EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.

docx Fall 2011 Japanese Cinema: Theory & History EAST-UA 613 (4 credits) Instructor: Junji Yoshida (jy37@nyu.edu) Classroom Location: SILV 501 Class meeting: Friday 9:00 -13:00 (screening should end by 13:00) Office Hours: Monday 10am to Noon at 41 East 11th Street, 7th Floor, Room 727H

This course surveys Japanese cinema from its prehistory to postwar period, interrogating while using familiar concepts such as auteur, genre, national characteristics and ethnicity, gender and racial hierarchy, culture, Tradition vs. Modernity, the East and the West. We will focus on both historical specificities of Japan and formal aspect of filmic texts. Defining cinema as a social practice, our discussion will cover ideological negotiations involved in film exhibition and identity formation. Each week will present, in roughly chronological order, a "moment" from the history of Japanese cinema and a methodological issue in film studies brought into focus by that week's film. For example, we will study vernacular modernism in 1930s Japan, the war film and theorization of propaganda, genre theory and 1950s melodrama. We will of course pay attention to the Masters of Japanese cinema (Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kurosawa, Oshima et. al.), but we will also study film in relation to broader sociocultural movements such as the rise and fall of benshi, the birth of Pure Film movement, Japanese imperialism, American Occupation, and postwar "new wave" and the role of film criticisms. All readings on the course are in English; no Japanese language skill is required though memorizing Japanese names is necessary -- some familiarity with modern Japanese history will be helpful. All assigned readings will be available as PDF on the course web site at <http://www.nyu.edu/its/blackboard/> Note to Students You will need active NYUHome service in order to use NYU Blackboard. To activate the service, follow the instructions at http://start.nyu.edu, then log in to NYUHome with your NetID and password. Recommended texts: Andrew Gordon. The Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford University Press. 2008 (2nd Edition) Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer (ed.). Japanese Cinema: texts and contexts Routledge. 2007 Screening Policy: Attendance at all screenings is mandatory. Films are meant to be watched in a public venue, among a heterogeneous audience, projected on a screen in the dark. This

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx

experience cannot be substituted at home, on a television, or on your computer. Though your first viewing of all these films happen in class, you are strongly encouraged to watch all of these films more than once, and to maintain an informal viewing journal with notes and commentary on each film. This will save your time in the long run when you post your weekly responses or write two analytical papers. Unannounced absence from any screening will count against your final grade. Attendance Policy: Attendance is mandatory. Missing more than two classes will result in lowered final grade. Requirements and Grading Criteria: This is a reading and screening intensive class. It is also important for you to express your ideas on issues and topics dealt in reading materials by putting together two analytical papers. Deadline for weekly response(Web-posting) is 6 PM on the following Wednesday. Grading Criteria: Pop quizzes Weekly web-postings Oral participation in in-class discussion Two analytical papers 4-6 pages(Midterm) 7-9 pages(Final)

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Late Paper Policy: Late papers with be marked down one letter grade for every day they are late. I will not accept a paper more than two days late. Week 1 September 9 TOPIC: Introduction and Distribution of Syllabus -----------------------------Screening: Tsukiyama Kokichi/Onoe Matsunosuke, Shibusawa Bangoro (62 min.) and Inagaki Hiroshi, Forced to Wander (Horo zanmai, 60 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: REQUIRED READINGS: Komatsu Hiroshi. Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I in Reframing Japanese Cinema: Authorship, Genre, History. Arthur Nolletti Jr. and David Desser (ed.). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992: p.p. 229-258 Joanne Bernardi. Reformation in Transition: Ty Films and the Founding of Taikatsu in Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001: p.p. 97-139

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx Isolde Standish. Mediators of Modernity: Photo-interpreters in Japanese Silent Cinema in Oral Tradition, 20/1 (2005): p.p. 93-100 FURTHER SUGGESTED READINGS: Daisuke Miyao. Introduction and chapter 3 (&4) in Sessue Hayakawa. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007 Lisa Spalding. Period Films in the Prewar Era in Reframing Japanese Cinema: Authorship, Genre, History. Arthur Nolletti Jr. and David Desser (ed.). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992: p.p. 131-144 Jeffrey Dym. Introduction of Motion Pictures into Japan and the Birth of Benshi in Benshi, Japanese Silent Film Narrators, and their Forgotten Narrative Art of Setsumei. Lewiston & Queenston & Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003: p.p. 21-36

