An avant-garde of the mind: Ōe Masanori and psychedelic cinema in the global Sixties
The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture July 3, 2021 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/17541328.2021.1996792 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
The essay examines how filmmaker Ōe Masanori connected cinema with the psychedelic counterculture in the United States and Japan. After making films about the U.S. counterculture for five years, Ōe returned to Japan in 1969 and joined emerging movements there. The author argues that Ōe used his knowledge of psychedelics to create films that could change viewers' self-understanding and perception of the world during the late 1960s.
Study at a glance
| Design | historical analysis |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Ōe Masanori incorporated his understanding of psychedelics into filmmaking to alter viewers' self-understanding and relationship to the world. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT This essay explores the relationship between cinema and the psychedelic counterculture in the United States and Japan through the life and work of the filmmaker Ōe Masanori. After spending five years producing films within and about the counterculture in the U.S., he returned to Japan in 1969 and quickly became involved in the emerging movements at home. The author argues that Ōe incorporated his understanding of psychedelics into his filmmaking to create forms of cinema that could alter how viewers understood themselves and their relationship to the world in the late 1960s.