The History of Japanese Cinema

The study of Japanese cinema itself implies a unifying link between films from Japan. There are several concepts often used to describe this link; nihonrashii & nihonteki (typically Japanese) as well as other more specific terms that I will discuss further on. What must be realized in studying the art form is that, as any, it has a history that mirrors Japan's. What follows is a discussion on the path Japanese cinema has taken and on how the typical and the marginal apply throughout its history.

Defeat of the Samurai?
The end of World War II brought a profound change on the ideals of Japan, and thus film began instantly to reflect this change in its heroes and stars. In part, because of occupation censorship, the way of thinking based on bushido was done away with. In an essay by Tadao Sato, the concepts of tateyaku and nimaine are explained to describe this change. In short he defines the tateyaku as "a person modeled on the ideal of the samurai". Specifically this means that he invariably follows duty and obligation over romantic interest. The nimaine is a weaker character that is unable to hold himself to the higher standard of the former.
This discussion of tateyaku and nimaine is particularly relevant to Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949). Here we had these character models set in opposition to each other in the post-war setting. While they existed within a cat and mouse plot, the relationship of the two characters is pivotal to the way Japan was transmuting its film heroes at the time. The initial confirmation that we are indeed dealing with this diametric model is that the criminal is involved in a romantic affair. While this seems odd to the western viewer, according to Tadao, this is a strong defining point of the two character types. The description of post-war Japan that Kurosawa gives us is one where defeat has forced Japanese men to abandon their stoic ideals of death before dishonor and the way of the samurai warrior.
One likes to think that the effect of this social change was to shift the emphasis from the strong militarist man to the nimaine, but this may be a drastic overstatement. While the presentation of the weaker man became more sympathetic, it remained contrary to the ideal in ways. Remember that Japan was not sympathetic to the returning soldiers, and that even Kurosawa's work was from the perspective of the formerly super-ideal character attempting to understand his opposite. What we are left with is ambiguity on what exactly is the Japanese ideal. Cooperation in the spirit of reconstruction took center stage while samurai period pieces, the normal milieu for the tateyaku-nimaine dynamic, cooled off. Even so, with the popularization of yakuza films, Japan has never let go of idealizing the stoic male lead. The change brought by the post-war period, aside from subject matter, was a conservative one.

Ozu and Mizoguchi
While Ozu and Mizoguchi remain forerunners of Japanese cinema, there is considerable difficulty in identifying how they fit into its history. Both directors were prolific, and have been studied exhaustedly. It is said that Ozu's sense of stillness and Mizoguchi's particular infatuation with his female characters makes them nihonteki. In fact, these characteristics elevate them beyond other directors of their time. It is by a sort of twisted logic that since they were both unique to deserve study and prolific, and were Japanese, Ozu and Mizoguchi became, in the eyes of foreign viewers, more Japanese than others.

Ozu as Nihonteki
Students of Japanese film constantly pay service to Ozu's quietude, creativity and pursuance of artistic achievement. It is not at all uncommon to hear of him referred to as a genius. This leads some to go so far as to dismiss his work as distinctive of great filmmaking and not of Japan. Here we must find parameters for guiding our decision on this issue.
The word nihonteki literally means simply 'Japanese' as an adjective, but it carries the meaning and is often translated as 'typically Japanese' in light of the social ideal of homogeneity. To the argument that Ozu was not a typical director, there can be no doubt that he was exceptional. However, this does not exclude the description of nihonteki in any way. His work involves Japanese characters in Japan and, most importantly, issues that lied at the back of the collective consciousness of the nation.
The proof lies, not in similarity to other directors, but in how his films reflect what we know of Japan's history. Unlike others, we see Ozu's films dealing with relatively tame subjects, often about ordinary people, with the central drive being a normal event such as a marriage or a death. It is in these everyday stories that his films come to represent the expectation of what is Japanese. They describe more easily the reality of life in Japan and the relationships that define it. Film, perhaps more than any other media, relays culture unconsciously. It is this cultural bias that gives a film its descriptive value. When the subject matter is itself typical and normal, we receive in the viewing both the creators ideas and assumptions on the typical. Tokyo Monogatari (1953) is one such example of how Ozu's treatment of everyday affairs leads to an understanding of Japanese culture. The organization of the Japanese family, in its expected and actual relationships is what is expressed. Moreover, we see a concern over changing Japan, undergoing rapid growth that threatens to pull the younger generation out of the established relationships.

