Video

KAE, Act Like a Girl!

1996 • #V96001-Video • 47min.20sec.
KAE, Act Like a Girl! KAE, Act Like a Girl! The idea for this scenario came from a statement in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, "No one is born a woman. One becomes a woman." Idemitsu depicts a woman artist married to another artist and caught between the conflicting demands of housework and creativity. It was an attitude instilled in her as child because of the way her parents and school teachers behaved toward her. "Since you're a girl, you should do the housework." When she was deciding what to study, she repeatedly heard the words, "Because you are a girl..." To use a term popular in Japan right now, she was subjected to "mind control." At first Kae, woman artist does give in because of this psychological programming, but eventually she fights against these psychological factors represented by a variety of images and wins. This process will be shown through striking images using a projector.

Kiyoko's Situation

 1989 • #V89001-Video • 24min.20sec.
Kiyoko's Situation Kiyoko is a middle-aged housewife. She is trying to paint, after twenty years when she had to give up painting. Everyday problems will trap a woman if she has too much energy and ability to be wasted on house-works. The desire to express her identity has been repressed so long, and now it is coming out with a vengeance. The frustration over her suppressed desires drives her desperation. The greater her latent ability, the deeper her desperation. Award from Mention Special du Jury categorie "EXPERIMENTAL" La mondiale de film et videos, Quebec, Canada in 1991, and Prix Procirep Section Fiction, Festival International de Videos et Films, Centre Audivisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris, France in 1992

Yoji, What's Wrong with You?

1987 • #V87001-Video • 18min.
Yoji, What's Wrong with You? Mama has plans for son Yoji even before his birth, plans that no one, not even her absent philandering husband or Yoji himself can persuade her to abandon. Stereotypically maternal manipulation conflicting with a son's desire to live his own life is at the core of this work. The conflict is represented in a flatly lit, austere space, with a television playing a significant narrative throughout the piece. The push-and-pull of filial relations has a witty, incestuous bite.

The Marriage of YASUSHI

 1986 • #V86001-Video • 25min.20sec.
The Marriage of YASUSHI Today, Japan is envied by the world for her economic prosperity, which however, has resulted in producing this sort of average family. Its contains a wife who has to serve her husband, a preoccupied businessman, and who showers all her attention on her child who is also left behind at home with the mother. The child, especially a son, becomes a replacement for her husband. Mother and son share an intimate life like lovers at home without the husband. It seems that this is such a common occurrence that Japanese society ignores this video work. Those that are envious of the Japanese economic success will become less so if they see this work and realize what this real phenomena in Japanese society is like.

Whispering Light

Zawameki no moto de

 1985 • #V85001-Video/F • 10min.50sec.
Whispering Light This personal film about the light and shadow of plants is successfully constructed using the subjective gaze of the narrator herself depicting her mother's death. This work is important to an understanding of this artist, Idemitsu.

Play and Capriciousness

Tawamure to Kimagure to

 1984 • #V84010-Video/F • 15min.50sec.
Play and Capriciousness The use of shadows to depict of the state of mine of a mother whose children have grown and left the home. The narrator uses herself in this film.

Great Mother (SACHIKO)

 1984 • #V84002-Video • 18min.50sec.
Great Mother (SACHIKO) The relationship between the mother and daughter is psychologically very tight. The isolated husband is irritated and becomes violent whenever he drinks but the two women cannot understand the reason of his violence. The mother lets the daughter marry for appearance's sake although in reality she hangs onto the daughter forever.

Great Mother (HARUMI)

1983 • #V83001-Video • 13min.
Great Mother (HARUMI) In this work, the subconscious problems of a daughter who rejects going school is observed by the function of C.G. Jung's psychological concept, the Great Mother. The subconsciousness of the daughter is shown on the screen of the monitor in the scenes. When the daughter becomes violent, how does a personified great mother function?

