CINE 401: National Cinema Japan

Spring 2008

Tuesday: 9:10 – 11:55

Room: FA 101

Instructor: Aaron Kerner

Office: FA536

Telephone: 405 3972

Email: amkerner@sfsu.edu

Office Hours: TBA

Course Description: This course surveys some of the defining elements of contemporary Japanese cinema. There is a large body of Japanese films and as a consequence we will limit our study to Post War cinema. We will roughly follow a chronology working towards contemporary Japanese cinema. In addition, while generally following a historical trajectory, the course is also broken into themes:

• Introduction – Post-War
• Sexuality
• The Monstrous
• Contemporary (i.e., the last decade)

While attempting to touch on some of the fundamental films of the Japanese film industry and important directors, it is the intention of the course to expose students to a wide spectrum of films, from “mainstream” to experimental and avant-garde traditions.

Course Requirements:

1.       Attend all class meetings

2.       Readings must be completed by the assigned dates

3.       All written work must be submitted on time

Course Assessment: Students will be required to write two papers (4 – 5 pages). Prompts for these two assignments will be posted online. You must incorporate one source from your reading material, in addition to one outside scholarly resource. There will also be two quizzes.

 See Aaron Kerner’s Grading Policy

Course Reading Material: All the reading material is available online either through electronic reserves, or an online database. For instructions on how to access the reading click here.

The password for Electronic Reserves is: TBA

NB:      

• This syllabus is subject to change.
• Turn off your cell phone and other electronic devices.
• Plagiarism is grounds for automatic failure in the course.

Citation Method – Chicago Manual of Style:

For assistance with citations see the online version of Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual.

Introduction:

Japanese Cinema Negotiating the Post-War Era – From the Masters to B-Movies

Session 1: January 29, 2008

Screening:

Yoidore Tenshi, Kurosawa Akira, 1948 [Drunken Angel]

Session 2: February 5, 2008

Screening:

Bakushu, Ozu Yasujiro, 1951 [Early Summer]

Reading:

1.       Keiko McDonald, “Ozu’s Tokyo Story: Simple Means for Complex Ends,” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 17, no. 1 (April 1982): 19 – 39. Available through the JSTOR Database.

Session 3: February 12, 2008

Screening:

Shunpu den, Suzuki Seijun, 1965 [Story of a Prostitute]

Nikutai no mon, Suzuki Seijun, 1964 [Gate of Flesh]

Karakkaze yaro, Masumura Yasuzo, 1960 [Afraid to Die]

Enjo, Ichikawa Kon, 1958 [Conflagration]

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1985

Reading:

1.       Donald Richie, “The Occupation of Japan,” in A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (New York: Kodansha International, 2005), 107 – 115. Available through Electronic Reserves.

2.       TBA

Session 4: February 19, 2008

Screening:

Yuki Yukite shingun, Kazuo Hara, 1987 [The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On]

Gokushiteki erosu: Renka 1974, Kazuo Hara, 1974 [Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974]

Reading:

1.       Naoko Shimazu, “Popular Representations of the Past: The Case of Postwar Japan,” Journal of Contemporary History vol. 38, no. 1 (January 2003): 101-116. Available via JSTOR

Sexuality

(and How it Informs Notions of National Identity)

Session 5: February 26, 2008

Screening:

Suna no onna, Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1964 [Woman in the Dunes]

Reading:

1.       Chigusa Kimura-Steven, “The Otherness of Women in the Avant-Garde Film Woman in the Dunes,” in Joshua S Mostow, et al. eds., Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 155 - 178. Available through Electronic Reserves.

Session 6: March 4, 2008

Screening:

Bara no soretsu, Matsumoto Toshio, 1969 [Funeral Parade of Roses]

Reading:

1.       Abe Mark Nornes, “The Postwar Documentary Trace: Groping in the Dark,” positions: east asia cultures critique vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 39 – 78. Available via the Project Muse Database

Session 7: March 11, 2008

Screening:

Ai no korida, Oshima Nagisa, 1976 [In the Realm of the Senses]

Reading:

1.       Maureen Turim, “Signs of Sexuality in Oshima’s Tales of Passion,” The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 125 – 156. Available through Electronic Reserves.