Mizoguchi as Nihonteki
In much the same way we must find a connection between Mizoguchi's films and the social dynamic of Japan. He is recognized as having a particular interest in the lives of women. This is also perhaps an opportunity to dismiss his films for their particularities. It is also said that his work embodies a certain aesthetic that is characteristically Japanese.
Aside from this aesthetic, Mizoguchi is important in establishing a picture of Japan because of his conceptualization of women. In contrast to Ozu, Mizoguchi's work seems to attack description from a different angle altogether. Instead of discussing the everyday, his work defines what is Japanese by defining the margins. By covering the lives of destitute women, we learn about Japanese perceptions of taboo and gender.
In Mizoguchi's imagining of the Japanese woman, she is a tragic figure, the object of misfortune cast upon her by men. They are ignored romantically by husbands, and abandoned for the pursuit of ambitions outside the family unit, often to their unfortunate end. The raped woman and the prostitute represent other tragic depictions of women in Mizoguchi's films. Being the targeted object of indifferent male sexuality, the victim of rape and the woman forced into prostitution finds herself both instilled with a sense of worthlessness and powerlessness. One is reminded of how the notion of feminine cuteness (kawaii), an ideal of sorts for women, is closely linked to the pitiful and powerless (kawaiso). This is exampled more currently in manga and anime today as a phenomenon known as male gaze. This general depiction is one Mizoguchi uses on destitute female characters, but it is one that is loosely connected to femininity in general.
The Eighties
The time since Ozu and Mizoguchi came into the industry has seen the passing of a scarring but ultimately futile student movement as well as the rise of Japan as a fearsome economic phenomenon. The number of foreigners in Japan increased, as well as the proliferation of luxury and the extraneous in all facets of modern life. In short, there has been a drastic change in what it means to be Japanese and what the experience of living in Japan is. The eighties represent the high point of these changes, and even though Japan went through other changes since then, the eighties are representative in some ways of the core framework of modern Japan.
Perhaps one of the most pressing contemporary issues of Japan has to do with the modern education system. After decades spent gorging itself on the fruit of its own prosperity, it seems that Japan of the last two decades has been slowly confronting the social ills resulting from ultra-modernization. This brings us to Kazoku Game (Family Game; 1984) by director Morita.
This story about a family with two sons in school critiques the early age at which children, and especially boys, are introduced and wedded to competition. The plot focuses mainly on the younger son, still in middle school and preparing for his high school entrance exams. Preparing the son for entrance into a top ranked school takes top priority for the entire family. The entire family savings go towards a home tutor, while the mother spends her entire day preparing the 'correct' meals and tea to produce the perfect study atmosphere. The film grows stranger until, at the end, it becomes an absurdist's piece. At least in the main body of renowned works, this is a characteristic unseen previous decades. We have seen some comic elements to Japanese film dating earlier, but in comparison these examples seem utterly subdued.
Another example of full-blown comic emphasis is Itami's Tampopo. Like Kazoku Game, it is satirical, yet perhaps has more of an element of inspirational motivation. In imitated form of the western and samurai period piece, it is a thoughtful comedy about the Japanese relationship with food in the modern time. Thus we have two examples before us that show the acceptance of satire and comedy. What has caused this change may be easily explained as the gradual invasion of foreign influences. After all, there have been a great number of comedies coming out of Hollywood for some time.
Unfortunately, that these films deal with Japanese subject matter is somewhat disappointing when looking for a common thread in Japanese cinema. We must search for another element, which joins these films.

