|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Critical Overview of the Japanese Cinema 1
|
|
|
|
|
Understanding the history of Japanese cinema, from its birth to the postwar period.
Recognising the transnational nature and relevance of Japanese cinema
Becoming familiar with English-language scholarship on Japanese cinema
Presenting and writing knowledgable about issues related to Japanese cinema
|
|
|
|
|
[IMPORTANT: The first two or three sessions will be conducted online. This is to make sure that all students, including those who are still stuck outside Japan, can attend. The link to the Zoom meeting will be announced in the Information System/学務情報システム under “Class Notices”. The eventual format of the class (online or in-person) will be decided after final registration is complete.]
This course critically surveys the Japanese cinema up until the postwar period from a film-historical standpoint. The Japanese film industry, with its long history, vibrant culture, and prolific output as produced a wide range of works, many of them reaching “canonical” status in film history, others remaining largely obscure, both in Japan and abroad. It has also produced an expansive array of scholarly responses, and played a crucial role in the development of film studies as an academic discipline.
In this class, we will survey the history as well as the historiography of Japanese narrative film by reading a selection of the aforementioned scholarly responses, chosen either for their prominence (or notoriety) or due to their discussion of a significant film or film-historical movement. By focussing on articles or book chapters published in English, we will also gain an impression on how Japanese cinema is being presented, received, discussed, and categorised outside Japan.
This is a presentation- and discussion-centred class, in which students will take turns in presenting the assigned reading for the week to the class, followed by discussion and if possible more in-depth readings of crucial passages. We will also consider examples of films related to the readings. In order to experience cinema as it was intended to, in a darkened room with other people around you, we will watch and discuss two relevant films in light of our findings from the readings.
After two terms, students will have gained a good knowledge of key texts in the discipline, as well as experience in reading and applying scholarly articles and giving academic presentations. They will also have produced several smaller pieces of writing, such as screening reports, and one more substantial essays (topics to be discussed in class).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Japanese cinema, film, film studies, film history
|
|
|
| No. | 内容 | Content |
第1回
|
|
Introduction and Orientation
|
第2回
|
|
What is Japanese Cinema?
Richie, Donald. ‘Introduction’, in Donald Richie, Japanese Cinema: Film Style and National Character. New
York: Anchor, 1971: pp. Xx-xxvi. and Burch, Noel, ‘Preface’, in Noel Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form
and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema. London: Scolar Press, 1979: pp. 11-17
|
第3回
|
|
When Cinema Came to Japan:
High, Peter B. “The Dawn of Cinema in Japan.”, in Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 1 (1984): pp. 23–57.
|
第4回
|
|
What Should Japanese Cinema Be?
Bernardi, Joanne. ‘Journalistic Discourse and Tanizaki’s “The Present and Future of the Motion Pictures”’ in Joanne Bernardi, Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001: pp. 167-204.
|
第5回
|
|
Film in focus: Tokyo Chorus (Tōkyō no kōrasu, 1931, Ozu)
Hansen, Miriam, 'Fallen Women, Rising Stars, New Horizons: Shanghai Silent Film As Vernacular Modernism', Film Quarterly Vol. 54 No. 1, Autumn, 2000
|
第6回
|
|
Responses to Modernity I: The New Middle Class Genre:
Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo. ‘Construction of Modern Space: Tokyo and Shochiku Kamata Film Texts,” in In Praise of Film Studies: Essays in Honor of Makino Mamoru, in Aaron Gerow and Abe Mark Nornes (eds.), Victoria: Kinema Club; Traffort Publishing, 2001: pp. 158-175.
|
第7回
|
|
Finding out about resources (Presentations and discussion)
|
第8回
|
|
Wartime Conditions
High, Peter B, 'The unsatisfactory mirror', in The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931-1945. University of Wisconsin Press, 2003: pp 51-91
|
第9回
|
|
Documentary Filmmaking in Wartime Japan
Hori, Hikari.2017. 'The politics of Japanese documentary film'.In Promiscuous Media: Film and Visual Culture in Imperial Japan, 1926-1945.Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 114-154.
|
第10回
|
|
Film in focus: Muhomatsu no issho (Rikshaw Man, 1943 and 1958, Inagaki)
extract from: Kurosawa Akira, Something Like an Autobiography, 1982
|
第11回
|
|
Between Two Systems: War and Occupation
Hirano, Kyoko. Mr Smith Goes to Tokyo. 1992
|
第12回
|
|
No Regrets For Whose Youth?
Chow, Rey. “A Filmic Staging of Postwar Geotemporal Politics: On Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth, Sixty Years Later.” in boundary 2 34, no. Spring (2007): pp. 67–77.
|
第13回
|
|
Focus on essay writing and summing up
|
第14回
ALH1
|
|
Report on resource research (due before session 7)
|
第15回
ALH2
|
|
Preparing a presentation on the respective class topic and responding to Q&A from the group (tba.)
|
※
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Active Learning 1: 30%
Active Learning 2: 30%
Final essay: 40%
|
|
|
|
|
|
Students are required to come to class having read the set text(s) for the session, regardless of whether they are leading that day’s discussion or not. Students must prepare their own presentations and be ready to actively contribute to every discussion. If they are not presenting that day, students must post at least one question or comment concerning the reading on Moodle (must be posted 12 house before the class).
|
|
|
|
|
Videos will be shown with English subtitles.
Depending on running time, classes might not finish on time.
This syllabus is subject to change at the discretion of the instructor, changes will be announced in class and in Moodle.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
no textbook used; further information will be given in the first meeting
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|