Spring 2008

CMST 24907; EALC 24908; CMST 34907; EALC 34908

NEW WAVE CINEMA IN JAPAN

Michael Raine  

Class:                         Tu/Th 12-1:20 Cobb 310
Screenings:                Wed 7pm Cobb 307

Office Hours:            Tuesday, 2-4pm, WB301C 

Requirements: Participation, presentation, posting to web site, final paper.

Required text: David Desser. Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema [Sem.Coop]

Special Events: Nikkatsu Action film series at the Siskel Center, April 5-May 23. Free tickets!  

 

SECTION I: The "PRE-NEW-WAVE"

Week 1: Introduction: the high volume, low budget program picture system

Wednesday 4/2 screening: Janken musume (Janken Girls, 1955)

 

Tuesday 4/1& Thursday 4/3 reading:      

Richard Dyer. "Entertainment and Utopia"

Fredric Jameson. "Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film"

Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie. "Theaters and Audiences" + charts

Extra: Thomas Doherty.  "The Teenage Marketplace" in Teenagers and Teenpics

 

Abe Kobo,  Hasegawa Shiro, Nakahara Yusuke, Takeda Taijun.  "Myujikaruzu - gendai no me"

 

Week 2: Cinema, literature, and celebrity culture

Wednesday 4/9 screening: Kurutta kajitsu (Crazed Fruit, 1956)

 

Tuesday 4/8 & Thursday 4/10 reading:   

Graeme Turner.  "The Idea of Cultural Studies"

Francois Truffaut.  "Yasushi Nakahira: Juvenile Passion"

Francois Truffaut.  "James Dean is Dead"

Edgar Morin.  "Gods and Goddesses"

Edgar Morin.  "The Case of James Dean"

Edgar Morin.  "Star Merchandise"

Extra: Thomas Doherty.  "Dangerous Youth" in Teenagers and Teenpics

Extra: Michael Raine. Imagining a New Japan: The Taiyozoku Films

 

Heibon.  "Nikkatsu eigaka Taiyo no kisetsu"

Sasaki Kiichi, Umezaki Haruo, Takeda Taijun, Yoshimoto Takaaki.  "Darashinai hanko: judai no hanko eiga o megutte"

Muramatsu, Hanada, Sasaki .  "Iesu to No to: Shokei no heya, Kurutta kajitsu o megutte"

 

Week 3: Nikkatsu Action

Wednesday 4/16 screening: Arashi o yobu otoko (The Stormy Guy, 1957)

 

Tuesday 4/15 & Thursday 4/17 reading:

Geoffrey Nowell-Smith.  "Minnelli and Melodrama"

Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro.  "Melodrama, Postmodernism, and Japanese Cinema"

Extra: Thomas Doherty.  "The Clean Teenpics" in Teenagers and Teenpics

 

Ozu Yasujiro.  "Ishihara Yujiro ni omou"

Kinema junpo.  "Tokushu: Ishihara Yujiro to Nihon eiga"

 

Week 4: Modernity/Modernism/Modernist (Masumura Yasuzo)

Wednesday 4/23 screening: Kyojin to gangu (Giants and Toys, 1958)

 

Tuesday 4/22 & Thursday 4/24 reading:

      Victor Koschmann.  "Revolution and Subjectivity in Postwar Japan" (extract)

Theodor Adorno. "Perennial Fashion - Jazz"

      Walter Benjamin.  "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility"

      Extra: Michael Raine.  "Modernization Without Modernity"

 

      Masumura Yasuzo. "Eiga no supiido ni tsuite"

      Masumura Yasuzo.  "Aru benmei -- jocho to shinjitsu to fun'iki ni se o mukete

      Ito Sei.  Soshiki to ningen.

 

SECTION II: THE SHOCHIKU NOUVELLE VAGUE

Week 5: Cinema and the New Left (Oshima Nagisa)

Wednesday 4/30 screening: Seishun zankoku monogatari (Cruel Story of Youth, 1960)

 

Tuesday 4/29 & Thursday 5/1 reading:   

      David Desser.  Eros plus Massacre, pp. 1-38     

      Richard Neupert.  "Cultural Contexts: Where did the Wave Begin?"

      Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro.  "Questions of the New"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "Is it a Breakthrough? (The Modernists of Japanese Film)"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "To Critics, Mainly -- From Future Artists"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "A Review of 'Sleeping Lion: Shochiku Ofuna"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "Beyond Endless Self-Negation: The Attitude of the New Filmmakers"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "What is a Shot?"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "The Laws of Self-Negation"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "In Protest Against the Massacre of Night and Fog in Japan"

      Oshima Nagisa.  "Banishing Green"

 

      Matsumoto Toshio.  "Eizo no hakken"

      Sato Tadao.  "Eiga no naka no gakusei undo

      Watanabe.  Nikkatsu mukokuseki action

 

Friday 5/2 special screening: Daisogen no wataridori (Plains Wanderer, 1960)

 

Week 6: Cinephilia (Yoshida Kiju)

Wednesday 5/7 screening: Rokudenashi (Good-for-Nothing, 1960)

 

Tuesday 5/6 & Thursday 5/8 reading:     

      David Desser.  Eros plus Massacre pp. 39-75

Isolde Standish.  "Cinema and Transgression"

      Jacques Rivette.  "Mizoguchi Viewed from Here"

      Jean-Paul Sartre.  "The Look"

 

      Yoshida Kiju.  "Eiga no kabe: storii-shugi hihan"

      Yoshida Kiju.  "Passhon to shite no eiga: 'Rokukenashi' kara 'Kagami no onna-tachi made'" (extract)

      Ishihara Shintaro.  "Atarashii eiga to wa nani ka" 

 

SECTION III: ALTERNATIVES AND CONSEQUENCES

Week 7: Genre cinema and the "popular baroque"

Wednesday 5/14 screening: Kanto mushuku (Kanto Wanderer, 1963)

 

Tuesday 5/13 & Thursday 5/15 reading:

      Barry Langford.  "Who Needs Genres?"      

      Rick Altman.  "Conclusion: A Semantic/Syntactic/Pragmatic Approach to Genre"

      Mark Schilling.  "Suzuki Seijun"

      Web site: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seijun_Suzuki> 

      Chris D.  "Seijun Suzuki"

 

      Watanabe.  Nikkatsu Akushon no karei na sekai

 

Week 8: Modernity, Materiality, and Native Culture

Wednesday 5/21 screening: Nippon konchuki (The Insect Woman, 1963)

 

Tuesday / Thursday 11/15 reading:

      Igarashi Yoshikuni.  "From the Anti-Security Treaty Movement to the Tokyo Olympics: Transforming the Body, the Metropolis, and Memory"

      Kevin Doak.  A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan: Placing the People (extract)

      James Quandt (Ed.).  Shohei Imamura.  (extract)

      Ishihara Shintaro.  [archeological model of culture]

 

      Imamura Shohei.  "Jisaku o kataru" [extract]

 

Week 9: Toho, ATG, and the creation of a cosmopolitan avant-garde

Wednesday 5/28 screening: Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes, 1964)

 

Tuesday 5/27 & Thursday 5/29 reading:

      Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano.  "Woman in the Dunes"

      Hirasawa Go.  "The Rise of Underground Cinema and the Early Years of ATG"

      Yomota Inuhiko.  "Two or Three Things I Know About ATG"

 

      Abe Kobo.  "Teshigahara Hiroshi no eiga shiso wa nani ka"

 

Week 10: The limits of "new wave cinema"

Wednesday 6/4 screening: Kawaita hana (Pale Flower, 1964)

Tuesday 6/3: course recap