Week 2 September 16 TOPIC: Benshi and Onnagata vs. Pure Film Movement: Orientalism and Taisho Liberalism -----------------------------Screening: Ozu Yasujiro, I Was Born, But (1932, 91 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: David Bordwell. Backgrounds & Materials & I Was Born, But in Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton University Press, 1988 Alastair Phillips. The Salarymans Panic Time: Ozu Yasujirs I Was Born, But(1932) in Japanese Cinema: texts and contexts. Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer (ed.) London & New York: Routledge, 2007: p.p. 25-36 Noel Burch. Ozu Yasujiro in To the Distant Observer. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993: p.p. 154-160 Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano. The Vernacular Meanings of Genre; The Middle Class in Nippon Modern. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008: p.p.43-61 Week 3 September 23 TOPIC: Ozu Yasujiro, Shochiku Studios Prewar Americanism, Shoshimin Genre -----------------------------Screening: Miziguchi Kenji, Osaka Elegy (1936, 71 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Iwamoto Kenji. Sound in Early Japanese Talkies Donald Kirihara. Osaka Elegy Miriam Hansen. Vernacular Modernism Week 4 September 30 TOPIC: Kenji Mizoguchi, Melodramatic Social Realism of Shimpa -----------------------------Screening: Mizoguchi Kenji, Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Zangiku Monogatari, 1939, 143 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week:

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx

Noel Burch. Mizoguchi Kenji in To the Distant Observer. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993: p.p. 217-246 Darrell Williams Davis. Story of the Last Chrysanthemum in Picturing Japaneseness. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996: p.p. 107-130 Chika Kinoshita. Floating Sound: Sound and Image in Story of the Last Chrysanthemum. Week 5 October 7 TOPIC: Wartime Jingoism and Ambivalent Exaltation of Tradition -----------------------------Screening: Kurosawa Akira, No Regrets for Our Youth (Waga seishun ni kui nashi, 1946, 110 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Isolde Standish. Cinema and the State in A New History of Japanese Cinema p.p. 133173 Kyoko Hirano. No Regrets for Our Youth in Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press,1992: p.p. 179-204 The Strikes at Toho Studio p.p. 205-240 Week 6 October 14 Midterm Paper Due: October 14, 5PM TOPIC: Ideology of Democratization Film: Kurosawa, Postwar U.S. Occupation, and Convenient Flash-back/Disembodied Memories -----------------------------Screening: Ozu Yasujiro, Late Spring (1949, 108 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Kristin Thompson. Late Spring and Ozus Unreasonable Style in Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988: p.p. 317-352 Daisuke Miyao. Translators Introduction in Ozus Anti-Cinema. Center for Japanese Studies University of Michigan, 2003: p.p. ix-xx Mark Nornes. The Riddle of the Vase: Ozu Yasujiros Late Spring David Bordwell. Late Spring in Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton University Press, 1988: p.p. 307-312 David Bordwell. Towards Intrinsic Norms in Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton University Press, 1988: p.p. 73-108 Week 7 October 21 TOPIC: Parametric Style and Japaneseness: How Can Shot Analysis Alleviate or Perpetuate the Discourse of Orientalism? -----------------------------Screening: Kurosawa Akira, Seven Samurai (1954, 220 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto. Seven Samurai in Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema. Duke University Press, 2000: p.p. 205-245 Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto. The Difficulty of Being Radical: The Discipline of Film Studies and the Postcolonial World Order in Japan in the World. Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian (ed.)