Great Mother (YUMIKO)

 1983 • #V83002-Video • 24min.30sec.
Great Mother (YUMIKO) A calm intelligent understanding cooperative mother and the daughter who is always running after men. What she really wants is the unrefined mother's warmth. However .....

HIDEO, It's Me, MAMA

1983 • #V83003-Video • 27min.
HIDEO, It's Me, MAMA In the early 80's and extravagant campaign to sell the newly discovered video machine was mounted in Japan. About this time, there was a growing problem where bored housewives were becoming over attached to their children, and finding it almost impossible to let them leave the family nest. "Video and children were now being used as substitutes to fill the emptiness of the lives of many Japanese house wives," I felt. This disturbing development in Japanese society prompted me to make a video, a black comedy exploring the theme. At the same time, I was overhearing the persistent voices: "let's make a home video!"

Toryanse

 1982 • #V82011-Video/F • 12min.20sec.
Tourannse This theme deals with the understanding of the essence of woman. A beautiful, abstract film created in a soft, delicate, lyrical style.

Animus PART 1
Animus PART 2

 1982 • #V82001-Video • 13min.10sec.
1982 • #V82002-Video • 19min.40sec.
Animus Part I Animus PartII Animus is one of the original psychological concepts of C.G. Jung. For women, Animus is an image of a man by projection of her mental energy. How does the Animus of a woman who performs under the name of Hell's Messenger work?

Shadow PART 1
Shadow PART 2

 1980 • #V80001-Video • 25min.30sec.
1982 • #V82003-Video • 41min.40sec.
Shadow PART 1 Shadow PART 2 As a shadow appears when a human body is lit up, there is a certain dark part like a shadow in the mind of a man. This is an aspect of a man's personality which he usually is hesitant to admit. C.G.Jung, Swiss psychologist, called this dark aspect a shadow because it appears in personified forms when one dreams. In my work Shadows, there is another monitor in the images of the main monitor. The inside monitor shows the mind of the outside characters, that is, the inside monitor's characters are shadows, psychological projections of the outside characters. Since the issue of shadows is so complicated and hard to understand, I selected examples that are specific and understandable, as well as familiar to women in their daily life. These are also the feeling I have toward my routine life.

Emotional Volatility about My Father

Chichi no Jokei

 1981 • #V81001-Video/F • 5min.50sec.
Emotional Volatility about My Father This film is requiem for her father's death.

My America, Your America

1980 • #V80011-Video/F • 10min.
What is America to her? Idemitsu, who lived in America for eight years, looks introspectively at herself and her strange connection with America.

Housewives and a Day

 1979 • #V79001-Video • 21min.50sec.
  A plan of a house that is reminiscent of a miniature garden used as a psychological treatment to assist in self-confirmation at a middle-class housewife's tea party.

At Any Place 4:
From the Tango of a Housewife
by Mamako Yoneyama

 1978 • #V78001-Video • 12min.30sec.
At Any Place 4 One of a series of Idemitsu's works which deal with housewives buried in everyday life. Idemitsu overlapped a 16 mm work that had Yoneyama Mamako pantomiming in her "Tango of a Hosewife" for the Commemoration of the International Women's year, 1975. Behind Mamako pantomiming as a housewife, there are clouds, sunsets and bonfires.

At Karuizawa 1

1978 • #V78011-Video/F • 8min.10sec.
This abstract film shows the images of tree shadows or the natural light of the summer sky. The use of special B/W film creates sharp contrasts depicting Karuizawa, like another world.

At Any Place 5

 1978 • #V78011-Video/F • 12min.
The image of a street in a factory town sets the backdrop for overlapping images of a day in the life of a mime.

Make-Up

 1978 • #V78002-Video • 9min.
Idemitsu attempted uses of the camera/monitor pair. Though it was only ever ahown at an exhibition of women artists in 1978, in Make up(1978, though it is thought to have been made earlier), without the obstacle of left and right being reversed in a standard mirror, Idemitsu makes up her face using the monitor as a mirror.

