"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" Nagisa Oshima x David Bowie x Beat Takeshi x Ryuichi Sakamoto The path to the realization of a unique war movie, Part 2

From Rarotonga to Auckland ~ Crank up

On September 17th, the six scenes that were originally scheduled to take two days were shot in one go, and the 23-day location shoot on Rarotonga Island was completed. After this, the filming location will move to Auckland. The wife, who had been searching for the missing husband, left Rarotonga on that day, feeling discouraged and unable to find her husband. ``Weekly Heibon'' (March 23, 1984 issue) describes his wife's feelings at that time, saying, ``The reason why I burst into tears was when I returned home after a fruitless search, about 20 of the wives of the foreign staff members They all donated 10,000 yen to the cause," he wrote.

Filming begins on location in Auckland on September 25th. The courtroom scene, which uses the Oakland City Council building, and the dormitory that appears in Celias' flashbacks were all filmed together. Yuya Uchida and Mutsuhiro Toura, who has appeared in Oshima Pictures since its early works, will also be joining the cast.

The night of September 30th is the final scene where Lawrence visits Hara, who is imprisoned after the war. This is a long shot of the car stopping in front of the prison, Lawrence getting out, and entering the building. OK was given after two takes. Tom Conti, who plays Lawrence, has now completed all filming. Although there were no professional actors in the main cast, he supported them with his detailed acting as the only professional actor. There were concerns that he would not be able to maintain a balance with their sensuous acting, but Tom flexibly followed their rhythm and slowed down his acting as necessary, making Bowie and Sakamoto appear on screen. , and made Takeshi shine.

There is only a short amount of filming left, and the main cast will be all-up one after another. On October 3rd, Scene 22, where Celias is executed, was faked. Shigemasa Toda specializes in abstract art that depicts the premises of Oakland Station as an execution ground, with tents pitched on both sides and a giant log suspended in the center of the screen. Celias' hands are bound by chains extending from the log. Toda, who previously created the execution site set on the site of a movie theater for ``The Strangler,'' has successfully recreated a cinematic execution site by making use of the arch-like structure of the station building. After the gunshot, all the appearances of Sakamoto and other Japanese cast members end with a cut of Sakamoto walking toward Bowie from behind the smoke.

“Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” ©Oshima Nagisa Productions

Bowie's last cut was shot on October 6th. This is a fantasy scene seen by Celias, who has been buried alive and is in a state of limbo between life and death. Celias rents a garden in a mansion on the outskirts of Auckland, and from inside the wisteria trellis, Celias appears in military uniform with his singing brother and heads towards his home. With this cut, David Bowie finished shooting all the shots and returned to New York that night.

The next day, on the 7th, two scenes of Celias and his younger brother as children were filmed, and the scene where the camera sang in a church with smooth horizontal movement was approved in one go, and all shots were completed. ``Sen Meri'', which started filming on August 23rd, was completed on October 7th after 45 days of overseas locations and 34 days of filming. Approximately 37,000 feet of film was used, and just as Oshima had said before filming that he would not be able to use up the film, the film was completed without reaching the 50,000 feet that had been prepared.

At night, at the launch, Oshima greeted as follows. “Tonight, I am The Most Happy Man In The World”

“Sen Meri” Secret story after the war