Download or read book Silver Screen Samurai written by Cocoro Books and published by DH Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2004 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 50 years, samurai movies have wowed the Japanese and the world with gory sword fights and tear-jerking tales of honor and sacrifice. From Kurosawa's Seven Samurai to anime's Samurai X, this first-ever collection of original samurai movie art pays tribute to a cinematic genre that is truly Japanese. Silver Screen Samurai is a must-have for samurai fans, movie-buffs and lovers of poster art!
Download or read book Silver Screen Buddha written by Sharon A. Suh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-29 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do contemporary films depict Buddhists and Buddhism? What aspects of the Buddhist tradition are these films keeping from our view? By repeatedly romanticizing the meditating monk, what kinds of Buddhisms and Buddhists are missing in these films and why? Silver Screen Buddha is the first book to explore the intersecting representations of Buddhism, race, and gender in contemporary films. Sharon A. Suh examines the cinematic encounter with Buddhism that has flourished in Asia and in the West in the past century – from images of Shangri-La in Frank Capra's 1937 Lost Horizon to Kim Ki-Duk's 2003 international box office success Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. The book helps readers see that representations of Buddhism in Asia and in the West are fraught with political, gendered, and racist undertones. Silver Screen Buddha draws significant attention to ordinary lay Buddhism, a form of the tradition given little play in popular film. By uncovering the differences between a fictionalized, commodified, and exoticized Buddhism, Silver Screen Buddha brings to light expressions of the tradition that highlight laity and women, on the one hand, and Asian and Asian Americans, on the other. Suh engages in a re-visioning of Buddhism that expands the popular understanding of the tradition, moving from the dominance of meditating monks to the everyday world of raced, gendered, and embodied lay Buddhists.
Download or read book Silver Screen Fiend written by Patton Oswalt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol or sex: it was film. After moving to L.A., Oswalt became a huge film buff (or as he calls it, a sprocket fiend), absorbing classics, cult hits, and new releases at the New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Patton's life schoolbook, informing his notion of acting, writing, comedy, and relationships. Set in the nascent days of L.A.'s alternative comedy scene, Oswalt's memoir chronicles his journey from fledgling stand-up comedian to self-assured sitcom actor, with the colorful New Beverly collective and a cast of now-notable young comedians supporting him all along the way"--
Download or read book The Cinema Book written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cinema Book is widely recognised as the ultimate guide to cinema. Authoritative and comprehensive, the third edition has been extensively revised, updated and expanded in response to developments in cinema and cinema studies. Lavishly illustrated in colour, this edition features a wealth of exciting new sections and in-depth case studies. Sections address Hollywood and other World cinema histories, key genres in both fiction and non-fiction film, issues such as stars, technology and authorship, and major theoretical approaches to understanding film.
Download or read book The Paths of Zatoichi written by Jonathan Wroot and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Paths of Zatoichi charts the history and influence of the Japanese film and television franchise about Zatoichi the blind swordsman. The franchise is comprised of 29 films and 100 TV episodes (starring the famous Shintaro Katsu, who starred in 26 of the 29 feature films). They all follow the adventures of a blind masseur in medieval Japan, who wanders from village to village and often has to defend himself with his deadly sword skills. The first film was released in 1962 and the most recent in 2010. These dates demonstrate how the franchise can be used as a means of charting Japanese cinema history, via the shifts in production practices and audience preferences which affected the Zatoichi series and numerous other film and TV texts. Zatoichi signifies a huge area of Japanese film history which has largely been ignored in much existing scholarly research, and yet it can reveal much about the appeal of long-running characters, franchises, and their constant adaptation and influence within global popular culture.