Another Day of a Housewife

 1977 • #V77001-Video • 9min.50sec.
Another Day of a Housewife This video was made in those days when I was really fed up with being a house wife. In the endless repetition of routine house chores I noticed another "me" was watching the house wife "me." Who am I? What is it to live? I wanted to share these questions with others.

At Yukigaya 3

 1977 • #V77011-Video/F • 2min.30sec.
At Yukigaya 3 This film shows a colorful flower, frame by frame, with some music. The flower movement trembles to resemble a symphony.

At Any Place 3

 1977 • #V77012-Video/F • 3min.40sec.
The image of a beautiful mountain sunset overlaps the image of a crowd walking in a hurry.

At Any Place 2

 1975 • #V75011-Video/F • 3min.
This film shows the contents of a cup-noodle.

At Any Place 1

 1975 • #V75012-Video/F • 16min.
At Any Place1 This film creates a vision of a man flying into different shapes of clouds as they cross the sky.

At New Mexico 1

 1975 • #V75013-Video/F • 12min.30sec.
Under the wild cloudy skies of New Mexico, Idemitsu considers the matter of native Americans in all its aspects.

Something Within Me

 1975 • #V75010-Video/F • 9min.30sec.
Something Within Me This film shows lofty sentiments with music by Aki Takahashi. Idemitsu's mental images are beautifully and sensuously filmed; a mass of snails intertwined as if copulating in a group; scarlet petals; curtains swing in the wind.

At Santa Monica 3

 1975 • #V75014-Video/F • 15min.30sec.
At Santa Monica 3 A landscape of her images in Santa Monica, where Idemitsu lived for 8 years.

At Yukigaya 2

 1974 • #V74010-Video/F • 11min.10sec.
At Yukigaya 2 An abstract film shows the images of tree shadows or the sky in natural light with sharp contrasts. In this personal film, Idemitsu lived between Japan and USA, contains the subjective gaze and her narration of "self as speaker".

At Yukigaya 1

 1974 • #V74011-Video/F • 3min.
At Yukigaya 1 A comical landscape of her images with light nostalgic music,(a popular song in the streets of Europe). The film stars Sam Francis who was Idemitsu's ex-husband.

Baby Variation

 1974 • #V74010-Video/F • 8min.
Baby Variation The film shows the colorful close-up of a liver with the background music of "My Baby" by Janice Joplin.

At Santa Monica 2

 1974 • #V74011-Video/F • 3min.40sec.
This film is composed of different images of nature, clouds, a girl and trees.

At Santa Monica 1

 1973 • #V73010-Video/F • 5min.30sec.
At Santa Monica 1 A woman's image as landscape, after she had plastic surgery.

Next

 1973 • #V73011-Video/F • 3min.30sec.
Next A film by Idemitsu using a work of Cindy Sherman. This film shows Idemitsu's free and easy sense of humor.

What a Woman Made

 1973 • #V73001-Video • 11min.
What a Woman Made While this video show the beautiful tampons which after used the story tell you about how girls become a wamen.

Inner-Man

1972 • #V72010-Video/F • 3min.40sec.
Inner-Man The film shows the images of a dancing woman who is wearing Kimono overlapping another image which a naked man is dancing. This is one of the original psychological concepts of C.G. Jung. For women, Animus is an image of a man by projection of her mental energy.

Woman's House

1972 • #V72011-Video/F • 13min.40sec.
Woman's House When the women's liberation movement hit the whole of America, Idemitsu filmed the Womanhouse which is the first 16mm work of Idemitsu. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro jointly organized the Feminist Art Program at the California institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in 1971. The Cal Arts Feminist Art Program group performed for a Womenhouse audience in1972. They transformed an old run-down mansion in Los Angeles into Womanhouse. In the kitchen a progression of sculptured breasts turned gradually into fried eggs; one bathroom contained a mass of Tampax, and if you opened the linen closet you found a trapped mannequin.