Death by Hanging: Comments on Turim

A few relatively small issues.

*As I noted in class, she gets the poll wrong.  What the poll actually says is that 71% of the people surveyed are against the abolition of the death penalty.

*The intertitles and the excerpts from the letters are not written on "graph paper," but rather on traditional Japanese manuscript paper (the traditional Japanese equivalent of lined paper).  You put one phonetic symbol in each box.

*the "party" in the 6th section is not just a "drunken" party, but one in which they are "singing" an obscene song about penises, while the education office dances around with a sake bottle as a penis.  As in "In the Realm of the Senses," Oshima is making a direct association between sex and power/politics.

*Turim's use of theory is sometimes problematic, as she often doesn't distinguish between Oshima's "intentions" and her own "analysis."  She writes as though Oshima was aware of Lacan, for example, which is highly unlikely.  It is okay to use Lacanian analysis, but there should be greater clarity about how she is using it.  (On the other hand, it is clear that Oshima was aware of Brecht.)
I should also note that it is odd that virtually all of the theoretical and literary references are to Western texts. (This is a hotly debated issue among those who study Japan.) For example, Oshima did not necessarily get the idea to use the letter R. from Kafka, etc.,  There was a large body of modern Japanese literature that used the same motif.
If Oshima knew some  theory, he probably knew Marxist theory, and, besides Brecht, Sartre.  Describing people as "vague and misty" (p.79) is, to me, a clear reference to Sartrean "nausea" (as opposed to the hard, concrete, distinct "real").  In fact, I wish Turim had addressed existentialism more,since existentialism was one of the most influential "-isms" of the time of this film.

*page 79: they were not "in an embrace" when rolling down the embankment (not a hill).  I think it's important that they rolled separately.

What I liked.

*the discussion of montage and repetition on pages 74-75.

*the discussion of the cat on pages 75-77.

*the description of the "sister" as a "free-floating imaginary with a life of its own."  This is why different people see the woman appear in different ways (which she did not mention).