Download or read book Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball written by Christopher T. Keaveney and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost right from the introduction of baseball to Japan the sport was regarded as qualitatively different from the original American model. This vision of Japanese baseball associates the sport with steadfast devotion (magokoro) and the values of the samurai class in the code of Bushidō, in which greatness is achieved through hard work under the tutelage of a selfless master. In Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball Keaveney analyzes the persistent appeal of such mythologizing, arguing that the sport has been serving as a repository for traditional values, to which the Japanese have returned time and again in epochs of uncertainty and change. Baseball and modern culture emerged and developed side by side in Japan, giving cultural representations of this national pastime special insights into Japanese values and their contortions from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Keaveney explains the origins of the cultural construct “Samurai baseball” and reflects on the recurrences of these essentialist discourses at critical junctures in Japan’s modern history. Since the early modern period, writers, filmmakers, and manga artists have alternately affirmed and debunked these popular myths of baseball. This study presents an overview of these cultural products, beginning with Masaoka Shiki’s pioneering baseball writings, then moves on to the long history of baseball films and the venerable tradition of baseball fiction, and finally considers the substantial body of baseball manga and anime. Perhaps what is most striking is the continuous relevance of baseball and its values as a point of cultural reference for the Japanese people; their engagement with baseball is a genuine national love affair. “A fascinating study of samurai baseball and the culture it represents viewed through historical and contemporary literature, poetry, manga, and movies. An important, original work that is full of insights. Christopher Keaveney has put enormous effort into researching this book and he is to be congratulated. I learned a lot by reading it.” —Robert Whiting, author of You Gotta Have Wa and The Meaning of Ichiro “Keaveney’s book offers a nuanced introduction to the Japanese model of samurai baseball along with an analysis of many of the works that treat the guiding principles of that model. A fresh look at Japan’s national pastime.” —Bobby Valentine, former MLB player and manager and former manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball “Christopher Keaveney effortlessly combines a thorough knowledge of Japanese baseball—its players, managers, fans—with the cultural productions surrounding it. The result is a nostalgic trip through history and an edifying survey of literature, film, and manga.” —David Desser, professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Download or read book A Foreigner s Cinematic Dream of Japan written by Iris Haukamp and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1936, a German film team arrived in Japan to participate in a film coproduction, intended to show the 'real' Japan to the world and to launch Japanese films into international markets. The two directors, one Japanese and the other German, clashed over the authenticity of the represented Japan and eventually directed two versions, The Samurai's Daughter and New Earth, based on a common script. The resulting films hold a firm place in film history as an exercise in - or reaction against - politically motivated propaganda, respectively. A Foreigner's Cinematic Dream of Japan contests the resulting oversimplification into nationalised and politicised dichotomies. Drawing on a wide range of Japanese and German original sources, as well as a comparative analysis of the 'German-Japanese version' and the elusive 'Japanese-English version', Iris Haukamp reveals the complexities of this international co-production. This exclusive research sheds light not only on the films themselves, but also on the timeframe of its production, with both countries at the brink of war.
Download or read book Reading a Japanese Film written by Keiko I. McDonald and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2005-11-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading a Japanese Film, written by a pioneer of Japanese film studies in the United States, provides viewers new to Japanese cinema with the necessary tools to construct a deeper understanding of some of the most critically acclaimed and thoroughly entertaining films ever made. In her introduction, Keiko McDonald presents a historical overview and outlines a unified approach to film analysis. Sixteen "readings" of films currently available on DVD with English subtitles put theory into practice as she considers a wide range of work, from familiar classics by Ozu and Kurosawa to the films of a younger generation of directors.
Download or read book Directory of World Cinema Japan written by John Berra and published by Intellect Books. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the revered classics of Akira Kurosawa to the modern marvels of Takeshi Kitano, the films that have emerged from Japan represent a national cinema that has gained worldwide admiration and appreciation. Directory of World Cinema: Japan provides an insight into the cinema of Japan through reviews of significant titles and case studies of leading directors, alongside explorations of the cultural and industrial origins of key genres. As the inaugural volume of an ambitious series from Intellect documenting world cinema, the directory aims to play a part in moving intelligent, scholarly criticism beyond the academy by building a forum for the study of film that relies on a disciplined theoretical base. It takes the form of an A–Z collection of reviews, longer essays and research resources, accompanied by fifty full-colour film stills highlighting significant films and players. The cinematic lineage of samurai warriors, yakuza enforcers and atomic monsters take their place alongside the politically charged works of the Japanese New Wave, making this a truly comprehensive volume.
Download or read book Myth and Masculinity in the Japanese Cinema written by Isolde Standish and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study argues that in Japanese popular cinema the 'tragic hero' narrative is an archetypal plot-structure upon which male genres, such as the war-retro and yakuza films are based. Two central questions in relation to these post-war Japanese film genres and historical consciousness are addressed: What is the relationship between history, myth and memory? And how are individual subjectivities defined in relation to the past? The book examines the role of the 'tragic hero' narrative as a figurative structure through which the Japanese people could interpret the events of World War II and defeat, offering spectators an avenue of exculpation from a foreign-imposed sense of guilt. Also considered is the fantasy world of the nagare-mono (drifter) or yakuza film. It is suggested that one of the reasons for the great popularity of these films in the 1960s and 1970s lay in their ability to offer men meanings that could help them understand the contradictions between the reality of their everyday experiences and the ideological construction of masculinity.
