In the Wake of Artaud: Cinema of Cruelty in Audition and Oldboy

Brown, Steven T.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70629-0_5

Steven T. Brown⁴

Part of the book series: East Asian Popular Culture ((EAPC))

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Abstract

Brown tackles thorny debates in horror studies concerning the terms “torture porn” and “Asia Extreme.” In response to the shortcomings of the two terms, Brown develops the Artaudian concept of “cinema of cruelty” in relation to two exemplary revenge horror films—the Japanese horror Audition (Ōdishon; dir. Miike Takashi, 1999) and the Korean horror Oldboy (Oldeuboi; dir. Park Chan-wook, 2003)—each of which offers engagements with graphic violence but situates that violence in a way that eludes the conceptual restrictions of “torture porn” and “Asia Extreme.”

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Notes

1.
Ōdishon, directed by Miike Takashi (1999), translated as Audition, subtitled Blu-Ray (Shenley, England: Arrow Video, 2016) (translation modified).
2.
Antonin Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 99.
3.
David Edelstein, “Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn,” New York Magazine, February 6, 2006, http://nymag.com/movies/features/15622/# (accessed February 9, 2016).
4.
For a more extensive filmography of “torture porn,” see Steve Jones, Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 217–222. For a discussion of earlier Japanese torture films prior to the “torture porn” cycle, see Jay McRoy , Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema (Amsterdam; New York, NY: Rodopi, 2008), 15–47.
5.
Edelstein. Cf. Isabel C. Pinedo, “Torture Porn: 21st Century Horror,” in A Companion to the Horror Film, edited by Harry M. Benshoff (Chichester, West Sussex, UK; Malden, MA, USA: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 353.
6.
Edelstein .
7.
Ibid.
8.
Pinedo , 345.
9.
Pinedo , 345. See also Kevin J. Wetmore, “‘Torture Porn’ and What It Means to Be American,” in Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema (New York: Continuum Publishing, 2012), 95–115; Catherine Zimmer, “Caught on Tape? The Politics of Video in the New Torture Film,” in Horror after 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror, edited by Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 83–106; Matt Hill, “Cutting into Concepts of ‘Reflectionist’ Cinema? The Saw Franchise and Puzzles of Post-9/11 Horror ,” in Horror after 9/ 11, 107–123; Aaron Kerner, Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11: Horror, Exploitation, and the Cinema of Sensation (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2015).
10.
Pinedo , 357.
11.
On national cinema and historical trauma, see Adam Lowenstein, Shocking Representation: Historical trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 10–12.
12.
Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Film Quarterly vol. 44, no. 4 (Summer 1991): 2–13.
13.
Adam Lowenstein, “Spectacle Horror and Hostel: Why ‘Torture Porn’ Does Not Exist,” Critical Quarterly vol. 53, no. 1 (April 2011): 42.
14.
Ibid., 43.
15.
Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” in Early Cinema: Space—Frame—Narrative, edited by Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker (London: British Film Institute, 1990), 58–9.
16.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 99 (Artaud’s italics).
17.
Antonin Artaud, “Preface: The Theater and Culture,” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 13.
18.
Jacques Derrida, “The Theater of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation,” in Writing and Difference, translated by Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 2001), 292.
19.
Antonin Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” in The Theater and Its Double , translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 102.
20.
Derrida , 293.
21.
Ibid., 294.
22.
Ibid., 294.
23.
Ibid., 296.
24.
“The dictatorship of the writer [la dictature de l’écrivain]” is from Antonin Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” in The Theater and Its Double , translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 124. “The tyranny of the text [la tyrannie du texte]” is Derrida’s gloss from “The Theater of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation,” 298. On “the triumph of pure mise-en-scène [le triomphe de la mise-en-scène pure],” see Antonin Artaud, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), vol. 4, 305.
25.
Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” 101.
26.
Derrida , 301.
27.
Antonin Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 79.
28.
Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” 101.
29.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 99 (Artaud’s italics).
30.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” 122.
31.
Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” 101–02.
32.
Ibid., 103.
33.
Antonin Artaud, “Letters on Language,” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 114.