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx Donald Richie. Seven Samurai in The Films of Akira Kurosawa. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965: p.p. 97-108 Week 8 October 28 TOPIC: Vanishing Samurai in the Midst of Jidaigeki(period film): Toshiro Mifune and Kurosawa: Diegetic Setting versus Spectatorial Settings -----------------------------Screening: Nakahira K, Crazed Fruits (1956, 86 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Michael Raine. Ishihara Yujiro: Youth, Celebrity, and the Male Body in Late 1950s Japan in Word and Image in Japanese Cinema. Cambridge University Press. 2010 Douglas Kellner. Culture Industries David Desser. Introduction in Eros Plus Massacre. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988: p.p. 1-12

Week 9 November 4 TOPIC: Rebellious Youth as Celebrity Under the Postwar Americanism -----------------------------Screening: Masumura Yasuzo, Giants and Toys (1958, 95 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: Masumura Yasuzo. A Defese: turning Ones Back on Sentiment, Authenticity, and Ambiance (4) Michael Raine. Modernization Without Modernity: Masumura Yazuzs Giants and Toys (1958) in Japanese Cinema: texts and contexts. Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer (ed.) London & New York: Routledge, 2007: p.p. 152-167 Masumura Yasuzo. Eiga no supiido ni tsuite Oshima Nagisa. Is it a Breakthrough? (the Modernists of Japanese Film) in Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima, 1956-1978. Translated by Dawn Lawson. Cambridge & Massachusetts & London: The MIT Press, 1993: p.p. 26-35 Week 10 November 11 TOPIC: Yasuzo Masumura, Star-Studded Caricature of Intermedial Celebrity Culture in Postwar Japan: Auteur as Social Critic or Public Intellectual -----------------------------Screening: Oshima Nagisa, Cruel Story of Youth (Seishun zankoku monogatari, 1960, 96 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: David Desser. Cruel Stories of Youth in Eros Plus Massacre. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988: p.p. 39-75 Oshima Nagisa. To Critics Mainly, From Future Artists in Film Art, December 1956 p.p. 21-25 Noel Burch. Oshima Nagisa in To the Distant Observer. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993: p.p. 325-344

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto. Questions of the New: shima Nagisas Cruel Story of Youth (1960) in Japanese Cinema: texts and contexts. Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer (ed.) London & New York: Routledge, 2007: p.p. 168-179 Week 11 November 18 TOPIC: Nagisa Oshima and Shochiku New-Wave -----------------------------Screening: Imamura Shohei, Pigs and Battleships (1961, 108 min.)* Reading to be finished by the following week: REQUIRED READINGS: Audi Bock, Shohei Imamura John Dower, Peace and Democracy in Two Systems: External Policy and Internal Conflict FURTHER SUGGESTED READINGS: Naoko Shibusawa. Hollywoods Japan Ella Shohat. Ethnicity-in-Relation: Toward a Multicultural Reading of American Cinema Week 12 November 25 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY: NO CLASS

Week 13 December 2 TOPIC: Shohei Imamuras Another Kind of Yakuza Film: Post-colonial Noir Humor: Bakhtinian Laughter as a Pill for Social Malaise -----------------------------Screening: Naruse Mikio, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960, 111 min.)* Reading to be finished by the following week: Catherine Russell. Introduction: The Auteur as Salaryman and excerpt from Naruse in the 1960s (p.p. 315-341) in The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Woman and Japanese Modernity Durham: Duke University Press, 2008 Week 14 December 9 TOPIC: Naruse Mikio: Quintessential Women Film (jyosei eiga) -----------------------------Screening: Hiroshi Teshigahara, Woman in The Dunes (1964, 148 min.) Reading to be finished by the following week: David Desser. Insect Woman Eros Plus Massacre. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988: p.p. 108-144 Hirasawa Go. The Rise of Underground Cinema and the Early Years of ATG in Art Theatre Guild, 2003: p.p. 25-29 Mitsuyo Wasa-Marciano. Ethnicizing the Body and Film: Teshigahara Hiroshis Woman in the Dunes (1964) in Japanese Cinema: texts and contexts. Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer (ed.). London & New York: Routledge, 2007: p.p. 180-192 Week 15 December 16

Final Paper Due: December 16, 5PM

EAST-UA613 Fall2011 Japanese Cinema Syllabus.docx

TOPIC: Allegorical Crossing of National Borders: Art Theatre Guild and Politics of International Film Festival -----------------------------Final Screening: TBA: (Miwa Nishikawa, Sway, Miike Takashi Gozu)