Japanese Film

Japanese Film

(revised for ASCRC, 2010-11)

JPN 391, MCLG 391, ENFM 391

Classroom: LA207 M-W, 3:10-5:30pm

Professor: Charles ExleyOffice: LA318

Office Hours: TBA, and by appointment

Phone number 243-5301Email:

Japan is home to one of the major national cinematic traditions. This course introduces students to salient events in the hundred-year history of Japanese cinema, including the age of silent film, the golden age of film directors, the New Wave, and contemporary Japanese cinema. Students will learn about Japanese cinema as the artistic expression of individual directors; they will gain a better understanding of the history of Japanese society and popular culture; and they will appreciate some of the reasons for the long-standing interest in Japan in the history of Western film studies.

Learning Objectives

Students will

1. practice discussing film with reference to story, character, image, and narration
2. learn about significant moments in the history of Japanese film and some of its major directors
3. improve analytical skills by reading critical essays on films viewed
4. improve writing skills, particularly description, analysis, and refining arguments about films in question
5. gain a better understanding of the interaction between Japanese film and other cinematic traditions (Hollywood, expressionism, Nouvelle vague, and others)

All works read will be in English. No knowledge of the Japanese language is required.

Required Texts

Donald Richie. A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos. (Kōdansha America, 2005).

Additional critical reading will be available through eRes (detailed list appended)

Grade Calculation

Attendance, class participation 10%

Short Papers 15%

This section includes writing two film reviews, film response papers, and homework assignments.

Term Paper 20%

Students will write a 6-8 page essay about one or (at most) two of the films we watch this semester. You should consult with me about the topic. Please engage more than the film’s narrative in your analysis – consider as well frame composition, mise-en-scène, camera movement, or use of sound.

Writing Assignments 10%

Answer the reading questions that accompany your text and turn in as HW.

Midterm Exam 20%

The Midterm will cover the content of the text up to that point, lecture and discussion notes. It will consist of identifications, short answer questions, and essay questions.

You will need to know the film titles and directors for films shown in class.

Final Exam 25%

The final will be cumulative.

Grade Distribution:

A: 93-100 A-: 90-92 B+: 87-89 B: 83-86 B-: 80-82 C+: 77-79 C: 73-76 C-: 70-72 D+: 67-69 D: 63-66 D-: 60-62 F: below 60

The Final Exam will take place on Thursday, Dec. 17 from 1:10 to 3:10pm.

Please note that there will be no make-up assignments, tests, or exams.

You are expected to come to class on time and prepared for each class.

Course Schedule

Note: the basic structure for film days involves a short 10 minute introduction to the film. Discussion of the additional reading and textbook follows film viewing as time permits.

(the reading material is subject to change; please visit Blackboard for the most current version of the syllabus)

All readings other than the textbook are available through ereserve.

Aug 31 syllabus explanation; precinematic history; the roots of Japanese film

film viewing: One Hundred Years of Japanese Film (60 min; Oshima Nagisa, 1994)

discuss: Komatsu, Hiroshi, "Japan: Before the Great Kanto Earthquake," in Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ed., Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 177-182

Sep 2 theatrical roots of chambara, innovation in traditional genres

film viewing: Shibukawa Bangorō (60 min; 1922)

read Richie, pp. 17-42 and turn in answers to questions for Chapter One

discuss: Lisa Spalding, “Period Films in the Prewar Era” from Reframing Japanese Cinema, pp. 131-144

Sep 7 HOLIDAY (LABOR DAY)

Sep 9 German and Japanese expressionism, experimental film [Richie 84-96]

film viewing: A Page of Madness (60 min; Kinugasa Teinosuke, 1926);

discuss: “Kinugasa Teinosuke” from Burch, To the Distant Observer, pp. 123-139

Sep 14 Ozu 1 - Director Notes, “children and modernity” discussion UM [Richie 54-59]

film viewing: I was born but (100 min; Ozu Yasujirō, 1932)–

discuss: “I was born but” from Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, pp. 224-229

Sep 16 Ozu 2 – “resolution, resignation” discussion [Richie 119-129]

film viewing: Late Spring (108 min; Ozu, 1949)

discuss: “Kristin Thompson, “Late Spring and Ozu’s unreasonable style” pp. 317-352

Sep 21 analysis of Ozu: technique, context; “the anti-Hollywood”

discuss: “Ozu Yasujiro” from Burch, To the Distant Observer pp. 154-185

David Bordwell, “Background and Materials” from Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, pp. 17-30;

Hasumi Shigehiko, “Sunny Skies” from Desser, Ozu’s Tokyo Story, pp. 118-129

Sep 23 Mizo 1 – melodrama, family structure, nation discussion [Richie 101]

film viewing: Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (142 min; Mizoguchi Kenji, 1939)

discuss: Darrell Davis, “Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939): A Riptide of Reaction” from Picturing Japaneseness, pp. 107-130

