Talk:Cinema of Japan

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[edit] No subject

history needs to be fleshed out; needs treatment of endemic genres (samurai, yakuza, pinkku); lots of links' targets are stubs. Nateji77 07:18, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is there a term in Asia for the method of using kanji or hanja or hanzi as templates in the montage and mise en scene? This is a rather difficult question, it seems to me. I went to film school in America and it is difficult to broach this topic with non-kanjified Westerners. It is a rather deep idea and this article needs to be somehow fleshed out with data on the big movies and auteurs. Ozu and Kurosawa were emphasized in my program's Japanese Film class, which I took in 1982. Whether this more or less standard film discussion should be done in conjunction with the template issue or not is something I leave to you all. The mise en scene and montage question as it pertains to kanji et al is something that is not actually a visible part of the mainstream of discussion in cinema. There are always personalities and various power and attitude issues in approaching the offices of the most obvious candidates for such a serious discussion eg the Scorceses, Eastwoods, and Jackie Chans. I suppose until this is a more obvious talking point the template issue is just a thought for the future. In case non-kanjified people are reasoning this issue out, let me say that the word that the screen looks like is always the very first consideration in Hanzi, Kanji and Hanja-literate film making. It is like every screen has a word. Asian film makers have a difficult task at times creating crossover works because the word story has to flow as well as the story that the Westerner sees, and the template issue itself is always near #1 on the list of issues that the serious film maker takes under consideration. Not to mention the endless actual politics involved. I don't even know of a text to refer to here; I just know that I can read Asian and Asian movies very well, and as a graduate of a serious Eastern Seaboard film school I know full well that this is the most salient issue in Pacific entertainment. It is as though it deserves some kind of page in and of itself; as a complete newcomer to editing at Wiki, I don't know where to begin with this, but it doesn't really matter as it is too obvious a branch of thought not to be very fully developed in the future by any one working on any Asian countries cinema, and then eventually the other non-Asian cinema pages. As just one example of the template theory, any kanjified viewer can simply pop in 7 Samurai to see a probably very simple exposition of a screen action story that unfolds with the 'words as screen image template' story. I suspect that the easy well developed quality of Kurosawa's crossover efforts are why he is the most highly regarded director of Japan's Golden Age, and also why he was able to make any movie he wanted dating back to the days of the war when creativity was a most difficult project, to say the least.

McDogm April 28 2005 0241 est usa


hi. 'words as screen image template' not sure what you mean by "template?" do mean the inclusion of kanji within the mis-en-scene, or do you mean a mis-en-scene without kanji that's composed to resemble kanji? Nateji77 05:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] tokyo story vs citizen kane

"Many argued, Tokyo Story is indeed the greatest film ever made, instead of Citizen Kane."

would be nice to have a source/attribution on that. Nateji77 16:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Well, it was listed as number 1 in "Halliwell’s Top 1000 films" (see [1]), althought "Time Out" and "Sight And Sound" both went the other way, putting Kane at number 1 and Tokyo Story at 9 and 5 respectively...

Gram 11:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] East Asian cinema

Hi. I created the East Asian cinema template and the associated article and would like to request some input on that article from the people who've worked on the various cinema articles for countries in the Far East / East Asia, including the "Cinema of Japan" article. I think it would be worthwhile to expand the East Asian cinema article cos it's quite perfunctory at present, but I don't have the time to research each country's output as thoroughly as I'd like and I don't want to simply rewrite what you already have here. I tried putting up a request for expansion but little has happened.

My intention was to focus on the Western experience of East Asian cinema - particularly focussing on the impact and influence of the movies, directors, stars and film styles from the Far East on European and American audiences. This would include the increasing popularity of Eastern films in the West, especially box office, video & DVD market successes, but also cult figures and genres. It should also include information about collaborations and crossovers by Eastern and Western film makers.

Because of it's wider focus, the East Asian cinema article should ideally have synopses of the film industries of each East Asian country, but not just simple reiterations of what already exists in a more substantial form here.

I'm sure some users may disagree with my some of my ideas here, or have a better structural approach as to how the article should be expanded and evolve. That's cool - all I want is to make the article encompass as much scope as possible and to be a worthy place to group these diverse film cultures together. Each country should be represented, so I realise that using my intended focus may skew the article in favour of the larger industries of Hong Kong, China and Japan, which may be unwise. Anyway, any help on the East Asian cinema article would be appreciated.

Cheers, Gram 00:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First film?

It says: "The first film produced in Japan was the short documentary Geisha no teodori (芸者の手踊り) in June of 1899" but the entry for Ichikawa Danjūrō IX says: "Along with Onoe Kikugorō V, he was very likely the first kabuki actor to appear in a film; Momijigari (Maple Leaf Viewing) was filmed in 1897." This article [2] has an interesting reference which would be worth chasing down.

These early films are public domain and it sounds like Momijigari may have survived (as has Matsunosuke Onoe's Chushin-gura) - does anyone know if they are available online? (Emperor 15:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC))


[edit] Literature

Would it be worthwhile adding Hibakusha Cinema by Mick Broderick?

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