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'Japanese cinema' (映画; ''Eiga'') has a history in Japan that spans more than 100 years.

Contents

Genres

History

The Silent Era

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

2000 and after

Japanese films

Footnotes

References

External links

See also

Genres

★ 'Anime': Animation. ''Anime'' refers to "Japanese animation" in English.

★ 'Jidaigeki', period pieces featuring samurai, also known as ''chambara'' (onomatopoeia describing the sound of swords clashing).

★ 'Horror' films such as ''Ring'', also known as J-Horror

★ 'Cult Horror', such as ''Battle Royale'' or ''Suicide Club''

★ 'Kaiju': monster films, such as ''Godzilla''

★ 'Pink films', softcore pornographic films. Often more socially-engaged and aesthically well-crafted than simple pornography.

★ 'Yakuza films': films about mobsters.

History

The Silent Era

The first films produced in Japan were ''Bake Jizo'' (Jizo the Spook) and ''Shinin no sosei'' (Resurrection of a Corpse), both from 1898^[1]. The short ''Geisha no teodori'' (芸者の手踊り) was the first documentary, made in June 1899.
Japan's first star was Matsunosuke Onoe, a kabuki actor who appeared in over 1,000 films, mostly shorts, between 1909 and 1926. He and director Shozo Makino helped to popularize the ''jidaigeki'' genre.^[2]
The first female Japanese performer to appear in a film professionally was the dancer/actress Tokuko Nagai Takagi, who appeared in four shorts for the American-based Thanhouser Company between 1911 and 1914.^[3]
Some of the most discussed silent films from Japan are those of Kenji Mizoguchi, whose later works (e.g., ''The Life of Oharu'') are still highly regarded today.
Most Japanese cinema theatres at the time employed ''benshi'', narrators whose dramatic readings accompanied the film and its musical score which, like in the West, was often performed live. ^[4]
The 1923 earthquake, the Allied bombing of Tokyo during World War II, as well as the natural effects of time and Japan's humidity on the then more fragile filmstock have all resulted in a great dearth of surviving films from this period.
A study of the ''gendaigeki'' (contemporary/modern film drama) and writing for film in Japan in the 1910s to early 1920s, with select translations of scripts (complete as well as excerpts) is available in "Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement" (Joanne Bernardi, Wayne State University Press, 2001).

The 1930s

Unlike Hollywood, silent films were still being produced in Japan well into the 1930s. Notable talkies of this period include Kenji Mizoguchi's ''Sisters of the Gion'' (''Gion no shimai'', 1936), ''Osaka Elegy'' (1936) and ''The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums'' (1939), along with Sadao Yamanaka's ''Humanity and Paper Balloons'' (1937) and Mikio Naruse's ''Wife! Be Like A Rose!'' (''Tsuma Yo Bara No Yoni'', 1935), which was one of the first Japanese films to gain a theatrical release in the U.S. However, with increasing censorship, the left-leaning tendency films of directors such as Daisuke Ito also began to come under attack.

The 1940s

Akira Kurosawa made his feature film debut with ''Sugata Sanshiro'' in 1943. With the SCAP occupation following the end of WWII, Japan was exposed to over a decade's worth of American animation that had been banned under the war-time government.

The 1950s

The 1950s were the zenith of Japanese cinema, and three of its films (''Rashomon'', ''Seven Samurai'', and ''Tokyo Story'') made the Sight & Sound's 2002 Critics and Directors Poll for the best films of all time.^[5] The decade started with Akira Kurosawa's ''Rashomon'' (1950), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and marked the entrance of Japanese cinema onto the world stage. It was also the breakout role for legendary star Toshiro Mifune.^[6] 1952 and 1953 saw another Kurosawa film, ''Ikiru'', as well as Yasujiro Ozu's ''Tokyo Story''.
The year 1954 saw two of Japan's most influential films released. The first was the Kurosawa epic ''Seven Samurai'', about a band of hired samurai who protect a helpless village from a rapacious gang of thieves, which was remade in the West as ''The Magnificent Seven''.
That same year Ishirō Honda released the anti-nuclear horror film ''Gojira'', which was translated in the West as ''Godzilla''. Though it was severely edited for its Western release, ''Godzilla'' became an international icon of Japan and spawned an entire industry of ''Kaiju'' films. In 1955, Hiroshi Inagaki won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for of his Samurai Trilogy.
Kon Ichikawa directed two anti-war dramas: ''The Burmese Harp'' (1956), and ''Fires On The Plain'' (1959), along with ''Enjo'' (1958), which was adapted from Yukio Mishima's novel ''Temple Of The Golden Pavilion''.
Masaki Kobayashi made two of the three films which would collectively become known as the ''The Human Condition Trilogy'': ''No Greater Love'' (1958), and ''The Road To Eternity'' (1959). The trilogy was completed in 1961, with ''A Soldier's Prayer''.
Kenji Mizoguchi directed ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952), ''Ugetsu'' (1953) and ''Sansho the Bailiff'' (1954). He won the Silver Bear at the Venice Film Festival for ''Ugetsu''.
Mikio Naruse made ''Repast'' (1950), ''Late Chrysanthemums'' (1954), ''The Sound of the Mountain'' (1954) and ''Floating Clouds'' (1955).
Yasujiro Ozu directed ''Good Morning'' (1959) and ''Floating Weeds'' (1958), which was adapted from his earlier silent ''A Story of Floating Weeds'' (1934), and was shot by ''Rashomon''/''Sansho the Bailiff'' cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.

