On Japanese Cinema

Last updated: August 3, 2010

Film Studies For Free wanted to make sure its readers didn't miss the video embedded above. It's another great offering from Fora.tv, this time a very entertaining and informative interview with Donald Richie about his internationally celebrated work on Japanese cinema and culture. FSFF heard of this via David Hudson and the Japan Society Film Blog.

In addition, FSFF has assembled some links below to openly accessible and very high quality scholarship on Japanese cinema (including numerous full-length studies), with work by Donald Richie, and many other excellent items which are indebted to his studies of Japanese cinema.

This was quite a broad category to research online, so FSFF will inevitably have missed some good resources: suggestions for any high quality additions are, therefore, even more welcome than usual! (Update: See comments  below for some of these, including the tip to link to Eigagogo's bookmarks at Delicious which lists some further great resources).

•  Kaori Ashizu, 'Kurosawa’s Hamlet?', Shakespeare Studies 33 (1995): 71-99

• Sarah M. Ball, The Uncanny in Japanese and American Horror Film: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Gore Verbinski’s Ring, MA thesis, North Carolina State University, 2006  

• Colette Balmain, 'Inside the Well of Loneliness: Towards a Definition of the Japanese Horror Film', Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Discussion Papers, 2006 

• Colette Balmain, '“Vengeful Virgins in White”: Female Monstrosity in Asian Cinema', in Niall Scott (ed), Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2004) [scroll down through pdf to p. 123]

• David Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)

• David Bordwell, 'Review of Noël Burch's "To the Distant Observer"', Wide Angle vol. 3, no. 4 (1980): 70–73

• Mio Bryce, Christie Barber, James Kelly, Siris Kunwar and Amy Plumb, 'Manga and Anime: Fluidity and Hybridity in Global Imagery', Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2010

• Noël Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema (London : Scholar Press, 1979)

• Robert Castle, 'The Radical Capability of Rashomon', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 7 No. 33, October 2003

• Ryan Cooke, 'Review of Jay McRoy, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008', Screening the Past,Issue 23, 2008

• Christopher J. Coyne, 'Culture, Common Knowledge and Post-Conflict Reconstruction', Journal of Intercultural Communication, No 13 (2007)

• Darrell William Davis, Saving Face: Spectator and Spectacle in Japanese Theatre and Film (LEWI Working Paper Series/David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, October 2004)

• Darrell William Davis, 'Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi', Cinema Journal 40, No. 4, Summer 2001

• Rayna Denison, 'On Susan J. Napier's From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West', Participations, Volume 6, Issue 2 (November 2009)

• Freda Freiberg, 'The Unkindest Cut of All? Some Reflections on the Recent Cinematic Release of the Uncut Version of Nagisa Oshima's Ai no corrida', Senses of Cinema, Issue 12, Feb-Mar 2001

• Freda Freiberg, 'Pale Flower', Senses of Cinema, Issue 55, 2010

• Freda Freiberg, 'Miyazaki's Heroines', Senses of Cinema, Issue 55, 2010

• New Jinshi Fujii, 'Films That Do Culture : A Discursive Analysis of Bunka Eiga, 1935-1945', Iconics 6, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 2002

• New Hideaki Fujiki, 'Dual Persona : Onoe Matsunosuke as Japan's Early Cinema Star', Iconics 7, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 2004

• Tag Gallagher, 'Mizoguchi and freedom', Screening the Past, Issue 13, 2001

• Aaron Gerow, 'One print in the age of mechanical reproduction: film industry and culture in 1910s Japan', Screening the Past, 2000 (11), 11 January 2000

• New Aaron Gerow, 'The Benshi's New Face : Defining Cinema in Taisho Japan', Iconics 3, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1994

• Andrew Grossman, 'Gohatto-or the End of Oshima Nagisa?', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 33, 2001 July

• New Masato Hase, 'Cinemaphobia in Taisho Japan : Zigomar, delinquent boys and somnambulism', Iconics 4, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1998

• New Kyoko Hirano, 'The Banning of Japanese Period Films by the American Occupation,' Iconics 1, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1987

• Lori Hitchcock, 'Third Culture Kids: A Bakhtinian Analysis of Language and Multiculturalism in Swallowtail Butterfly', Scope, February 2004

• Hikari Hori, 'Representing a Woman’s Story: Explicit Film and the Efficacy of Censorship in Japan', Sarai Reader 2005: Bare Acts

• Yuwen Hsiung, 'Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and East Asia's Macbeth', CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 6.1 (2004)

• Lee Wood Hung, 'Natural Culturalism in The Ballad of Narayama: A Study of Shohei Imamura's Thematic Concerns', Asian Cinema, Spring/Summer 2003

• Timothy Iles, 'Are We There Yet? Travelling Toward the Self in Contemporary Japanese Cinema', Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2007

• Mizuko Ito, 'The Gender Dynamics of the Japanese Media Mix', A position paper prepared for the workshop and conference on Girls 'n' Games, May 8-9, University of California, Los Angeles, 2006

• New Kenji Iwamoto, 'Film Criticism and the Study of Cinema in Japan：A Historical Study', Iconics 1, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1987