34.
Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” 103–04.
35.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 86; Artaud quoted in Derrida , 315.
36.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82–83.
37.
Antonin Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 86 (translation modified).
38.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” 125.
39.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 83.
40.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 84.
41.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 96; “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85.
42.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 91.
43.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 81.
44.
Ibid., 81 (Artaud’s italics).
45.
Ibid., 81.
46.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 87.
47.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 95 (Artaud’s italics).
48.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82.
49.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” 125 (Artaud’s italics). On “Gesamtkunstwerk,” see Wagner’s Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (‘The Art-Work of the Future,” 1849).
50.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82.
51.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 92.
52.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 77.
53.
Brent Strang, “Beyond Genre and Logos: A Cinema of Cruelty in Dodes’ka-den and Titus,” Cinephile: The University of British Columbia’s Film Journal vol. 4 (Summer 2008): 29.
54.
Antonin Artaud, “The Theater and the Plague,” in The Theater and Its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 30.
55.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82.
56.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 84.
57.
Pier Paolo Pasolini quoted in Kriss Ravetto, The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 126.
58.
Ibid., 126.
59.
William Blum, “Toward a Cinema of Cruelty,” Cinema Journal 10.2 (Spring 1971): 30, 32.
60.
Ibid., 33.
61.
André Bazin , The Cinema of Cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock, edited by François Truffaut and translated by Sabine d’Estrée (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2013), 54.
62.
Ibid., 58.
63.
Francis Vanoye, “Cinemas of Cruelty?” in Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader, edited by Edward Scheer (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 181.
64.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 84.
65.
Derrida , 313.
66.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85, 87.
67.
Tony Williams, “Takashi Miike’s Cinema of Outrage,” Cineaction, no. 64 (2004): 55.
68.
Ibid., 55.
69.
Recounted by Tony Rayns, “Damaged Romance: An Appreciation by Tony Rayns,” Ōdishon, directed by Miike Takashi (1999), translated as Audition, subtitled Blu-Ray (Shenley, England: Arrow Video, 2016).
70.
“Outrage,” Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, http://www.oed.com.libproxy.uoregon.edu/view/Entry/133856?result=1&rskey=xKx1ma& (accessed May 10, 2017). I have outlined the English usage of the word “outrage” since that is the term used by Tony Williams ; however, it should be pointed out that there is considerable overlap between the connotations associated with the English “outrage” and the various Japanese terms for “outrage,” such as muhō, bōkō, bōgyaku, bōjō, daiaku, rōzeki, etc.
71.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 86; Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82–83.
72.
See Linda Williams, 2–13.
73.
Audition appears on numerous lists for the best horror films in the history of cinema. For example, The Guardian, a respected British newspaper, ranks Audition as “the 21st Best Horror Film of All Time,” positioning it just below Dracula (1931) and above Blair Witch Project (1999). See “The 25 Best Horror Films of All Time,” The Guardian (October 22, 2010), http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/oct/22/audition-miike-odishon-horror (accessed July 22, 2016).
74.
Patrick Macias, Tokyoscope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion (San Francisco: Cadence Books, 2001), 221.
75.
Interview with Ishibashi Renji, Ōdishon, directed by Miike Takashi (1999), translated as Audition, subtitled Blu-Ray (Shenley, England: Arrow Video, 2016).
76.
Linda Williams, 11.
77.
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto , “Melodrama, Postmodernism, and Japanese Cinema,” in Melodrama and Asian Cinema, edited by Wimal Dissanayake (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 108.
78.
Yoshimoto , 106, 108.
79.
David William Foster, Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2004), xiv–xv.
80.
Ibid., xiv–xv.
81.
Audio commentary by Tom Mes, Ōdishon, directed by Miike Takashi (1999), translated as Audition, subtitled Blu-Ray (Shenley, England: Arrow Video, 2016).
82.
