An authentic visionary of cinema, Japanese filmmaker Hara Kazuo has spent the past four decades pioneering a stark documentary style that challenged the mores of postwar Japanese society. His works feature dramatic narratives and characters--radicals, outcasts and those on the margins--who struggle against adversity: "I make bitter films. I hate mainstream society," Kazuo has avowed. Camera Obtrusa is the first English-language publication addressing his work. Composed as a straightforward handbook, the volume offers Kazuo's technical notes on his groundbreaking filmmaking. As such, it is invaluable to students and scholars, but it is also peppered with anecdotes from the freewheeling filmmaker's life. Camera Obtrusa also includes the full production notes to Kazuo's controversial and award-winning film, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987), a filmography and a foreword by distinguished Japanese film historian, Abé Markus Nornes.

Translated by: Pat Noonan, Takuo Yasuda
Afterword by: Abé Nornes