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Film scholars often think of movies as cultural mirrors, reflections of their audience's dreams and beliefs. But in this accessible and absorbing book, Darrell William Davis argues that movies can also be an active force, contributing to and even helping to create a nation's sense of its own identity. Concentrating on the Japanese cinema of the 1930s and '40s, particularly on early works by the great director Kenji Mizoguchi, Davis shows how these movies distinguished Japanese culture from all others. Here, Davis argues, were a group of distinctly Eastern craftsmen who created a nationalistic art out of an essentially Western medium. This book provides an excellent and compelling analysis of the cinema, culture, and politics of Japan.
Review
An ambitious attempt to place . . . [jidaigeki or historical drama] in their social and political context. In doing so, [Davis] explores the importance of these films in forging a national identity. . . . A thought-provoking study designed for a broad audience ranging from film scholars to historians of Japanese culture. -- Film Quarterly
Book Description
Explores the role of 1930s Japanese cinema in the construction of a national identity and in the larger context of Japan's encounter-and struggle-with the West and modernity. Davis lends a new perspective to such celebrated films as Gate of Hell, Kagemusha, and Ran.