Sigmund Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’ ” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited and translated by James Strachey, vol. XVII (London: Hogarth Press, 1955), 244.
83.
Rayns , “Damaged Romance.”
84.
Ken Eisner, Review of Audition, Variety (October 31, 1999), http://variety.com/1999/film/reviews/audition-1200459973/ (accessed July 27, 2016).
85.
Tom Mes, Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike (Surrey, England: FAB Press, 2003a), 184.
86.
Outside of the genre of horror, tilt-shift cinematography is also used to good effect in films such as Minority Report (2002) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007).
87.
Isabel Pinedo, Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), 53.
88.
Fellini quoted in Kris Malkiewicz, Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood’s Cinematographers and Gaffers, 2nd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 1. Fellini did, in fact, direct one horror film, titled Toby Dammit (1968), an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story, “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” (1841), which was included in the film omnibus Spirits of the Dead (Histoires extraordinaires, 1968). Roger Vadim and Louis Malle contributed short film adaptations of other Poe stories to the same compilation.
89.
Vittorio Storaro, “The Author of Cinematography; or Rather: The Right to Consider Ourselves Co-Authors of the Cinematographic Image,” in Vittorio Storaro , Bob Fisher, and Lorenzo Codelli, L’arte della cinematografia (Milano: Skira, 2013), 8.
90.
Storaro , “The Author of Cinematography,” 8.
91.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 95 (Artaud’s italics).
92.
Vittorio Storaro quoted in “Mating Film with Video for ‘One from the Heart,’” American Cinematographer vol. 63, no. 1 (January 1982): 24.
93.
Storaro quoted in “Mating Film with Video,” 24.
94.
Anya Hurlbert and Angela Owen, “Biological, Cultural, and Developmental Influences on Color Preferences,” in Handbook of Color Psychology, edited by Andrew J Elliot, Mark D Fairchild, and Anna Franklin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 454–477.
95.
On the ecological valence theory of color preference, see Karen B. Schloss and Stephen E. Palmer, “Ecological Aspects of Color Preference,” in Handbook of Color Psychology, edited by Andrew J Elliot, Mark D Fairchild, and Anna Franklin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 435–53. On biological approaches to color reception and preference, see Anya C. Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling, “Biological Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference,” Current Biology, vol. 17, no. 16 (August 2007): 623–25.
96.
Sergei Eisenstein , “On Colour,” in Color: The Film Reader, edited by Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price (New York; London: Routledge, 2006), 107.
97.
Ibid., 111 (Eisenstein’s italics).
98.
Ibid., 113.
99.
Ibid., 113.
100.
Ibid., 113.
101.
Sergei Eisenstein , “From Lectures on Music and Colour in Ivan the Terrible,” in Sergei Eisenstein : Selected Works: Volume III: Writings, 1934–1947, edited by Richard Taylor (London; New York: I.B. Tauris: 2010), 335.
102.
Ibid., 335.
103.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari , What is Philosophy?, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 167. See also Barbara M. Kennedy, Deleuze and Cinema: The Aesthetics of Sensation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 115–117.
104.
Kennedy , 117
105.
On Eisenstein’s use of bipack color processing, see Wheeler W. Dixon, Black & White Cinema: A Short History (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2015), 47–48; Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), 382–384.
106.
For an interesting discussion of Eisenstein’s use and theories of color, see Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, “Eisenstein in Colour,” Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History vol. 73, no. 4 (2004): 212–227.
107.
Tovoli quoted in Stanley Manders, “Terror in Technicolor,” American Cinematographer vol. 91, no.2 (February 2010): 75.
108.
Tovoli quoted in Manders, 75.
109.
Schloss and Palmer, 436.
110.
Mes commentary, Audition.
111.
Ibid.
112.
Aoyama’s deceased wife Ryōko just stands there like a ghost from one of the so-called “true ghost stories” referenced by screenwriter Takahashi Hiroshi in his reflections on the early beginnings of J-horror discussed in the Introduction.
113.
Mes commentary, Audition.
114.
See Schloss and Palmer, 443; and Kazuhiko Yokosawa, Karen B. Schloss, Michiko Asano, and Stephen E. Palmer, “Ecological Effects in Cross-Cultural Differences Between U.S. and Japanese Color Preferences,” Cognitive Science (2015): 1–27.
115.
In Christian art history, the fires of hell are typically depicted as red-orange rather than dark red.
116.
On fungibility as a trait of sexual objectification —i.e., treating a person as an object that is interchangeable with other objects of the same or other type—see Martha C. Nussbaum, “Objectification,” Philosophy & Public Affairs vol. 24, no. 4 (October 1995): 257.
117.
On the status of Aoyama’s guilt and the film’s suggestion “that Asami’s ‘lies’ and violence are in fact created by the protagonist Aoyama’s imagination in order to assuage his own guilt feelings for deceiving Asami and for letting go of his past love for his long deceased wife,” see Robert Hyland , “A Politics of Excess: Violence and Violation in Miike Takashi’s Audition,” in Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 205.
118.
Mes commentary, Audition.
119.
Ibid.
120.
Hyland , 213–14.
121.
Ibid., 210.
122.
Ibid., 212.
123.
Ibid., 205. On the reception of Audition as a “feminist fable,” see Daniel Martin, Extreme Asia: The Rise of Cult Cinema from the Far East (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 54–55, 57.
124.
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 166.
125.
Ibid., 166.
126.
Ibid., 166.
127.
Ibid., 167.
128.
Rayns , “Damaged Romance.” In his audio commentary on Audition, Tom Mes also notes the importance of playing with time and chronological order.
129.
Deleuze , 167.
130.
Miike Takashi interviewed by Kuriko Sato and Tom Mes, Midnight Eye, May 1, 2001b, http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/takashi-miike/ (accessed August 14, 2016).
131.
Ibid.
132.
Ibid.
133.
Michel Chion, Film, A Sound Art, translated by Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia UP, 2009), 477, 467.
134.
Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening, translated by Charlotte Mandell (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 7; Jean-Luc Nancy, À l’écoute (Paris: Galilée, 2002), 21.
135.
Translation modified.
136.
Antonin Artaud, “Metaphysics and the Mise-en-Scene ,” in The Theater and Its Double , translated by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 46.
137.
“The dictatorship of the writer [la dictature de l’écrivain]” is from Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” 124. “The tyranny of the text [la tyrannie du texte]” is Derrida’s gloss from “The Theater of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation,” 298.
138.
Denis Hollier, “The Death of Paper, Part Two: Artaud’s Sound System,” in Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader, edited by Edward Scheer (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 164, 159. On “the triumph of pure mise-en-scène [le triomphe de la mise-en-scène pure],” see Antonin Artaud, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), vol. 4, 305.
139.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 89–90.
140.
Ibid., 91, 94, 85–86; Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (Second Manifesto),” 125.
141.
Allen S. Weiss, “K,” in Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader, edited by Edward Scheer (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 152–53.
142.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 91.
143.
Weiss, 157. See also Helga Finter, “Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theare: The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty,” in Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader, edited by Edward Scheer (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 54.
144.
On the “grain of the voice” (grain de la voix), see Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice,” in Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), 179–189.
145.
“Tsurai” could also be translated as “painful,” “heart-breaking,” “bitter,” “difficult,” “tough,” “cruel,” “harsh,” or “cold.”
146.
Richard Corliss, “The Movie that Motivated Cho?” Time, April 19, 2007, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1612724,00.html (accessed February 23, 2016).
147.
Ibid.
148.
Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, eds., Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009).
149.
Park Chan-wook quoted in Kim Young-jin, Korean Film Directors: Park Chan-wook, translated by Colin A. Mouat (Seoul: Seoul Selection, 2007), 107.
150.
Choi Aryong, “Sympathy for the Old Boy: An Interview with Park Chan Wook,” http://www.ikonenmagazin.de/interview/Park.htm (accessed April 27, 2016). Also cf. Kim Sung-Hee, “Family Seen Through Greek Tragedy and Korean Film: Oedipus the King and Old Boy,” The Journal of Drama no. 30 (June 2009): 151–184.
151.
Choi Aryong, op. cit.
152.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 74–75.
153.
Artaud, “The Theater and the Plague,” 30.
154.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85.
155.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 92–93.
156.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85.
157.
Artaud, “The Theater and the Plague,” 31.
158.
Park Chan-wook quoted in Kim Young-jin, 107.
159.
Kim Young-jin, 49.
160.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 167–91.
161.
Artaud, “The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto),” 89, 91.
162.
Hollier , 163; Weiss, 157; also cf. Finter, 54.
163.
Julia Kristeva , Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
164.