Download or read book Word and Image in Japanese Cinema written by Dennis Washburn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Word and Image in Japanese Cinema examines the complex relationship between the temporal order of linguistic narrative and the spatiality of visual spectacle, a dynamic that has played an important role in much of Japanese film. The tension between the controlling order of words and the liberating fragmentation of images has been an important force that has shaped modern culture in Japan and that has also determined the evolution of its cinema. In exploring the rift between word and image, the essays in this volume clarify the cultural imperatives that Japanese cinema reflects, as well as the ways in which the dialectic of word and image has informed the understanding and critical reception of Japanese cinema in the West.
Download or read book Visions of Japanese Modernity written by Aaron Andrew Gerow and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, Aaron Gerow focuses on the early period in which the institutional and narrational structure of Japanese cinema was in flux, arguing that the transnational intertext is less important than the power-laden operations by which the meaning of cinema itself was discursively defined. Both progressive critics of the 'pure film' movement and the more conservative Japanese cultural bureaucrats demanded a unitary text that suppressed the hybrid and unpredictable meanings attendant on early Japanese cinema's informal exhibition contexts. Gerow points out the irony that the progressive and individualist pure film movement critics worked in concert with the Japanese state to undo the 'theft' of Japanese cinema, proposing to replace representations of Japan in Western films by exporting a Japanese cinema 'reformed' to emulate the international norm.
Download or read book The Imperial Screen written by Peter B. High and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, Imperial Screen is a highly readable account of the realities of cultural life in wartime Japan. 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. This English language edition is revised and expanded from the original Japanese edition.
Download or read book The Japanese Community in Brazil 1908 1940 written by S. Lone and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-10-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the eve of the Pacific war (1941-45), there were 198,000 Japanese in Brazil, the largest expatriate body outside East Asia. Yet the origins of this community have been obscured. The English-language library is threadbare while Japanese scholars routinely insist that life outside of Japan was filled with shock and hardship so that, as one historian asserted, 'their bodies were in Brazil but their minds were always in Japan'. This study redraws the world of the overseas Japanese. Using the Japanese-language press of Brazil, it explains the development of a community with its own, often aggressively independent or ironic views of identity, institutions, education, leisure, and on Japan itself. Emphasising the success of Japanese migrants and the openness of Brazilian society, it challenges the perceived wisdom that contact between Japanese and other peoples was always marked by hostility and racism.
Download or read book The Samurai Film written by Alain Silver and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Japanese Fighting Heroes written by Jamie Ryder and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2024-04-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the demon-killing Minamoto no Yorimitsu to the immortal poet Ono no Komachi, find out about the fascinating world of Japanese warriors and folk-heroes. Japanese mythology is filled with stories of larger-than-life characters that shaped the landscape of Japan. They are the folk heroes who slayed monsters, fought in epic battles and reflected the most complicated emotions of the people who created them. Through a mix of essays, short stories and anecdotes, Japanese Fighting Heroes follows the lives of samurai, warriors, outliers and iconoclasts who forged their own paths. Legendary fighters like the demon-killing Minamoto no Yorimitsu, philosophising samurai Miyamoto Musashi, and the One-Eyed Dragon Date Masamune. Creative heroes like the father of Japanese short stories Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the immortal poet Ono no Komachi, the hilarious Sei Shonagon and her insight into human nature. Trailblazers who broke down barriers like the feminist Hiratsuka Raicho, the statesman Fukuzawa Yukichi, the photographic genius Hiroshi Hamaya. These Japanese folk heroes led fascinating lives that provide insight into our own through the principles and practices they lived by. They struggled with universal ideals of honor, duty, courage and kindness, helping them transcend their culture. Whether you’re looking to learn about Japanese history, fall down a philosophy rabbit hole or pick up new mental health habits, these heroes can teach us timeless lessons. Japanese Fighting Heroes captures the essence of what it means to be human in any culture.
Download or read book Food on Film written by Tom Hertweck and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From early cinematic depictions of food as a symbol of ethnic and cultural identity to more complex contemporary portrayals, movies have demonstrated how our ideas about food are always changing. On the big and small screens, representations of addiction, starvation, and even food as fetish reinforce how important food is in our lives and in our culture. In Food on Film: Bringing Something New to the Table, Tom Hertweck brings together innovative viewpoints about a popular, yet understudied, subject in cinema. This collection explores the pervasiveness of food in film, from movies in which meals play a starring role to those that feature food and eating in supporting or cameo appearances. The volume asks provocative questions about food and its relationship with work, urban life, sexual orientation, the family, race, morality, and a wide range of “appetites.” The fourteen essays by international, interdisciplinary scholars offer a wide range of perspectives on such films and television shows as The Color Purple, Do the Right Thing, Ratatouille, The Road, Sex and the City, Twin Peaks, and even Jaws. From first course to last, Food on Film will be of interest to scholars of film and television, sociology, anthropology, and cultural history.