Aesthetics and Explanations
There is a common element in all of the films studied in this course as well as all the Japanese films I have seen that could be called good. They were not good because of special effects or being especially entertaining. On the contrary, they seem directed towards a different aim than entertainment altogether. From camera angle to lighting to costume, one sees intent and purpose applied extendedly to a high proportion of Japanese films.
As opposed to Hollywood movies, it seems that Japanese directors have put more concerted effort into making film a true art form. Of course that is not to say that Japanese film is better or worse, only that when taken relative to the total number of published movies, one senses a higher standard.
One readily available explanation, and one that I agree with, is that the financial nature of the industry in Japan has not, for the most part, allowed filmmakers without considerable conviction and vision to produce. As Nakajima says, in Japan, "there is no system of providing grants or financial support". Furthermore, even the major studios of Japan seem to publish relatively few films. Thus part of what defines Japanese cinema is the filtering process that separates expressive films from films as pure business ventures.

Manga, Anime and the New Media
As a part of Japan's new lifestyle of consumerism, consumption of media has skyrocketed. Music, magazines and manga represent the initial and continually popular choices. All it takes to grasp the relationship between modern Japanese and manga is a glimpse into any local bookstore. Subject matter ranges from period pieces to romance, adventure, and sports drama to erotica. This in turn has sparked the same variety of animated titles produced. Anime has permeated to a lesser extent, simply because it is not portable media, but is still extremely popular.
While it is not difficult to list famous and truly inspiring animated titles, they do not hold as high proportion as their conventional counterparts. Films like Akira (Otomo; 1986) have come to represent a minority. In some sense, they also are more typical of older anime titles or at least ones made under less ideal conditions. Milestones such as Perfect Blue (Kon; 1995?) and Ghost in the Shell (Oshii; 1996) were not actually made with backing from their studios. Rather their rights were bought post-production.
As follows from the simple economics principle, studios have increased their production to take advantage of the incredibly high demand for anime. This means not only growth but also a streamlining of the moviemaking process. This does not mean that quality anime can no longer be or is no longer produced, but that if it is, it is lost in a sea of genericized material. Thus the birth of a new age of film in Japan has turned into the birth of its rote form as pure product.
Even though we see Japanese animated film as perhaps less of an artistic medium, it remains a communicator of cultural assumption. On interesting phenomenon, which I have mentioned earlier, relates to the western concept of male gaze. This refers to a theory in which patriarchal society imbue the action of watching with sexual pleasure when it is a man watching a woman. We see this happen as an accepted convention in the Japanese animated form, with a slightly different twist. Instead of pleasure, the emphasis of male gaze embodies the immobilization of both parties involved and extreme powerlessness and embarrassment by the women. A typical example would be when by some twist of fate or accident, a woman's skirt was lifted or she was exposed partially naked in a public area. The men surrounding her drop whatever they are doing to openly gaze at her, upon which the animators create a pause in which the woman is embarrassed. Perhaps this is typical behavior, but the frequency with which this type of scene appears in all genres of animation points to the general state of gender relations in Japan. This combined with the fact that often, anime heroines often possess supernatural powers, implying perhaps that without them they are not fit subjects, and are repeatedly undermined and placed in danger by the immobilizing power of the male gaze.
If the influx of big money has degraded the average quality of animated titles, it has yet to touch the non-animated form. In fact, according to Haute, "on the financial hand, things are clearly tougher than before the bubble-economy collapsed at the start of the decade".

