Book: Directory Of World Cinema - Japan
Release date: 15th February 2011
Publisher: Intellect
Following the Directory Of World Cinema’s Russian and American Underground issues, and with forthcoming books dealing with Italy, Iran, Australia and New Zealand in the pipeline, the series turns to Japan. Edited by John Berra, Volume 1 covers a number of significant genres within Japanese cinema, and examines the films within the national and social contexts which shaped them.
The directory divides the movies into various genres: Alternative Japan; Anime; Chambara (Samurai); Contemporary Blockbusters; Jidaigeki and Gendaigeki (Period & Contemporary Drama); J-Horror; Kaiju Eiga (Monster Movies); Nuberu Bagu (Japanese New Wave); Pinku Eiga (Pink Film); and Yakuza (Gangster). In each case, a general overview of a specific genre is followed by individual critiques of films that exist within that generic framework.
With in-depth analyses of Takeshi Kitano, Satoshi Kon and Akira Kurosawa, the book also includes chapters on the Nippon Connection Film Festival, the influential Arts Theatre Guild, an interesting take on the cultural crossover between art and film, and an extended review of Kitano’s Achilles And The Tortoise as the directory’s chosen film of the year.
With individual articles and critiques by contributors from the fields of academia and film journalism, the work seeks to offer an insight into ‘Japaneseness’ as seen through the medium of film...
That all this is crammed into barely 300 pages might suggest the directory is merely skimming the surface, but this illuminating book manages to cover a great deal of ground. This is only the first in a projected two volumes dealing solely with Japan. Anticipating that any attempt at a comprehensive overview of all of Japanese cinema is doomed to failure, it’s intended as informative rather than exhaustive. A generally egalitarian approach ensures B-movies like Mothra are given just as much respect and attention as more critically-acclaimed works, with analyses largely concerned more with cultural significance than simply listing the ‘best’ Japanese movies.
Arguably the most fertile and varied industry in world cinema, approaching Japanese cinema can be a daunting task. Even within the directory’s limited remit, it contains more films than any sane person could hope to watch in a lifetime. Cultural differences can also be a barrier, and the book acknowledges the difficulty for non-Japanese audiences in fully understanding genres such as Japanese New Wave, which may contain very cultural specific meanings. Still, the ‘alien’ is an aspect which always seems to get played up more with the Japanese than anywhere else. One of the book’s achievements is debunking Western assumptions of what Japanese cinema is, and lazy attempts to categorise it as weird and outlandish.
Berra, in his editor’s introduction, attributes much of the West’s association of Japanese cinema with strangeness and extremity, largely due to the J-Horror boom, which somewhat obscured both the burgeoning independent sector of contemporary Japanese cinema and its legacy. It illustrates the way in which the character of a country’s cinema can be condensed or plain misrepresented by market forces, culminating in recent fare like Machine Girl or Tokyo Gore Police. These are movies aimed primarily at international audiences, having little impact in their native country, and yet generally viewed in the West as somehow typical or representative of Japanese cinema.
Ironically, the chapters dealing with the more exotic corners of Japanese cinema are some of the most interesting, especially the chapter which covers Pinku Eigu, or Pink Cinema. Essentially sexploitation, these were films which were strictly forbidden by the censors from showing pubic hair or genitalia but often included actual penetrative sex between the performers. The most well-known Pinku Eigu in this country is Nagisa Oshima’s In The Realm Of The Senses, although its explicitness and deliberate provocation of the Japanese moral film code means it’s not generally representative of the genre. In fact, it’s difficult to make generalisations about Pink Eigu as a whole, a genre that could be both shockingly misogynistic and also used as a vehicle for subverting patriarchal attitudes. It’s a fascinating chapter which includes such luridly evocative titles as Entrails Of A Virgin and Violated Angels, as well as a cameo from notorious cannibal-murderer turned celebrity restaurant reviewer Issei Sagawa (yes, really).
The writing throughout is of a consistently high standard, incorporating a range of analytical approaches (be it social-political, aesthetic, or genre-based) according to the writers’ preferences. By focussing mainly on the cultural import of films within specific genres, the directory presents a very catholic selection. Admirably un-snobbish in its treatment of all the covered films, the articles are always marked by the sense that those writing are genuine fans. That said, quality will always rise to the top and the major directors (specifically Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, Nagasi Oshima and Yasujiro Ozu) have the most films critiqued (although strangely only one Shohei Imamura film, despite his importance being acknowledged throughout).
But it is the films of Akira Kurosawa which inevitably dominate, just as the great director towers over the landscape of Japanese cinema. His influence on Sergio Leone and George Lucas has been well documented, but less acknowledged is his influence on his close friend Francis Ford Coppola. The book highlights the debt owed by the American director to Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well, particularly the first thirty minutes which Coppola used as a template for the opening sequences in all three of his Godfather films. When one article examines the recurring motif of opening and closing doors in High And Low, you don’t need to be told that all those doors constantly shutting in the faces of female characters in Coppola’s trilogy are also distinctly Kurosawa-inspired.
The directory is particularly fine at finding new angles like these within well-trodden ground concerning Japanese cinema’s relationship with Western models. Be it Jean-Pierre Melville’s American film noir influenced films refracted via a European sensibility into a Japanese one in certain yakuza movies. Or even anime, that most quintessentially Japanese genre, having its roots in American early animation, which in turn had much in common with early Japanese woodcuts. It makes for a far more interesting and nuanced take on the cinematic exchange between Japan and the West than Hollywood’s recent predilection for rehashing films like The Ring might suggest. What this latter tendency also demonstrates is that the exchange is becoming increasingly one-sided, something that says as much about the ongoing vitality of Japanese cinema as it does about the moribundity of Hollywood.
The general consensus is that the Japanese film industry consciously modelled itself on Hollywood, with the formation of major studios and a reliance on particular genres and narrative forms, such as Yakuza and monster movies, and the development of ‘star’ identities. But, as Berra points out, this also coincided in the post-war period with the rise of the auteur-director, who was able to mould their particular artistic vision both within and on the edges of the mainstream. The only comparison to be drawn with US cinema would be the ‘70s heyday of the auteur, a short-lived period of relative freedom that came to an end following the huge financial failure of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. Japan also had these spectacular box office failures (Imamura’s Profound Desires Of The Gods springs to mind), and though it may have curtailed a particular director’s career, the industry never seemed to react in quite the same way as its American counterpart. No doubt this has a great deal to do with the high number of independents which make up the Japanese film industry, creating a milieu in which the mainstream and the innovative are not mutually exclusive - an industry quite unique in its willingness to take risks and thereby allowing its artists to do likewise.
While acknowledging the position of Japanese film within worldwide cinema, what emerges most is the singularity as well as the breadth and scope of Japanese cinema as a whole. The book’s main strength is in placing that nation’s cinematic output in a context that is accessible and comprehensible for Western audiences. With mainstream cinema in the West increasingly dogged by endless prequel-sequels and pointless remakes, the continuing rude health of Japanese cinema remains a cause for celebration.
As well as providing an insight into Japanese cultural life and history as expressed through the medium of film, this directory works equally well as a conventional film guide. Containing a mixture of the well known and obscure, there’s much to recommended for newcomers as well as those already well versed in the many delights of Japanese cinema. A worthwhile read and highly recommended. GJK
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