The 1960s

Akira Kurosawa directed the 1961 classic ''Yojimbo'', which is considered a huge influence on the Western. Yasujiro Ozu made his final film, ''An Autumn Afternoon'', in 1962. Mikio Naruse directed the widescreen melodrama ''When a Woman Ascends the Stairs'' in 1960; his final film was ''Scattered Clouds'', the second of two films he completed in 1967.
Technicolor arrived in Japan in the 1960s. Kon Ichikawa captured the watershed 1964 Olympics in his three-hour documentary ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965). Seijun Suzuki was fired by Nikkatsu for "making films that don't make any sense and don't make any money" after his surrealist yakuza flick ''Branded to Kill'' (1967).
Nagisa Oshima, Kaneto Shindo, Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura emerged as major filmmakers during the decade. Oshima's ''Cruel Story of Youth'', ''Night and Fog in Japan'' and ''Death By Hanging'' became three of the better-known examples of Japanese New Wave filmmaking, alongside Shindo's ''Onibaba'', Hani's ''She And He'' and Imamura's ''The Insect Woman''.
Hiroshi Teshigahara's ''Woman in the Dunes'' (1964) won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film Oscars. Masaki Kobayashi's ''Kwaidan'' (1965) also picked up the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

The 1970s

Nagisa Oshima directed ''In the Realm of the Senses'' (1976), a World War II period piece about Sada Abe. Staunchly anti-censorship, he insisted that the film would contain hardcore pornographic material; as a result the exposed film had to be shipped to France for processing, and an uncut version of the film has still, to this day, never been shown in Japan. However, the pink film industry became the stepping stone for young independent filmmakers of Japan.
Yoji Yamada introduced the commercially successful ''Tora-San'' series, while also directing other films, notably the popular ''The Yellow Handkerchief''.
Kinji Fukasaku completed the epic ''Battles Without Honor and Humanity'' series of yakuza films.
New wave filmmakers Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura retreated to documentary work, though Imamura made a dramatic return to feature filmmaking with ''Vengeance Is Mine'' (1979).

The 1980s

Hayao Miyazaki adapted his manga ''Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind'' into a feature film in 1984. Katsuhiro Otomo followed suit with his ''Akira'' in 1988. New anime movies were run every summer and winter with characters from popular TV anime.
Shohei Imamura won the Golden Palm at Cannes for ''The Ballad of Narayama'' (1983).
Akira Kurosawa directed ''Kagemusha'' (1980) and ''Ran'' (1985). Likewise, Seijun Suzuki made a comeback, beginning with ''Zigeunerweisen'' in 1980.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira Kurosawa) debuted, initially with pink films and genre horror, though growing beyond this (and generating international attention) beginning in the mid 1990s.

The 1990s

Shohei Imamura again won the Golden Palm (shared with Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami), this time for ''The Eel'' (1997), joining Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Bille August as only the fourth two-time recipient.
Takeshi Kitano emerged as a significant filmmaker with works such as ''Sonatine'' (1993), ''Kids Return'' (1996) and ''Hana-bi'' (1997), which was given the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Takashi Miike launched a prolific career, making up to 50 films in a decade, building up an impressive portfolio with titles such as, ''Audition'' (1999), ''Dead or Alive'' (1999) and ''The Bird People in China'' (1998).
Former documentary filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda launched an acclaimed feature career with ''Maborosi'' (1996) and ''After Life'' (1999).
Hayao Miyazaki directed two mammoth box office and critical successes, ''Porco Rosso'' (1992) which beat ''E.T.'' (1982) as the highest-grossing film in Japan, and ''Princess Mononoke'' (1997) which also claimed the top box office spot until ''Titanic'' (1997) beat it.
In addition, several new anime directors rose to widespread recognition, bringing with them newfound notions of anime as not only entertainment, but modern art:

★ Mamoru Oshii released the internationally-acclaimed philosophical sci-fi action film ''Ghost in the Shell'' in 1996, based on the manga by Masamune Shirow. The film garnered great success and recognition in theatrical releases worldwide, and Oshii and later went on to direct several live action films.

