Postwar Japanese Cinema: History, Genres, and Occupation Censorship

Postwar Cinema and the Global Context of Japanese Film

  • Global Cinema Dynamics in the Mid-Twentieth Century:

    • By the mid-twentieth century, the majority of films produced globally originated outside North America and Western Europe.

    • The Japanese film industry stands out as the most long-running and fully established studio system outside the Western world prior to the mid-twentieth century.

  • Historical Timeline of Early Japanese Cinema:

    • 1890s: The first Japanese films were screened just a few years after the global birth of projected motion pictures in 1895.

    • Silent Era: Japan established a substantial, highly organized commercial studio system.

    • Mid-Twentieth Century: Japanese cinema expanded from a domestic market to achieve global art-house and international film festival acclaim, ushering in what is widely recognized as the Golden Era of Japanese cinema in the 1950s.

  • Divergent Impulses in Japanese Film History:

    • As outlined by film scholar Yomota Inuhiko in What Is Japanese Cinema? A History, Japanese film history is defined by two competing internal desires:

      • The Inward / Singular Impulse: The desire to advance cinema by creating a purely Japanese art form, turning away from foreign film traditions and relying on traditional Japanese artistic and theatrical heritage.

      • The Cosmopolitan / Hybrid Impulse: The desire to advance cinema by constructing a global, cosmopolitan mosaic through cultural mixing, borrowing from international cinematic traditions and contributing back to world cinema.

The Benshi Tradition and the Transition to Sound

  • Definition and Function of the Benshi:

    • Originating at the start of Japanese cinema in the 1890s, silent film projections featured a live performer known as a benshi (or benchy).

    • The benshi stood off to the side of the stage during projections, providing:

      • Live narration of the visual action on screen.

      • Vocal performance for characters, using distinct voices for different roles.

      • Personal commentary, interjections, and narrative interpretation.

  • Impact on Filmgoing and Narrative Structure:

    • Unfixed Cinematic Experience: Film screenings were dynamic and unstandardized. Every showing was unique depending on the specific benshi performing.

    • Benshi Celebrity: Benshi became famous celebrities in their own right. Audiences frequently chose to attend a screening based on the reputation, wit, or dramatic flair of the benshi rather than the film itself or the screen actors.

    • Narrative Ambiguity in Production: Early Japanese filmmakers designed silent films with the explicit expectation that a benshi would fill in narrative gaps and explain plot nuances, allowing Japanese silent film visual storytelling to remain vaguer or less explicit than Western equivalents.

  • Delayed Transition to Sound:

    • Comparative Timeline: While feature-length sound films began in the United States in 1927 and sound fully replaced silent cinema in Western countries by the late 1920s or early 1930s, Japanese silent film production persisted late into the mid-1930s.

    • Cultural Resistance: Audiences and producers were deeply attached to the live benshi performance art, making synchronized recorded voice technology initially unappealing.

    • Aesthetic Debates:

      • Local Tradition Advocates: Defended the benshi as an integral, distinct element of national cinema.

      • Modernizing Reformers: Argued that relying on the benshi made Japanese cinema outdated, preventing it from developing purely visual and editing-driven narrative techniques used internationally.

Major Super-Genres: Jidai-geki and Gendai-geki

  • Categorization of Japanese Cinema:

    • Japanese film production historically categorized all sub-genres into two overarching super-genres based primarily on temporal setting:

  • Jidai-geki (Period Drama):

    • Temporal Boundary: Set strictly in the historical past prior to the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

    • Historical Significance of 1868: The Meiji Restoration marks the opening up of Japan to the West and rapid modernization. Settings prior to 1868 represent an era totally untouched by Western influence.

    • Formal Roots & Performance Style: Strongly influenced by traditional pre-modern theater, such as Kabuki and puppet theater (Bunraku). Employed stylized, non-naturalistic acting styles rather than realistic performance.

    • Narrative Retelling: Frequently based on a shared body of traditional cultural stories and historical legends. Audiences were already familiar with the characters and plots, focusing their interest on the specific director's artistic interpretation.

    • Thematic Focus: Explores the feudal order, duty, personal sacrifice, and absolute loyalty to a master above individualistic values.

    • Key Example: The 47 Ronin (1941), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Adapted dozens to hundreds of times in Japanese cinema, the story follows masterless samurai who avenge their slain master and end their quest by committing heroic ritual suicide (seppuku).

  • Gendai-geki (Contemporary Drama):

    • Temporal Boundary: Set in the contemporary, modern world.

    • Thematic Focus: Urban working-class and middle-class life, the realities of modernization, social shifts, and Westernization.

    • Performance Style: Naturalistic acting and realistic visual conventions.

    • Key Example: I Was Born, But… (1932), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. A silent comedy following two young brothers moving to suburban Tokyo, dealing with neighborhood bullies, and grappling with the realization that their idolized father is a lower-level corporate worker who must kowtow to his boss.

