“Who speaks of realism here?”
This is it: our mammoth exploration of the work of Japanese iconoclast Seijun Suzuki. Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by poster illustrator and peerless cinephile Tony Stella to examine the legendarily idiosyncratic and uncontrollable director. From Suzuki’s start as an impossibly lazy assistant director at Shochiku to his his period as a relentlessly prolific genre filmmaker at Nikkatsu to his second act as an esteemed independent artist.
His films long-suppressed by Nikkatsu and unknown outside of his native country, Suzuki’s reputation took off in America in the 90s when filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch sang his praises (Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog is famously an extended homage to Suzuki’s career-breaking Branded to Kill); after a few tumultuous decades, Suzuki finally achieved the international renown he deserved.
Join us as we follow the director’s journey, beat by beat, film by film; from his early “youth in revolt” films like Everything Goes Wrong to his wild genre experiments like Youth of the Beast & Tokyo Drifter to his notorious “flesh trilogy” that caps off his early career with the brilliant Carmen from Kawachi. We go after it all: the Taisho trilogy, his Lupin III anime, his golf comedy, his late-period curtain call.
It’s here, the most comprehensive podcast study of a filmmaker like no other.
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Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”
Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”