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 Patrick Noonan
The essay examines how filmmaker Ōe Masanori used his experiences with the psychedelic counterculture in both the United States and Japan to create films that aimed to change viewers' perceptions of themselves and their world. After producing films in the U.S. counterculture for five years, Ōe returned to Japan in 1969 and became involved in emerging domestic movements. The author argues that Ōe intentionally incorporated his understanding of psychedelics into his filmmaking techniques, crafting a form of cinema designed to alter consciousness and reshape how audiences understood their identity and relationship to society during the late 1960s.