Industrial Structure, Geography, and Prewar State Control

  • Geographic and Aesthetic Split in Production:

    • Kyoto: The former capital of Japan preserved traditional architecture and historical locations, making it the center for shooting Jidai-geki.

    • Tokyo: The modern metropolis served as the production hub for Gendai-geki.

    • Uniqueness: A national cinema developing through stylistic and genre competition between two geographically specialized production centers is exceptionally rare in global film history.

  • The Studio System and Prewar Government Co-optation:

    • Studio Consolidation: Formal studio systems began forming in the 1910s and 1920s, solidifying into a dominant oligopoly by the 1930s.

    • State Control (1930s–1945): Parallel to totalitarian media control in fascist Italy, the imperialist and militarist Japanese government instituted rigorous state censorship throughout the 1930s and World War II.

    • War Propaganda: The state co-opted Japanese studios to produce films promoting militarism, imperial state ideology, and Japan's military expansion across Asia.

The Allied Occupation and SCAP Film Censorship (1945–1952)

  • Historical Administration:

    • Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in August 1945, beginning a seven-year occupation lasting until 1952.

    • The occupation was commanded by General Douglas MacArthur.

    • Administrative Acronyms:

      • SCAP: Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (referring to MacArthur and the occupying administration).

      • GHQ: General Headquarters (the standard term used by Japanese sources for SCAP).

  • SCAP Political Objectives:

    • Reconstruct Japanese society, state institutions, and culture along Western democratic lines.

    • Align Japan with Western capitalism and the Western military alliance.

    • Utilize Japan as a capitalist bulwark against the spread of Communism and Soviet influence in Asia during the onset of the Cold War.

    • Establish ongoing US military bases in Japan, which became a long-term political issue in the 1950s and 1960s.

  • The Civilian Information and Education Division (CIE):

    • The SCAP sub-division directly tasked with controlling and supervising the Japanese film industry.

    • Pre-Production Censorship: Every script was required to be submitted to the CIE prior to filming for approval, mandatory modifications, or outright rejection.

    • Post-Production Inspection: Completed films were screened prior to release to verify that non-approved visual content had not been added.

    • Film Destruction: SCAP rounded up and burned thousands of pre-1945 Japanese film prints deemed militaristic, feudal, or imperialistic.

  • Censorship Mandates (1945–1952):

    • Explicitly Banned Subjects:

      • Valorization of militarism, nationalism, or the former imperial state.

      • Any direct or indirect criticism of the United States or Allied forces.

      • Visual representation of the US occupation itself (filmmakers were forced to frame camera angles to hide American GIs in location shots).

      • Depiction, mention, or discussion of the atomic bomb, nuclear damage, or casualties caused by the United States.

      • "Antisocial behavior," including gambling and black-market activities.

      • "Feudal values," including absolute personal loyalty to a master, praise of ritual suicide, and anti-individualistic ideals.

    • Explicitly Encouraged Subjects:

      • Western-style individualism, gender equality, and social modernization.

      • Early Occupation (1945–1947): Depictions of organized labor, trade unions, and social reform movements.

      • The Reverse Course (1947–1948 onward): As the Cold War intensified, SCAP's domestic politics shifted rightward. Encouragement of trade unions ceased, shifting focus toward valorizing capitalism, anti-communism, and individual enterprise.

Postwar Ideological Cinema and Generic Transformation

  • Suppression of Jidai-geki:

    • Because Jidai-geki centered on feudal loyalty, samurai codes, and honor-bound violence, SCAP's total prohibition on "feudal values" rendered the genre almost impossible to make between 1945 and 1952.

    • Japanese production during the occupation became almost exclusively Gendai-geki, concentrating on modern everyday life, optimistic post-war recovery, and democratic development.

  • Democratization Films ("Idea Films"):

    • A category of postwar feature films explicitly produced to critique former Japanese imperialism and promote Western democratic ideals.

    • No Regrets for Our Youth (1946):

      • Directed by Akira Kurosawa; starring Setsuko Hara.

      • Narrative: Setsuko Hara plays the daughter of an anti-militarist, anti-fascist professor persecuted by the imperial Japanese government during the 1930s and 1940s.

      • Functions as an explicit political denunciation of prewar imperial authoritarianism in favor of democratic individual freedom.

  • Subtle Integration of Postwar Values:

    • Outside of explicit idea films, the vast majority of occupation-era films communicated modern values through subtle domestic genres such as melodramas, romantic comedies, and family dramas.

    • Late Spring (1949):

      • Directed by Yasujiro Ozu; starring Setsuko Hara.

      • Produced under active SCAP occupation oversight, quietly weaving contemporary social changes, changing family structures, and individual choice into a domestic story.