Japanese Film
(revised for ASCRC, 2010-11)
JPN 391, MCLG 391, ENFM 391
Classroom: LA207 M-W, 3:10-5:30pm
Professor: Charles Exley
Office: LA318
Office Hours: TBA, and by appointment
Phone number 243-5301
Email: charles.exley@mso.umt.edu
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 longstanding 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. 317352
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, 19451990”
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