The Nineties
We come then at last to the state of Japanese cinema as it has been in the nineties and continues to change. It is a particular change in film recently that sparks interest as to whether this change is the result of social perceptions in Japan. The change I refer to is the way in which foreigners are portrayed in Japanese film.
American movies like Ridley Scott's Black Rain and Schepisi's Mr. Baseball have their counterparts in Japan as well. Tokyo Pop (Kuzui; 1986) depicts the hardships of an American woman attempting a singing career with a Japanese band. In a sense, nothing had changed since the Occupation period when it comes to the depiction of foreigners. The cultural and linguistic difficulties faced by American soldiers came to represent a kind of universal experience of foreigners. Of course, mindsets began to change gradually as soon as the metropolis began to attract more foreigners. We see that even though the foreigner is still very much the other to mainstream Japan, the presence of him is an expected and natural state. In Suwa's Shikofunjatta, we see an American who joins the main characters in the Sumo club. His problems result from this and not simply from culture clash.
The incorporation of foreign characters and elements into film in the nineties has come to reflect a reality that marginal Japan is beginning to accept. First, I say marginal Japan since this represents the artist and independent filmmakers. In part, the increasing social turmoil of Japan is caused by the refusal of older and middle Japan to change while the younger generation has suddenly become a definition of marginal itself. Thus when I refer to this new 'movement' of filmmaking, it is almost exclusively young artists concerned whose age and interests include them in the margins.
Such films as Iwai's Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) and Harada's Kamikaze Taxi (1995) represent some of the films that deal directly with social issues in Japan, including and concentrating on the presence of foreigners. Most importantly, it is not just the presence of them, but their surprising level with which they are accustomed to Japan that makes the change so drastic. Even the original English titles reflect internationalization on the part of filmmakers. Other films like Bad Film (Sono; 1999) and Junk Food (Yamamoto; 1997), also with original English titles, do not even deal with foreign versus Japanese as a topic. They simply include personal stories involving foreigners, who although they may not be mainstream Japan, are certainly no different from the marginal inhabitants.

Conclusions
While the end of the war may have pushed films on a path away from the ideal of the militaristic male hero, Japan remains a strongly patriarchal society. So strongly that one has difficulty distinguishing male oriented erotic anime from children's cartoons. What makes this important is the possible connection between this ideal and resistance to social change. Remember that the period from which it comes saw Japan furiously attempting to bar itself completely from the outside world.
One often struggles to understand mainstream Japan's true feelings on this subject as well as others. While older directors such as Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi could be considered marginal outsiders because they were involved in a creative and rare profession, they did not experience the mass rejection and criticism that their modern counterparts now do. This is because they were representative of a homogeneous Japan. While their work was interesting and accomplishing, subject matter either dealt with almost grandiose material or was from the perspective of the older and more established. If Japan was changing, it was too fast in result of the modernization effort.
The time since, with the aggravation of social ills (bosozoku, dating for assistance, school refusal syndrome, etc.), has seen the birth of social satire in Japan and the creation of the marginal. It was perhaps the utter failure of the student-led antiestablishment movement that fostered a sense of hopelessness in changing mainstream Japan. It seems those who have grown up since then and disagree with the state of the nation have come to accept outsider status. As a result of this, film created in Japan is not often well distributed or enjoyed by Japanese because of it's stark almost anti-Japanese flavor. Film in the nineties has come to represent the utmost in the multi-cultural, while most Japanese in the nineties still cannot bring themselves believe foreigners actually live and work in their communities.
Perhaps this is a boon in disguise to filmmakers. It looks as though in the international film circuits, Japanese film is experiencing a popular rebirth abroad among enthusiasts. While, financially, things remain difficult in production, the finished product may avoid the particular taint exampled in anime. Of course this means that their works will rarely reach wide distribution within Japan. This completes a sort of viscous circle. Mainstream Japan remains intolerant because of a lack of interaction with her margins. This while the marginal, the young and new filmmakers, cannot interact with the mainstream because of their failure to accept, commercially, their films.

Bibliography
Haute, Luk, "Japanese Cinema Post-Kurosawa", www.amb-jpn.be/material/text/ashita.htm, as of Nov 2000

Nakajima Takashi, "A Brief History of Experimental Cinema", www.usc.edu/isd/archives/asianfilm/japan/experimental.html, as of Nov 2000

Tadao Sato, "What is 'Typically Japanese'?", www.usc.edu/isd/archives/asianfilm/japan/whatis.html, as of Nov. 2000