Sep 28 Mizo 2 – discussion [Richie 129-134]

film viewing: Ugetsu monogatari (94 min; Mizoguchi, 1953)

discuss: Keiko McDonald, “Ugetsu: why is it a masterpiece?” from Mizoguchi the Master pp. 3-16

Sep 30 Mizo discussion: technique, context, Cahiers du cinéma

read Richie, pp. 43-106 and turn in answers to questions for Chapter Two

Noel Burch “Mizoguchi Kenji” pp. 217-246

Oct 5 cinema at war: propaganda film + animated wartime[Richie 102-3]

film viewing: clips from War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (30 min; 1942)

Oct 7 melodrama in the postwar – UM [Richie 145]

film viewing: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (111 min; Naruse Mikio, 1960)

Oct 12 MIDTERM EXAM

Oct 14 Kurosawa 1 – discussion UM [Richie 119]

film viewing: Stray Dog (142 min; Kurosawa Akira, 1949)

Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro, from Kurosawa and Japanese Film Studies

“Stray Dog” pp. 147-178

Oct 19 Kurosawa 2 –[Richie 133; 170-1]

film viewing: Rashōmon (129 min; Kurosawa, 1950)

“Rashomon” from Yoshimoto, pp. 182-189

Oct 21 Kurosawa analysis: technique, context

read Richie, pp. 107-176 and turn in answers to questions for Chapter Three

Luc Mollet, Andre Bazin, and Jacques Rivette, “Exchanges about Kurosawa and Mizoguchi” from Cahiers du cinema pp. 260-265

Oct 26 commercialism and satire UM [Richie 161]

film viewing: Giants and Toys (95 min; Masumura Yasuzo, 1958)

read excerpt of Raine, “Masumura Yasuzo and the Subject of Vernacular Modernism” (Ph.D. dissertation)

Oct 28 youth films, energy, sex UM [Richie 153]

film viewing: Crazed Fruit (86 min; Nakahira Kō, 1956)

Read: Chuck Stephens, “Heat Stroke: Crazed Fruit and Japanese Cinema’s Season in the Sun”

Read: Michael Raine, “Crazed Fruit: Imagining a New Japan—The Taiyozoku Films”

Nov 2 aesthetics of the absurd UM [Richie 195]

film viewing: Woman in the Dunes (123 min; Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1964)

discussion: sand as a protagonist, absurdism in postwar Jpn

Nov 4 re-presenting tradition UM [Richie 206]

film viewing: Double Suicide (105 min; Shinoda Masahiro, 1969)

You will be assigned in class (on Nov 2) to discuss one of the following:

de Bary, Brett. "Not Another Double Suicide: Gender, National Identity, and Repetition in Shinoda Masahiro's Shinjuten no Amijima," Iris 16 (Spring 1993): 49-56.

McDonald, Keiko I. Giri, ninjo and fatalism in "Double Suicide". Film Criticism Vol V nr 3 (Spring 1981); p 1-11.

Nov 9 new wave wrap up and discussion/analysis

introducing killers and kitsch

film viewing: Tokyo Drifter (91 min; Suzuki Seijun, 1966) [Richie 181]

read Richie, pp. 177-212 and turn in answers to questions for Chapter Four

Nov 11 HOLIDAY (VETERAN’S DAY)

Nov 16 cinema and consumption (the original “ramen noodle western”)

film viewing: Tampopo (114 min; Itami Jūzō, 1985)

discussion: citation of Kurosawa, parody of western

Nov 18 appropriating Japanese film (“romance on pins and noodles”)

film clip: The Ramen Girl (20 min; Robert Allan Ackerman, 2008)

Discussion: respectful citation or rip-off? On the consumption of national cinema abroad.

Nov 25-27 (Wed-Fri)...... THANKSGIVING VACATION

Nov 23 Postmodernism and Contemporary Cinema: trends

discuss: David Desser, “From Enka to Anime: Popular Japanese Cinema, 1945-1990”

Nov 25 mesmerism [Richie 219]

film viewing: Cure (111 min; Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 1997)

discussion: J-Horror and mystery genre conventions

Nov 30 remaking the yakuza film UM [Richie 221]

film viewing: Hana-bi (103 min; Kitano Takeshi, 1997)

Discussion of the postwar yakuza genre

Dec 2 Discussion of Kitano Takeshi

discuss: Darrell Davis, “Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi” Cinema Journal 40:4 (2001) 55-79.

Aaron Gerow, A Scene at the Threshold: Liminality in the Films of Kitano Takeshi”

Dec 7 Postmodernism and Contemporary Cinema

discuss: Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro, “Melodrama, Postmodernism, and Japanese Cinema” pp. 28-55

Dec 9 Asia and Japan

read Richie, pp. 213-259 and turn in answers to questions for Chapter Five

discuss: Yomota Inuhiko, “Stranger than Tokyo”

Mark Shilling, “Asians in Japan, Japanese in Asia” pp. 43-50

December 12-13 (Sat-Sun)...... Study Days

December 14-18 (Mon-Fri)...... Final Examinations

OUR FINAL: 1:10-3:10pm, Thursday, Dec. 17