Japanese Cinema, 1960s

Catalog description

The 1960s has been called the golden age of Japanese cinema by many. We will view three critically acclaimed films from the period: Shinoda Masahiro, “Double Suicide”, Kurosawa Akira, “Yojimbo,” and Teshigahara Hiroshi, “Woman in the Dunes.” The course will focus equally on formal film syntax and the “message” of the films. We will be attentive to the cultural and historical context in which the films were first released to explore what these films are saying about postwar Japanese art, culture and society and how they are saying it. Readings may include: James Monaco, How to Read a Film, Chikamatsu, “Love Suicides at Amijima,” Brett de Bary, “Not Another Double Suicide,” Louis Althusser, "Ideology and the State," Selections from Andrew Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History, Stephen Prince, The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, and Nina Cornyetz, The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature.