Chanbara
“Chanbara” is a generic term for Japanese swordfight movies. They are typically much darker than American action films, where violence is used to preserve or reestablish the norm. In the chanbara — violence is the norm.
This series (of which this is only a small part) looks at a world in which men and women are unable to connect in a meaningful way. “Chanbara” focuses on the men in this world, and the role of militarism in forming a masculine identity. It also looks at the ultimate futility of this linkage between masculinity and violence, which victimizes women, turns men into physical and emotional wreckage, and further estranges both.
As is typical for me (for better or worse) I put this selection together long after I’d left Japan. I often shoot with only the vaguest idea of what I am doing, and can only clarify a theme after some time has passed.
I liken it to riding on a train backwards — where I am is a blur, and the landscape only becomes clear to me only after I’ve left it.
Artist Statement
I seldom know what I am doing as I do it.
There’s a line from a William S. Burroughs piece I like. I mention it when people ask what I’m working on. It goes something like:
“I am a secret agent and I don’t know who I am working for. I take my instructions from street signs, advertisements and snippets of conversation I pull out of the air like a hungry vulture tearing meat…”
I know that, in the end, it will be a body of photographs. But how many photos, how they will fit together, the story or feeling they will carry…. I never know these things as I’m working. I just photograph whatever interests me. Some of it will be useful later, most won’t. I think of it as being a little like riding a train facing backwards; things only become clear when they’re far away.
This is a work in progress. Right now, I imagine the finished piece tying together photos shot over the last ten years into a loose narrative about wandering. About going into the desert not really sure what I’m looking for, but believing that is there. And that somehow, once I’ve found whatever it is, I will be different. Whole.
But since I don’t know what or where it is, I just keep looking.
Frank Miller
2008