Beloved independent filmmaker Tsukamoto Shinya gave a masterclass at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), speaking about the pivotal works of his career as well as his most recent film, the English-language feature “Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?” Perhaps most famous overseas for his 1989 feature “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” Tsukamoto spoke candidly about his preference for working outside the studio system as much as possible. Moderator Ichiyama Shozo, TIFF’s programming director, called “Tetsuo” a “shock,” not so much for its body horror as for the fact that a film of that quality could emerge from the Japanese independent film scene at the time.
Tsukamoto recalled shooting the film on 16mm, before the era of digital VFX. We had a little bit of tokusatsu [practical special effects] technology at the time but this didn’t use any of that, this used stuff which was thrown out on the street and we basically stuck it on [Taguchi Tomorowo]’s face,” the director said. Of the effect of Taguchi gliding through the streets, he said to “think of it as really rough stop motion.” The film took about a year to make, Tsukamoto said, though “the time we spent with the crew was shorter, a lot of the time towards the end I was working alone – like the sparks flying off at the end [of the clip], that was something I worked on alone.” The success of “Tetsuo,” he said, took him to film festivals overseas and led to his second feature, the horror film “Hiruko the Goblin,” now with a higher budget.
Asked by Ichiyama whether he felt more pressure making a larger-scale film, Tsukamoto said he mostly managed it, in part because of his time working in commercials. Ichiyama pointed out that Tsukamoto has consistently produced his films independently over the years, as with “Bullet Ballet” and “Tokyo Fist.” “I did receive offers [from studios] but I didn’t want to become a director for hire, I didn’t think that suited me, and there’s certain things you want to do as a filmmaker,” the director said. Without that, because I’m not that strong-willed, I thought it would be very difficult to me.
I think my impulse as a creator is stronger with my own material, which is why I went down that path.” Tsukamoto said his 2014 war film “Fires on the Plain,” based on a novel by Ooka Shohei that Ichikawa Kon had also adapted in 1959, was made independently. It was shot partly in the Philippines, partly in Okinawa and the rest in Saitama Prefecture. I thought it was something I could do myself with SNS [social media],” he said.
Short on time, the talk skipped ahead to “Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?,” Tsukamoto’s second English-language film after 2009’s “Tetsuo: The Bullet Man.” The film, which played in competition at Venice in September, follows Allen Nelson, a New Yorker who joins the Marines at 18 and is haunted by what he did in Vietnam. Rodney Hicks, Geoffrey Rush and Lily Franky are among the cast.
Tsukamoto said he came across the story while making “Fires on the Plain,” but COVID-19 and then the Hollywood actors’ strike caused delays long enough that he released “Shadow of Fire,” originally planned for after “Mr. Altogether, the process took around seven years. After the abbreviated career talk, an audience Q&A delved a little more into Tsukamoto’s filmmaking philosophies and views on contemporary independent film.
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