An avant-garde of the mind: Ōe Masanori and psychedelic cinema in the global Sixties

Patrick Noonan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)169-196
Number of pages28
JournalSixties
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Funding

The author wishes to thank Ōe Masanori for taking the time to discuss his life and work during the 1960s, Hirasawa Go for his generous assistance in tracking down sources during a difficult time for conducting research, and Thomas Gaubatz for his valuable feedback during the revision process.

Keywords

  • Sixties Japan
  • counterculture
  • expanded cinema
  • global Sixties
  • psychedelics
  • radical cinema
  • Ōe Masanori

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • History
  • Sociology and Political Science

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