From the late 1920s through World War II, film became a crucial tool in the state of Japan. Detailing the way Japanese directors, scriptwriters, company officials, and bureaucrats colluded to produce films that supported the war effort, The Imperial Screen is a highly-readable account of the realities of cultural life in wartime Japan. Widely hailed as "epoch-making" by the Japanese press, it presents the most comprehensive survey yet published of "national policy" films, relating their montage and dramatic structures to the cultural currents, government policies, and propaganda goals of the era. Peter B. High’s treatment of the Japanese film world as a microcosm of the entire sphere of Japanese wartime culture demonstrates what happens when conscientious artists and intellectuals become enmeshed in a totalitarian regime.
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Review
"One is filled with admiration for the author’s breadth of perspective, the objectivity of his approach, the vast reaches of material he covers and the care with which he analyzes each film and document."— Iwamoto Kenji, professor of film, Waseda University, Tosho Shimbun
"In bringing the English-language reader through the duration of wartime cinema under Imperial Japan up to the tensions that characterized film under the American occupation, The Imperial Screen is an essential complement to the scholarship by Dower, Hirano, and Buruma on war, culture, and memory."—Joanne Bernardi, associate professor of Japanese and film, University of Rochester
"Who could have predicted that the most detailed and precise analysis of our country’s wartime propaganda would come from an American scholar born and educated in the postwar era?"—Kawamoto Saburo, film historian, Mainichi newspaper
“High’s masterwork . . . contribute[s] . . . impressively . . . to historical understanding of [Japan] and to the history of proganda in general.”--Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions
“The Japanese-language edition of High’s book was first published in 1995. . . . [T]he book [has] become established as a major landmark in the historiography of that phase of Japan’s national past.”--Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions
About the Author
Peter B. High is professor of film and language at Nagoya University in Japan.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By Daniel Ford
Format:Paperback
This is a very difficult and very useful book. Despite his western name and origins, Mr. High is a professor of film in Japan, and he is evidently fluent in the language. With affection but without excusing anything, he takes us through the early years of Japanese cinema and especially through what is mysteriously called the 15 Years War. (It probably seemed longer, but in fact it lasted 14 years.) More than a survey of militarism in a unique culture, Mr. High uses the movie business as a way to explore Japanese life and behavior during the awfulness, for example by explaining the American bombing raids in terms of the number of movie houses destroyed each month. I've seen but not been able to understand the dialogue in several of the films he discusses, and I was delighted to have some of the gaps filled for me. Altogether, a very valuable exercise, both for the film buff and for those of us with an interest in Imperial Japan and the horrors it unleashed upon Asia. -- Dan Ford
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars
2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Joy to read!
Feb 10 2012
By Poe Poe Poe
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This book won the KATHERINE SINGER KOVACS BOOK AWARD for 2004 (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) as well as other awards and honorable mentions. Without a doubt, it is the most authoritative work in its field. Not only does it cover cinema, it is a wonderful introduction to the whole spectrum of creative culture in Japan during the war years. Despite its impeccable academic credentials, it is extremely reader friendly--in fact, parts of it read with the vividness of a novel! Anyone--and I mean ANYONE!--interested in what it was like to be an artist or intellectual under Japanese-style fascism, should read this book!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
the Pacific War seen through film-makers' eyes
May 30 2003
By Daniel Ford
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is a very difficult and very useful book. Despite his western name and origins, Mr. High is a professor of film in Japan, and he is evidently fluent in the language. With affection but without excusing anything, he takes us through the early years of Japanese cinema and especially through what is mysteriously called the 15 Years War. (It probably seemed longer, but in fact it lasted 14 years.) More than a survey of militarism in a unique culture, Mr. High uses the movie business as a way to explore Japanese life and behavior during the awfulness, for example by explaining the American bombing raids in terms of the number of movie houses destroyed each month. I've seen but not been able to understand the dialogue in several of the films he discusses, and I was delighted to have some of the gaps filled for me. Altogether, a very valuable exercise, both for the film buff and for those of us with an interest in Imperial Japan and the horrors it unleashed upon Asia. -- Dan Ford
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Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
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