★ Satoshi Kon directed the award-winning psychological thriller ''Perfect Blue'', based on a novel by Toshiki Sato. The film was theatrically released to decent commercial and considerable critical success in America and several other countries around the world.

★ Hideaki Anno also gained considerable recognition after the release of his hugely successful (and controversial) psychological sci-fi epic ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', which started as a TV series in 1995 and concluded with the theatrical release of ''The End of Evangelion'', the series' postmodern, apocalyptic conclusion, in 1997. (The film was not released internationally until the early 2000's, and then in straight-to-DVD format.) ''Evangelion'' is widely considered to be one of the most influential anime of all time.

2000 and after

''Battle Royale'' was released, based on a popular novel by the same name. It gained cult film status in Japan and in Britain. Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to direct ''Spirited Away'' (2001), breaking Japanese box office records and winning the U.S. Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2002, ''Dolls'' was released, followed by a high-budget remake, ''Zatoichi'' in 2003, both directed and written by Takeshi Kitano. The J-Horror films ''Ringu'', ''Kairo'', ''Dark Water'', ''Yogen'', and ''the Grudge'' series were remade in English and met with commercial success. In 2004, '', directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Godzilla. In 2005, director Seijun Suzuki made his 56th film, ''Princess Raccoon''. Hirokazu Koreeda claimed film festival awards around the world with two of his films ''Distance'' and ''Nobody Knows''. In 2004, Mamoru Oshii released '' (known in Japan simply as "''Innocence''",) which, like the first film, received noteworthy critical praise around the world. Satoshi Kon also released three quieter, but nonetheless highly successful films in 2001, 2003 and 2006 respectively: ''Millennium Actress'', ''Tokyo Godfathers'', and ''Paprika''.

Japanese films

★ List of Japanese films

Footnotes

1. http://www.seekjapan.jp/article-1/765/J-Horror:+An+Alternative+Guide
2. Who's Who in Japanese Silent Films
3. Tokuko Nagai Takaki: Japan's First Film Actress
4. For more on ''benshi'', see the books:
5. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/
6. The Warrior's Camera, Prince, Stephen, , , Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-01046-3 , p.127.

:: Benshi, Japanese Silent Film Narrators, and Their Forgotten Narrative Art of Setsumei: A History of Japanese Silent Film Narration, Dym, Jeffrey A., , , Edwin Mellen Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7734-6648-7 (review) and
:: The Benshi-Japanese Silent Film Narrators, , , , Urban Connections, 2001, ISBN 4-900849-51-0 [1])

References

★ 24 Frames: The Cinema of Japan and Korea, , Justin, Bowyer, Wallflower Press, London, 2004, ISBN 1-904764-11-8

★ The Waves At Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema, , Joan, Mellen, Pantheon, New York, 1976, ISBN 0-394-49799-6

★ The Warrior's Camera, , Stephen, Prince, Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-01046-3

★ A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos, , Donald, Richie, Kodansha America, 2005, ISBN 4-7700-2995-0

★ Currents In Japanese Cinema, , Tadao, Sato, Kodansha America, 1982, ISBN 0-87011-815-3

External links

★ Asia Society: The Cinema Scene - Asia Society's regular podcast program containing news, reviews and interviews related to Asian Film

★ Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)

★ Midnight Eye

★ Resources for the study of Japanese Cinema at the University of Iowa Library

★ Japanese Cinema to 1960 by Gregg Rickman

★ The Problem of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Horror Films, discussion paper by Timothy Iles in the ''Electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies'', 6 October 2005.

★ Female Voices, Male Words: Problems of Communication, Identity and Gendered Social Construction in Contemporary Japanese Cinema, discussion paper by Timothy Iles in the
★ Reviews of Japanese Films, in the ''electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies''

★ Japan Cultural Profile - national cultural portal for Japan created by Visiting Arts/Japan Foundation

See also

★ World cinema

★ Samurai cinema

★ Anime

★ East Asian cinema

★

★ History of cinema

★ Japan Academy Prize

★ Japanese television programs

★ List of Japanese Actors

★ List of Japanese Actresses

★ List of Japanese Directors

★ List of Japanese language films

★ List of Japanese movie studios

★ Nuberu bagu (The Japanese New Wave)

★ Seiyū

★ Tendency film

★ Tokusatsu