It talks about the historical perspective of Japanese Cinema. It highlights the popular genres, stalwarts in film making, golden era of Japanese Cinema... etc.

1. Dr. J.JANARDHAN
JAPANESE CINEMA-1904-2019

2. JAPANESE CINEMA
• It has been strong from the beginning days
• The first studios were established in 1904-1905
• The development continued until Tokyo earthquake in 1923
• Talkies were slow in coming to Japan because of benshi
• Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fujiwara Yoshie no Furusato (Home
Town) was the first feature film in 1930s
• Heinosuke Gosho’s Madamu to nyobo, 1931 (The
Neighbour’s Wife and Mine)

3. JAPANESE CINEMA
• WW-II brought another pause
• Subsequently, US dominated from 1945 to 1952
• Censorship cramped the major Japanese film makers
• It notable not only for quantity and also high quality
• Because of its rich tradition, Japanese films were not popular
in outside the country as its counter part.

4. JAPANESE CINEMA
• Six major production companies controlled distribution and
the theater circuits
• It also has its own popular genres mainly,
Jidai-geki- historical films
Gendai-geki- contemporary films
• Studios, directors and actors tended to specialize in one or the
other of the two modes
• Jidai-geki- accounted for only 40% of production

5. JAPANESE CINEMA
• Japanese film got International acclaim with Akira
Kurosawa’s Rashomon in 1951
• It won the grand prize at
Venice Film Festival
• Daiei MPC, distributed worldwide

6. JAPANESE CINEMA
• Dir.Teinosuke Kinugasa made
first ever new Eastmon colour
Gate of Hell (1953)
• Kurusowa’s Seven Samurai (1954)
reached US with edited version
• Kurusowa got the appreciation abroad
With Roshman & Seven Samurai

7. JAPANESE STYLE
• Until the 1950s, World hadn’t seen the Japanese films
• But, Japan had been seeing the world films since late 1890s
• They developed their own medium parallel to the west
• Where as Americans made action films, Europeans with the
Psychological characters
• Japanese interested in overall mood
• Their themes are Universal

8. JAPANESE STYLE
• Many of the Japanese film are beautiful and visually elegant
• They give more importance to visual art
• These visual qualities are especially striking in Ugestu

9. JAPANESE MASTERS
• Japanese cinema introduced two of its greatest film makers
Akira Kurosawa
Kenji Mizoguchi

10. JAPANESE MASTERS
• Both carried their personal concerns from film to film
• Kurosawa is the most easily appreciated by westerns
• Most of his film were adaptation of European literary classics
Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot (1951)
Gogol’s The Lower Depths (1957)
Shakespeare’s Macbeth (The throne of blood, 1957)
• Some of the Kurosawa’s production have inspired Hollywood
notably Rashomon, (The Outrage-1964) & Seven Samurai
(The Magnificent Seven-1960)

11. JAPANESE MASTERS
• Kurosawa’s films set in contemporary times
• He keeps audience to on the social problems
• He died in 1998,
• In his later years he produced some of the notable Jidai-Geki-
historical films
• Kagemush (The shadow warior, 1981), Ran (1985)
• Numerous virtuoso battle sequences punctuate the action of
the film

12. JAPANESE MASTERS
• Kenji Mizoguchi favored the jidai-geki genre
• His attitudes, subjects and style are more traditional
• He began his career in 1923 and died in 1957
• The Life of O’Haru, Won the
grand prize at Venice in 1952

13. JAPANESE MASTERS
• Kenji Mizoguchi frequently focused on the plight of women
• Mizoguchi dealt with social problems
Osaka Elegy (1936)
Sisters of the Gion (1936)
Women of the Night (1957)
Street of the Shame (1956)
Princess Yang Kwei Fei (1955)
• He often presents leisurely tracking shots

14. JAPANESE MASTERS
• His film Ugestu is even more “painterly”
• Composition is always conceived in depth
• Music is extremely important
• Yasujiro Ozu is marked by the most rigorous austerity
• He rarely moved the camera, then slightly, slowly solely to
accommodate the action
• His camera sits eye level
• His career began in 1922, died in 1963

15. JAPANESE MASTERS
• All his films is an awareness of the extraordinary cultural
dislocation
• Ozu observed the changes and tensions not on broad social
scale
• But, within the intimacy of the family- parents and children,
husband and wife.
• Late spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), Late autumn
(1960), An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

16. JAPANESE NEW WAVE
• A group of innovative directors emerged during 1960-70s
• Japanese films developed new formulas-youth, action films
• Toho made monster movies and Sci-fiction spectacles
Godzill (Ishiro Honda, 1954)
Yakuza-gangster films
• In 1970s, Nikkatsu Studion began to specialize in soft-core
pornography
• Dir. Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima produced films with
modernist bent.

17. JAPANESE NEW WAVE
• Oshima received his greatest international attention with In
the Realm of the Senses (1976)
• The golden era of Japanese cinema of 1950-60s came to end
by mid 1970s
• Television broadcasting began in 1954
• By 1980s, 99% of the homes had colour TV sets
• The old studio system broke down

18. JAPANESE NEW WAVE
• In 21st century , Japanese popular taste had changed
• A new kind of film export-Anime, started
• Japanese amines’ is flat and rough, visual design is
indisputable
• Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the shell got more popular
• Now, Japanese films are more popular in US
• Film Festivals being organized around the world
• New English language studios in Japan highlight the native
history

19. THANK YOU