The English title of a recent book by renowned film scholar Yomota Inuhiko reads: “What is Japanese Cinema?”. In the preface to the English edition Yomota states that the direction we might take, should we try to provide an answer to the question, changes according to which word, “Japanese” or “Cinema” we choose to emphasize. When his survey reaches the recent past, the Japanese scholar describes the 2000s as “an era of chaos”. Starting from these questions and affirmations, and combining them with others made by scholars such as David Bordwell, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Andrew Dorman and Mori Naoyuki, the following article attempts to explore a more specific doubt: “What is contemporary Japanese cinema”? In so doing, however, other questions arise, as we need to define when contemporaneity starts and what makes it different both from previous eras, and from the contemporaneity of other national cinemas. The further we probe, the more complex our definition becomes.
University of Turin, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-8750-9453
Chapter Title
“What is contemporary Japanese Cinema?”. Questioning the answers, answering with questions
Authors
Giacomo Calorio
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7.01
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Tracing Pathways 雲路
Book Subtitle
Interdisciplinary Studies on Modern and Contemporary East Asia
Editors
Diego Cucinelli, Andrea Scibetta
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
156
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-259-1
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-260-7
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919