Reframing Japanese Cinema provides a comprehensive and varied perspective on Japanese cinema through a series of essays on a director’s signature style (authorship), culturally representative film genres, and historical evolution of the Japanese film industry. Of the three sections on Authorship, Genre, and History, the articles on Authorship provide the most revealing insight into the […]
In the book Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s, Donald Kirihara recounts a legendary episode at the Venice Film Festival that sets the tone for Kenji Mizoguchi’s unique and unforgettable films: When in Venice in 1963 for the festival screening of Ugetsu, he spoke of the film as a representative of Japan’s aesthetic tradition. […]
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, […]
The red light district of Yoshiwara in 1956 bears little resemblance to its evocative tradition as the place “where flowery courtesans, romantic and proud gloried in years gone by”. The government has waged an annual campaign to ban prostitution, but in the uncertainty and devastation of postwar Japan, it is a tragic and ignoble reality […]
In 1683 Kyoto, at the house of Ishun (Eitarô Shindô) the grand scroll maker, the printers are busy assembling the calendars for the imperial court in the absence of their senior artist, a diligent and conscientious worker named Mohei (Kazuo Hasegawa). Suffering from a lingering cold, Mohei has been working from the privacy of his […]
In the austere society of ancient Japan, a beloved, altruistic provincial governor defies an order from the general of the reigning feudal lord to provide additional men for the army, and is forced into exile. In his parting words to his young son, he provides a fundamental principle with which to govern his life: “Without […]