Honors Arts & Sciences 210a: Modern Japan through Cinema

Professor Ted Mack
MTWThF 1:10-3:20 SAV 168

This course will be an introduction to modern Japan through its cinema, in which we will use a wide variety of twentieth-century films to discuss a wide variety of topics. Not only will be viewing films in a variety of genres -- documentary, drama, comedy, science fiction, historical, supernatural, avant-garde, and animation -- we will also be discussing topics ranging from the nature of art to the moral questions of nuclear modernity. Although our discussions will be sensitive to the specific nature of film as an expressive medium, we will consider the topics of art, history, society, war, propaganda, tradition, and morality.

Students are expected to watch films on their own prior to class discussion. All films will be available via streaming and in DVD format for viewing in the Media Center. Please note that while the streamed versions are convenient, the DVD versions are of higher quality.

H A&S 210 can be used to fulfill the national cinema requirement for the Cinema Studies degree in the Department of Comparative Literature.

The following assignments and schedule are tentative and subject to change.

Introduction: World War II and Film as Propaganda

"Know your Enemy: Japan" (Frank Capra, 1945)

Optional Readings:
Shimizu Akira, "War and Cinema in Japan" (The Japan/America Film Wars 7-57)
Ueno Toshiya, "The Other and the Machine" (The Japan/America Film Wars 71-93)
Susan Hayward, "Defining the 'National' of a Country's Cinematographic Production" (French National Cinema 1-16)
Donald Richie, "A Definition of the Japanese Film" (A Lateral View 170-84)

World War II and Film as Reflection

"Fires on the Plain" (Ichikawa Kon, 1959)

Optional Readings:
William B. Hauser, "Fires on the Plain: The Human Cost of the Pacific War" (Reframing 193-209)
Pauline Kael, "Fires on the Plain (Nobi)" (Kon Ichikawa 401-404)

Wartime Atrocities and a Discourse of Victimization

"Black Rain" (Imamura Shôhei, 1989)

Optional Readings:
Michael Kort, "Key Questions and Interpretations" (The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb 81-116)

Fears of a Nuclear Modernity

"Godzilla" (Honda Ishirô, 1954)

Optional Readings:
Yomota Inuhiko, "The Menace from the South Seas" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts 102-111)
Mark Anderson, "Mobilizing Gojira: Mourning Modernity as Monstrosity" (In Godzilla's Footsteps 21-40)

Ozu Yasujirô: Part I

"Late Spring" (Ozu Yasujirô, 1949)

Optional Readings:
David Bordwell, "Structures, Strictures, and Strategems" (Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema 51-72)
David Bordwell, "Banshun" (Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema 307-12)
Abé Markus Nornes, "The Riddle of the Vase" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts 78-89)

Ozu Yasujirô: Part II

"Tokyo Story" (Ozu Yasujirô, 1953)

Optional Readings:
David Bordwell, "Towards Intrinsic Norms" (Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema 73-108)
David Bordwell, "Tokyo monogatari" (Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema 328-33)
Kathe Geist, "Narrative Strategies in Ozu's Late Films" (Reframing 91-111)

Kurosawa Akira: Part II

"Seven Samurai" (Kurosawa Akira, 1954)

Optional Readings:
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, "Seven Samurai" (Kurosawa 205-246)
D.P. Martinez, "Seven Samurai and Six Women" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts 112-123)

Kurosawa Akira: Part I

"Rashomon" (Kurosawa Akira, 1950)

Optional Readings:
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, "Japanese Cinema in Search of a Discipline" (Kurosawa 8-49)
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, "Rashomon" (Kurosawa 182-190)

Mizoguchi Kenji: Part I

"Osaka Elegy" (Mizoguchi Kenji, 1936)

Optional Readings:
Jacques Rivette, "Mizoguchi Viewed from Here" (Cahiers du Cinéma 81, March 1958)
Mori Toshie, "All for Money" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts 37-49)

Mizoguchi Kenji: Part II

"Ugetsu" (Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953)

Optional Readings:
Alexandre Astruc, "What is mise en scène?" (Cahiers du Cinéma 100, October 1959)
Noël Burch, "Mizoguchi Kenji" (To the Distant Observer 217-46)

The Japanese New Wave: Part I

"Woman in the Dunes" (Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1964)

Optional Readings:
Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, "Ethnicizing the Body and Film" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts 180-192)

The Japanese New Wave: Part II

"Death by Hanging" (Ôshima Nagisa, 1968)

Optional Readings:
Maureen Turim, "Rituals, Desire, Death" (The Films of Oshima Nagisa 61-81)

Sexuality, Violence, Politics: the Avant-Garde

"Throw away your Books, Rally in the Streets" (Terayama Shûji, 1971) 

Optional Readings:
Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, "Introduction" and "Cultural Outlaw in a Time of Chaos" (Unspeakable Acts 1-50)
Steve Ridgely, "Throw Out Your Books, Let's Hit the Streets" (The Poetics of Terayama Shûji 180-212)

Violence and Genre

"Battles without Honor and Humanity" (Fukasaku Kinji, 1973)

Optional Readings:
Richard Torrance, "The Nature of Violence in Fukasaku Kinji Jingi naki tatakai" (Japan Forum 17:3, 389-406)

Japanese Film Abroad: Part I

"Kwaidan" (Kobayashi Masaki, 1965)

Optional Readings:
Lafcadio Hearn, "The Reconciliation" from Shadowings (1900)
Lafcadio Hearn, "Yuki-Onna" and "The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi" from Kwaidan: Stories of Strange Things (1904)
Lafcadio Hearn, "In a Cup of Tea" from Kottô: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902)

Japanese Film Abroad: Part II

"Tampopo" (Itami Jûzô, 1985)

Optional Readings:
Charles Shiro Inouye, "In the Show House of Modernity" (Word and Image in Japanese Cinema 126-48)
Michael Ashkenazi, "Food, Play, Business, and the Image of Japan in Itami Juzo's Tampopo" (Reel Food 27-40) [Incomplete -- not required reading]

Documentary: Part I

"Tokyo Olympiad" (Ichikawa Kon, 1965)

Optional Readings:
Eric Cazdyn, et al., "Tokyo Olympiad: A Symposium" (Kon Ichikawa, 315-338)
Satô Tadao, "Tokyo Olympiad: A Feeling of Richness in the Midst of Loneliness" (Kon Ichikawa, 129-133)

Documentary: Part II

"The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On" (Hara Kazuo, 1987)

Optional Readings:
Laura Marks, "'I Am Very Frightened by the Things I Film'" (Touch, 41-54)
Hara Kazuo, "The Film that Summons God" (Camera Obstrusa, 145-92)

Anime: Part I

"Akira" (Ôtomo Katsuhiro, 1987)

Optional Readings:
Ueno Toshiya, "Japanimation and Techno-Orientalism"
Thomas Lamarre, "Born of Trauma: Akira and Capitalist Modes of Destruction"

Anime: Part II

"Spirited Away" (Miyazaki Hayao, 2001)

Optional Readings:
Rayna Denison, "The Global Markets for Anime" (Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts, 308-321)
Susan Napier, "Matter Out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki's Spirited Away" (Journal of Japanese Studies 32:2 [2006] 287-310)

Final Exam

You might find the following resources helpful:

Arthur Nolletti, Jr. and David Dresser, eds., Reframing Japanese Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992)

Alasatair Phillips and Julian Stringer, eds., Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts (London: Routledge, 2007)

Noël Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema (University of California Press, 1979)

Eric Cazdyn, The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)

Websites: