Notes from Yasujiro Ozu: International Perspectives Conference – The Place of Ozu Within Japanese Film History (with panelists Richard Combs, Keiko McDonald, Tadao Sato, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto)

Keiko McDonald Professor McDonald cited her favorite Ozu film as Floating Weeds, and examined several stylistic aspects of the film that depicted the filmmaker’s thematic distillation and visual economy, specifically: (1) the pausive function of the isolated, blue lantern shot after Komajuro’s departure (a ‘nothingness’ that signifies a great weight), and (2) the recurring shot […]

Alphabetical Film List

# Numéro Zéro (Jean Eustache) One Moment (Jiří Menzel) 1.1 Flat Acre Screen (Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger) Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard) Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu) Five Rooms (Cinque stanze) (Ursula Ferrara) #6 Okkyung (Andrew Lampert) Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa) […]

Shohei Imamura (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No. 1), edited by James Quandt

I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure. Shohei Imamura is a compilation of reflexive, analytical, and appreciative essays on Imamura’s idiosyncratic and critical, yet compassionate films that examine the dichotomy of human behavior in the structured, conformist, and highly ordered […]

Nippon Modern: Japanese Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s by Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano

In Nippon Modern: Japanese Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano presents an insightful, multi-faceted analysis of Japan’s interwar cinema within the context of Tokyo’s rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (even as the process of industrialization had already been underway), in particular, the output of Shochiku Kamata […]

Japanese Film Directors by Audie Bock

Audie Bock presents a collection of perceptive, knowledgeable, and comprehensive critical essays on the most influential and distinctive filmmakers of Japan in Japanese Film Directors. Bock chronologically explores the personal influences and cinematic contributions of several acclaimed film directors, and in the process, provides an intelligent observation on the profound effects of changing political, social, […]