Keiko I McDonald

From Book to Screen

Modern Japanese Literature in Films

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

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.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)
• Seitenzahl: 344
• Erscheinungstermin: 31. Dezember 1999
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 162mm x 21mm
• Gewicht: 467g
• ISBN-13: 9780765603883
• ISBN-10: 0765603888
• Artikelnr.: 21891701

Autorenporträt

Keiko I. McDonald

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction PART I. Shifts in Creative Emphasis 1. The Camera Looks at
Melodrama: 1908-1920 2. Literature More Pure Than Popular: 1935-1941 3.
More Freedoms, More Troubles: 1951-1959 PART II Writing as Directed: A
Re-creative Enterprise 4. A Lyrical Novella Revamped: Gosho's Izu
Dancer(1933) 5. Freedom to Stray from the Straight and Narrow: Mizoguchi's
Lady Musashino(1951) 6. Religion and Politics: Kumai's The Sea and Poison
(1986) 7. The Modern Outcast State: Ichikawa's The Broken Commandment(1962)
8. Cuts in Plot and Characters: Higashi's A River with No Bridge(1992) 9.
More of a lust-So Story: Shimazu's The Story of Shunkin (1935) 10.
Differently True: Toyoda's A Strange Tale of Tom Bast Of the River(1960)
11. Living the Postwar Life: Naruse's Older BrotheI; Younger Sister(1953)
12. The Pain of Emancipation: Shinoda's Maihime(1989) 13. Back to the
Mirror of the Past: Morita's Sorekara (1985) 14. Stylistic Experiment:
Teshigahara's The Face of Another(1966) 15. Rehearsing Death: Takabayashi's
The Temple of the Golden PaviIion (1976)