Brigid Cherry, Horror (London; New York: Routledge, 2009), 112.
165.
Kristeva , 4.
166.
One of the most controversial scenes in Oldboy occurs after Oh Dae-su has been released from captivity and enters a restaurant where Mi-do is working as a sushi chef. The scene in question shows Oh Dae-su consume a live octopus whole. Although devouring an octopus whole while it is still alive may seem abject in the West, it is considered a perfectly normal, even mundane, part of Korean cuisine, especially at seaside restaurants located in coastal towns. Nevertheless, it is also considered potentially dangerous if the tentacles get stuck in one’s throat, causing suffocation. In a Korean context, Oh Dae-su’s act of devouring live octopus is not evidence of how dehumanized (or animalized) he has become, but rather a reaffirmation of his newfound freedom to eat something other than the Chinese dumplings he had been served throughout his captivity. On the other hand, the fact that it was auto-suggestion that prompted Oh Dae-su to enter the sushi restaurant in the first place may be construed as implying that such “freedom” is ultimately illusory. While filming this scene, the actor who plays Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) actually devoured four live octopi on set. Since live animals were killed on film, this particular scene has caused quite a bit of controversy outside of South Korea. Perhaps it is for this reason that when Oldboy received the Grand Prix Award at Cannes, Director Park Chan-wook made a point of expressing gratitude to the sacrificed octopi during his acceptance speech!
167.
Dino Franco Felluga, Critical Theory: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2015), 5.
168.
Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1993), 71–72; Cherry, 115–16.
169.
Creed , 14.
170.
Later, Mi-do hallucinates a giant ant sitting in a subway car, which she tells Oh Dae-su is symptomatic of loneliness.
171.
I have made extensive use of Flux Sound & Picture Development’s Pure Analyzer System software for the analysis of surround sound elements in Oldboy and other films included in this study.
172.
When considering the role of sound design in Oldboy, mention must also be made of the sound reproduction equipment (in the form of reel-to-reel tape and cassette players) that occasionally appears in close -up. Such sound reproduction devices appear at pivotal moments in the narrative as if to underscore that some of Oh Dae-su’s most traumatic memories are on tape loop. The only way to overcome the trauma is to change or destroy the tape.
173.
Gilles Deleuze , Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 87.
174.
Ibid., 110.
175.
Herwig Todts, James Ensor: Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (Schoten, Belgium: BAI, 2008), 109.
176.
Ibid., 109.
177.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Passion (Los Angeles: Indo-European Publishing, 2010), 83. “Solitude” was first published in The New York Sun on February 25, 1883.
178.
Ibid., 83.
179.
Dawn Ades, Dalí (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982), 145.
180.
Artaud, “Letters on Cruelty,” 103.
181.
Manohla Dargis, “Sometimes Blood Really Isn’t Indelible,” New York Times, March 3, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/movies/sometimes-blood-really-isnt-indelible.html (accessed June 12, 2017).
182.
Ibid.
183.
Alexander Walker, “The Cutting Edge of Censorship,” Evening Standard, March 15, 2001, 29.
184.
Martin , 58. Although Martin also employs the term “cinema of cruelty” in a chapter title devoted to Miike’s Audition, he does not offer any sort of sustained engagement with its characteristics or derivation from Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty . In fact, no mention is made of Artaud at all in Martin’s study, which focuses far more attention on the reception of Audition than on the film itself.
185.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85, 87.
186.
Ibid., 86; Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 82–83.
187.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 85.
188.
Artaud, “No More Masterpieces,” 83.
189.
Artaud, “The Theater and Cruelty,” 84.
190.
Denis Hollier, “The Death of Paper, Part Two: Artaud’s Sound System,” in Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader, edited by Edward Scheer (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 159.
191.
Deleuze , Cinema 2, 166.
192.
Artaud, “The Theater and the Plague,” 31.

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Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
Steven T. Brown

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Brown, S.T. (2018). In the Wake of Artaud: Cinema of Cruelty in Audition and Oldboy . In: Japanese Horror and the Transnational Cinema of Sensations. East Asian Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70629-0_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70629-0_5
Published: 07 February 2018
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