Session 8: March 18, 2008

Screening:

Gohatto, Oshima Nagisa, 1999 [Taboo]

Reading:

1.       Gary Leupp, “Tokugawa Homosexual Culture,” Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 94 – 122. Available through Electronic Reserves.

March 25 NO CLASS SPRING BREAK  

The Monstrous

Session 9: April 1, 2008

Quiz One

Submit First Paper

Screening:

Hadashi no Gen, Nakazawa Keiji / Mori Masaki, 1983 [Barefoot Gen]

Reading:

1.       Susan Napier, “No More Words: Barefoot Gen, Grave of the Fireflies, and ‘Victim’s History’,” in Anime: from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 161 – 173. Available through Electronic Reserve.

2.       Excerpt from Keiji Nakazawa, Hadashi no Gen, trans. Project Gen (San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2004), 164 – 188. Available through Electronic Reserve.

Session 10: April 8, 2008

Screening:

Gojira, Honda Ishiro, 1954

Gojira tai Desutoroia, Okawara Takao, 1995 [Godzilla vs. Destroyer]

Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidorâ: Daikaijû sôkôgeki, Kaneko Shusuke, 2001 [Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah (aka Hyper-Godzilla)]

Akira, Otomo Katsuhiro, 1987/8

Reading:

1.       Susan J. Napier, “Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira,” The Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 19, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 327 – 351. Available through the JSTOR Database.

2.       Chon Noriega, “Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare: When Them is U.S.,” Cinema Journal vol. 27, no. 1 (Fall 1987): 63 – 77. Available through Electronic Reserves.

Session 11: April 15, 2008

Screening:

Naval and A-Bomb, Hosoe Eikoh, 1960

Tetsuo: Iron Man, Tsukamoto Shinya, 1989

Soseiji, Tsukamoto Shinya, 1999 [Gemini]

Tasogare Seibei, Yamada Yeji, 2002 [The Twilight Samurai]

Reading:

1.       Barbara London, “Experimental Film and Video,” in Japanese Art After 1945 Scream Against the Sky, exhibition catalogue, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), 284 – 305. Available through Electronic Reserves.

2.       Kurihara Nanako, “Hijikata Tatsumi: The Words of Butoh,” The Drama Review vol. 44, no. 1 (2000): 12 – 26. Available through the Project Muse Database.

Contemporary

Session 12: April 22, 2008

Screening:

Ringu, Nakata Hideo, 1998

Shikoku, Nagasaki Shunichi, 1999

Reading:

1.       Brenda Jordan, “Yurei: tales of Female Ghosts,” in Stephen Addiss ed., Japanese Ghosts and Demons: Art of the Supernatural (New York: George Braziller, Inc., in association with the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1985), 25 – 33. Available through Electronic Reserves.

2.       Fernando G. Gutierrez, “Emakimono Depicting The Pains of the Damned,” Monumenta Nipponica vol. 22, no. 3/4 (1967): 278-289. Available through the JSTOR Database.

Session 13: April 29, 2008

Screening:

Dare mo shiranai, Koreeda Hirokazu, 2004 [Nobody Knows]

Reading:

1.       William R. LaFleur, “Suicide of the edge of explicability: awe in Ozu and Kore'eda,” Film History vol. 14, no. 2 (2002): 158 – 165. Available through the Academic Search Premier Database.

2.       Christine L. Marran, “Tracking the Transcendental: Kore'eda Hirokazu's Maboroshi,” Film History vol. 14 no. 2 (2002): 166 – 169. Available through the Academic Search Premier Database.

3.       TBA

Session 14: May 6, 2008

Screening:

Love and Pop, Anno Hideaki, 1998

Shiki Jitsu, Anno Hideaki, 2000 [Ritual]

Cutey Honey, Anno Hideaki, 2005

Reading:

1.       Murakami Takashi, “Super Flat Manifesto,” Super Flat exhibition catalogue (Tokyo, MADRA Publishing, 2000), 4 – 5. Available through Electronic Reserve.

2.       Murakami, “A Theory of Super Flat Japanese Art,” Super Flat, 8 – 25. Available through Electronic Reserve.

3.       Murakami, “Love and Pop,” Super Flat, 122 – 123. Available through Electronic Reserve.

Session 15: May 13, 2008

Submit final paper in class

Quiz Two

Screening:

Go, Isao Yukisada, 2001

Session 16: May 20, 2008

Finals Week No Class.