Aesthetic Film Industry, Late Spring (1949) and Japan

Name both screenings for this week (including director and year of release)

• The Day Japan Lost Face (1945) (newsreel)

• Late Spring (1949) by Ozu Yasojirō

Define/explain Aesthetic Film History (2 points)

• The history of film styles and film movements

• Views films as a form of ARTWORK

Name 4 different forms of Aesthetic Film History

• Early film theory and criticism, eg Formalism vs Realism

• History of Poetics and Neo Formalism

• Intertextuality and Influence

• Genre

Explain ‘Neo-formalism’

Approach to films that emphasizes significance of films FORMAL ELEMENTS such as visual style, editing and structure

Explain ‘History of Poetics’

Approach that emphasizes studying the TEXT (in this case the film) over its production, its industry etc

What important event in Japanese History took place between the years 1868 to 1912?

The Meji Restoration

Name 2 events in Japanese History during the 1930s (EXCLUDING film history)

• 1931: Military invasion of Northeast China

• 1937: War of Aggression against China

Name 3 events in Japanese History that occurred during the 1940s (EXCLUDING film history)

• 1941: Pearl Harbour and war with US

• 1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s unconditional surrender to the US

• 1945 - 52: American Occupation of Japan, led by General Douglas MacArthur

What event occurred in September 1923 that had a devastating impact on the Japanese Film Industry?

The Great Kanto Earthquake: Necessitated rebuilding the industry from scratch in Tokyo and Kyoto.

Give two points of information about the Japanese film industry during the 1930s

• State censorship of the cinema got increasingly severe as the decade progressed

• 1939: Virtually ALL Japanese cinema was placed under state control

Name the two types of Japanese films prior to WW2 (include where they were made and what they focused on)

• JIDAI-GEKAI: Historical films set before 1868 made in Kyoto

• GENDAI-GEKI: Contemporary films, made in Tokyo, (children’s films, yakuza films, comedy dramas)

TRUE OR FALSE: The Japanese Film Industry ran on a similar studio-system to the USA

TRUE - There were 3 and eventually 5 major studios

Japan had the most productive national cinema in the world until the 1970s, why did this change and before this change occurred, how many films were produced annually?

• 1970s recession

• 400+ films produced annually

Give 2 impacts of WW2 on Japan’s film industry

• Film production suffered due to a LACK OF FILM STOCK

• By August 1945, 40% of Japanese cinemas were destroyed

Give 6 aspects of Ozu Yasujirō’s style

• Horizontal Framing

• Long Takes

• Empty Spaces

• 360-degree shooting space

• Recurrent visual motifs

• Stillness

Ozu is famous for his use of ‘pillow shots’, describe what this is and give an example

• 'Pillow shots’ refers to spatiotemporally ambiguous inserts

• EG: The Vase scene in Late Spring

Give 2 points of information about Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto’s criticism of American/Western Scholarship on Japanese Cinema

• He claims Western Approaches often depict the Japanese as a “homogenous, ahistorical collective essence”

• This is a result of too much focus on Japanese ‘national character’ and often rooted in stereotypes

Explain Darrell W Davis’s argument about Western Scholars ‘shortchanging’ Ozu’s choices

• By focusing too much on Japanese cultural stereotypes and national character, scholars do not give enough credit to Ozu’s deliberate artistic choices

“Most - - need - as a - - to set the - for - - - -” - Darrell W Davis

“Most Western critics need zen as a cultural prop to set the stage for Ozu’s otherwise bewildering style”

Name two critics of Western Approaches to Ozu’s films/Japanese films as a whole

• Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

• Darrell W Davis

Give the years of Ozu’s birth and death

1903 to 1963

Give one example of how Ozu’s films can be contextualized when considering the US occupation of Japan

Ozu’s films (especially Late Spring) can be read as an attempt to preserve Japanese tradition in the face of US Occupation

Give 4 examples of traditional Japanese iconography that we can see in Late Spring

• Tea Ceremony

• Zen Gardens

• Landscape of Kyoto

• Temples

What argument does David Bordwell make about Ozu’s depiction of Japanese culture in Late Spring?

Bordwell argues that Ozu depicts Japanese traditional culture being forced to reconcile with the newly emerging LIBERALISM of the Occupation Era

Give one example of how the US attempted to control and censor the Japanese film industry

All film scripts had to be translated into English in order to be approved

TRUE OR FALSE: The Cold War had no impact on how the US acted in Occupied Japan

FALSE: Cold War and US fears of communism in Asia influenced their approach to occupied Japan

How did the influx of US films in Japan during the Occupation influence Japanese national cinema?

Japanese filmmakers were inspired by US based filmmakers

Give two examples of references to US popular culture in Late Spring

• Shots with Coca-Cola advertisements in the foreground

• Mentions of American film stars such as Gary Cooper

Give three examples of modernization in Japan during the 1940s

• Surge of industrialization

• Growth of urban centers such Tokyo

• Expansion of visual culture with things such as TV, magazines and rail/billboard advertisements