• Brian Jarvis, 'Anamorphic allegory in The Ring, or, seven ways of looking at a horror video', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, 3, 2007

• Lei Jin, 'Silence and Sound in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood', CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 6.1 (2004) 

• Journal of the Imaginary and Fantastic Vol. 1.  No. 2.:  The Films of Hayao Miyazaki

• Sato Kenji, 'More animated than life', Japan Echo, Dec 1997; 24, 5; International Module pg. 50

• Chika Kinoshita, '"Choreography of desire: analysing Kinuyo Tanaka's acting in Mizoguchi's films', Screening the Past, Issue 13, 2001

• New Futoshi Koga, 'A Review of Pornographic Images in the 1970s in Japan: Centered Around Nikkatu Roman Porno Film"', Iconics 2, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1992

• Colleen A. Laird, 'Japanese cinema, the classroom, and Swallowtail Butterfly', Jump Cut, No. 52, Summer 2010

• Annie Manion, 'Discovering Japan: Anime and Learning Japanese Culture', A Master's Thesis Submitted to the East Asian Studies Center, USC

• Dolores Martinez, 'Where the human heart goes astray: Rashomon, Boomtown and subjective experience', Film Studies, Issue 11, Winter 2007

• Yuji Matson, The Word and The Image: Collaborations between Abe Kôbô and Teshigahara Hiroshi, Masters Thesis, University of Victoria, 2007 

• Bonnie Melchior, 'King Lear and Ran: Identity Translated and Transformed', East-West Connections: Review of Asian Studies Volume 5, Number 1 (2005) [scroll to p. 41 in PDF]

• New Kiseko Minaguchi, 'Yamamoto Satsuo's Haha no kyoku (Mother's Melody) : Making a Father's Story of Stella Dallas', Iconics 6, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 2002

• Gary Morris, 'The Spirit Moves: The World of Kenji Mizoguchi',  Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 22, 1999

• New Hisashi Nada, 'An Aspect of the Reception of Avant Garde Films in Japan', Iconics 2, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1992

• New Hisashi Nada, 'The Little Cinema Movement in the 1920s and the Introduction of Avant-Garde Cinema in Japan', Iconics 3, Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 1994

• Lindsay Nelson, 'Ghosts of the Past, Ghosts of the Future: Monsters, Children, and Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema', Cinemascope, Issue 13, July-December 2009

• Eimi Ozawa , 'Remaking Corporeality and Spatiality: U.S. Adaptations of Japanese Horror Films, 49th Parallel, Conference Special Edition, Autumn 2006

• Chris Payne, 'Burying the Past: Nihonjinron and the Representation of Japanese Society in Itami's The Funeral', Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1: 1 (2003), 13-20

• Michael Francis Phillips, 'A Cinematic Challenge to Modernity Critical Theory in Postwar Japanese Cinema: An Introduction to Fukasaku Kinji', eCommons@Texas State University, May 2009

• Donald Richie, Japanese Cinema: Film Style and National Character (New York: Anchor Books, 1961; Michigan Electronic Reprint 2004)

• Donald Richie, 'Expressionism in Film', Tokyo - Berlin / Berlin - Tokyo Exhibition Catalogue, Mori Art Museum, 2006

• Donald Richie, 'The Daughter of the Samurai: a German-Japanese co-production', Tokyo - Berlin / Berlin - Tokyo Exhibition Catalogue, Mori Art Museum, 2006

• Donald Richie, writer and film critic, Conversations With History: "Writing, Film, and Japan: An Expatriate's View," 9/21/01

• Juneko J. Robinson , 'Review: Jay McRoy (2007) Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam: Rodopi', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010 

• Caroline Ruddell, 'Breaking Boundaries The Representation of Split Identity in Anime', Animation Studies – Vol.2, 2007

• Chi-Yun Shin, 'Art of branding: Tartan "Asia Extreme" films', Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

• Greg M. Smith, 'Critical reception of Rashomon in the West', Asian Cinema, Fall/Winter 2002

• Ayumi Suzuki, 'A nightmare of capitalist Japan: Spirited Away', Jump Cut, No. 51, spring 2009

• Donato Totaro, 'Tokyo Sonata: Flirting with the Fantastic: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008', Offscreen Journal,Vol . 13, Issue 5, 2009

• William Tsutsui, 'Godzilla And Postwar Japan', East-West Connections: Review of Asian Studies Volume 5, Number 1 (2005) [Scroll to p. 1 in PDF]

• Paul Waley, 'Re-scripting the city: Tokyo from ugly duckling to cool cat', Japan Forum 18(3) 2006: 361–380

• Gregory A. Walle, Narrating the new Japan: Biograph's The Hero of Liao-Yang (1904) Screen 2006 47: 43-65

• Craig Watts, 'Blood Spear, Mt. Fuji: Uchida Tomu's Conflicted Comeback from Manchuria', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 33, July 2001

• Erica Lee Zilleruelo, Shakespeare by Any Other Word? Shakespeare's King Lear and Macbeth Reivented in the Films of Akira Kurosawa, Masters Thesis, Wichita State University, 2002