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.

Of all the world's cinemas, Japan's is perhaps unique in its closeness to the nation's literature, past and contemporary. The Western world became aware of this when Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice film festival in 1951 and the Oscar for best foreign film in 1952. More recent examples include Shohei Imamura's Eel, which won him the Palme d'Or (Best Picture) at Cannes in 1997.

From Book to Screen breaks new ground by exploring important connections between Japan's modern literary tradition and its national cinema. The first part offers a historical and cultural overview of the working relation that developed between pure literature and film. It deals with three important periods in which filmmakers relied most heavily on literary works for enriching and developing cinematic art. The second part gives detailed analyses of a dozen literary works and their screen adaptations.

For many reasons, the works selected for comparison and study all deserve cross-disciplinary analysis. For example, Ooka's Lady Musashino and Mizoguchi's film adaptation of it study adultery as a topic of great concern in postwar Japan. Even so, they differ significantly in their modes of representation. Both Toson's Broken Commandment and Ichikawa's film version investigate a difficult social issue, the plight of the outcast; here again, writer and director approach and interpret it in completely different ways.

The author has written this book to help Western audiences see Japanese films for what they are: universal in appeal, if sometimes difficult to access thanks to differences as vast as Eastern and Western culture. Now that our century of cinema is yielding to a centuryof video, the need to bridge differences can only grow more pressing -- and rewarding.

Of all the world s cinemas, Japan's is perhaps unique in its closeness to the nation's literature, past and contemporary. The Western world became aware of this when Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice film festival in 1951 and the Oscar for best foreign film in 1952. More recent examples include Shohei Imamura's Eel, which won the Palm d'Or (Best Picture) at Cannes in 1997.

From Book to Screen breaks new ground by exploring important connections between Japan's modern literary tradition and its national cinema. The first part offers an historical and cultural overview of the working relationship that developed between pure literature and film. It deals with three important periods in which filmmakers relied most heavily on literary works for enriching and developing cinematic art. The second part provides detailed analyses of a dozen literary works and their screen adoptions.

At the heart of the development of modern Japanese culture, the theatre mirrors the issues and concerns of a society transitioning from the Tokugawa era to the modern period. Modern Japanese Theatre and Performance fills a gap in current Japanese theatre scholarship; the book discusses the role of women in modern theatre, buto dance, experimental theatres that combine traditional theatre with modern forms, and plays by Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, and Senda Koreya. With important contributions from both established and emerging scholars, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in theatre, modern performance, or Japanese studies.

Important connections between Japan's classical theater and its national cinema have been largely unexplored in the West. Japanese Classical Theater in Films breaks new ground by charting the influence that the three major dramatic genres - Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku - have had on filmmaking. The first part provides historical and cultural background for understanding some of the distinctive features of the impact of the classical theater on the growth of film art. It also surveys how classical plays, such as Chushingura, have continued to enrich the cinema repertoire. The second part presents more detailed analyses with a focus on the director's use of formal properties of the classical theater and the director's adaptation of the play for the screen. Fourteen films chosen for close reading include The Iron Crown, Soshun Kochiyama, and Pandemonium - none of which has been substantially studied outside of Japan before. Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku are the three distinct genres of classical theater that have made Japan's dramatic art unique. The audience steeped in these traditional theatrical forms sees many aspects of stage conventions in Japanese cinema. This intimacy makes the aesthetic/intellectual experience of films more enriching. Japanese Classical Theater in Films aims at heightening such awareness in the West, the awareness of the influence that these three major dramatic genres have had on Japan's cinematic tradition. Using an eclectic critical framework - a solid combination of historical and cultural approaches reinforced with formalist and auteurist perspectives - Keiko I. McDonald undertakes this much needed, ambitious task. Four postwar Japanese films - Kinoshita's The Balladof Narayama, Kurosawa's The Throne of Blood and Ran, and Kinugasa's An Actor's Revenge - are chosen to illustrate the stylistics of the traditional theater as an important source of artistic inspiration. The illustration is followed by comparative analyses of classical plays and their screen versions. McDonald examines how major film directors transform originals in ways that clarify new and individual social, ideological, and philosophical visions. For example, Tadashi Imai's Night Drum, Mizoguchi's The Crucified Lovers, and Shinoda's Gonza: the Spearman are used to highlight the filmmakers' modernist responses to the feudal society portrayed by the playwright Monzaemon Chikamatsu. This first major study devoted to connections between Japan's classical theater and its national cinema answers the basic question about cultural specificity that has always concerned McDonald as a teacher and scholar of Japanese cinema: How does a person coming from the Japanese tradition help the Western audience see a Japanese film for what it is?

Beginning in late Edo, the Japanese faced a rapidly and irreversibly changing world in which industrialization, westernization, and internationalization was exerting pressure upon an entrenched traditional culture. The Japanese themselves felt threatened by Western powers, with their sense of superiority and military might. Yet, the Japanese were more prepared to meet this challenge than was thought at the time, and they used a variety of strategies to address the tension between modernity and tradition. Inexorable Modernity illuminates our understanding of how Japan has dealt with modernity and of what mechanisms, universal and local, we can attribute to the mode of negotiation between tradition and modernity in three major forms of art-theater, the visual arts, and literature. Dr. Hiroshi Nara brings together a thoughtful collection of essays that demonstrate that traditional and modern approaches to life feed off of one other, and tradition, whether real or created, was sought out in order to find a way to live with the burden of modernity. Inexorable Modernity is a valuable and enlightening read for those interested in Asian studies and history.

Beginning in late Edo, the Japanese faced a rapidly and irreversibly changing world in which industrialization, westernization, and internationalization was exerting pressure upon an entrenched traditional culture. The Japanese themselves felt threatened by Western powers, with their sense of superiority and military might. Yet, the Japanese were more prepared to meet this challenge than was thought at the time, and they used a variety of strategies to address the tension between modernity and tradition. Inexorable Modernity illuminates our understanding of how Japan has dealt with modernity and of what mechanisms, universal and local, we can attribute to the mode of negotiation between tradition and modernity in three major forms of art-theater, the visual arts, and literature. Dr. Hiroshi Nara brings together a thoughtful collection of essays that demonstrate that traditional and modern approaches to life feed off of one other, and tradition, whether real or created, was sought out in order to find a way to live with the burden of modernity. Inexorable Modernity is a valuable and enlightening read for those interested in Asian studies and history.

At the heart of the development of modern Japanese culture, the theatre mirrors the issues and concerns of a society transitioning from the Tokugawa era to the modern period. Modern Japanese Theatre and Performance fills a gap in current Japanese theatre scholarship; the book discusses the role of women in modern theatre, buto dance, experimental theatres that combine traditional theatre with modern forms, and plays by Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, and Senda Koreya. With important contributions from both established and emerging scholars, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in theatre, modern performance, or Japanese studies.