built and maintained as my new primary outlet, where I plan to continue plowing through that long Criterion Chronology list that I put together, but doing so in a way that will be fresher, livelier and more collaborative than the routine I established here. My intention is to make the new Criterion Reflections column at CriterionCast.com a blend of short podcasts (sometimes solo, sometimes with others), written essays, video clips, links to other reviews and resources that shed light on the films. I might cover films individually or combine multiple capsule reviews into one post if it seems more sensible to process them that way. And I plan to have a little more creative freedom with the versatility of WordPress, while still creating pages that fit comfortably within the aesthetic of the Criterion Cast site.
I'll get around to doing that very soon, once I dig myself out of this deep Oshima-sized hole that I seem to have been stuck in over the past few weeks. :) And as my final statement on this blog, let me take a moment to express my profound and sincere gratitude to everyone who has provided such wonderful comments, feedback, encouragement and companionship to me through this site over these past seven-plus years. It's truly a delight for me to reflect on the friendships that this little project of mine has helped to initiate, the many great conversations and laughs we've enjoyed along the way. I'm excited at the prospect of continuing that dialog in some new ways as I consolidate my energies over at a new (but also comfortably familiar) home on the web.
Next: Kuroneko