Toshio Matsumoto
- 1969Funeral Parade of Roses
- 1975Ātman
- 1968For the Damaged Right Eye
A Japanese experimental filmmaker and video artist who set Oedipus Rex in the gay bars of 1960s Tokyo.
Matsumoto graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1955 and went to work at the Shin-Riken Film Company, where he made Ginrin the same year. He moved between documentary, experimental shorts and video, which he took up in the late 1960s with Magnetic Scramble.
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) loosely adapts Oedipus Rex in the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo, and folds Magnetic Scramble into its story. In Ātman (1975) the camera takes 480 positions around a figure in a Hannya mask.
He taught at the Kyushu Institute of Design, where Takashi Ito studied under him, and became dean of arts at Kyoto University of Art and Design. He died in Tokyo in 2017.
Films
Where to start with Toshio Matsumoto, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from For the Damaged Right Eye to come. For the Damaged Right Eye
A work in three 16mm parts, made just before the events of May 1968, after Matsumoto had written the script of Funeral Parade of Roses.
Funeral Parade of Roses
Eddie, a young trans hostess at a Tokyo gay bar called Genet, moves through a loose retelling of Oedipus Rex. The role went to Peter, then sixteen, scouted at a gay bar.
Still from Ātman to come. Ātman
Shot on infrared film, largely in stop-motion, as the camera takes 480 positions around a seated figure in a Hannya mask. The electronic score is by Toshi Ichiyanagi.