Dialectics Without Synthesis: Japanese Film Theory and Realism in a Global Frame

248 Pages·2020·4.43 MB·English

by  Naoki Yamamoto

Dialectics without Synthesis
The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation
gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the
Eric Papenfuse and Catherine Lawrence Endowment Fund
in Film and Media Studies.
Dialectics without
Synthesis
Japanese Film Theory and Realism
in a Global Frame
Naoki Yamamoto
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2020 by Naoki Yamamoto
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yamamoto, Naoki, 1977- author.
Title: Dialectics without synthesis : Japanese film theory and realism in a
global frame / Naoki Yamamoto.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2020010082 | isbn 9780520351790 (cloth) |
isbn 9780520351806 (paperback) | isbn 9780520975903 (epub)
Subjects: lcsh: Motion pictures—Japan—Philosophy—History—20th
century. | Film criticism—Japan—History—20th century. | Motion
pictures—Japan—Aesthetics—History—20th century.
Classification: lcc pn1993.5.j3 y3736 2020 | ddc 791.430952—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010082
Manufactured in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my parents

contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Realism, Film Theory, Japanese Cinema 1
1. Naturalism and the Modernization of Japanese Cinema 24
2. The Machine Aesthetic and Proletarian Realism 52
3. Literary Adaptation and Textual Realism 77
4. Documentary Film and Epistemological Realism 103
5. Neglected Traditions of Bergsonism and Phenomenology 133
Epilogue: Hanada Kiyoteru and Postwar Debates 166
Notes 185
Selected Bibliography 209
Index 225

illustrations
1. An example of Kabuki cinema featuring Onoe Matsunosuke 41
2. Kaeriyama Norimasa’s The Glow of Life 42
3. The front cover of Exchanges between Machine and Art 55
4. Itagaki Takao and Horino Masao’s “Characteristics of Greater Tokyo” 62
5. An ad for The Woman That Night 78
6. Uchida Tomu’s Unending Advance 88
7. Kumagai Hisatora’s The Abe Family 97
8. A chart in Nakai Masakazu’s “Continuity of In Spring” 117
9. Taguchi Satoshi’s General, Staff, and Soldier 131
10. Nishida Kitarō’s philosophical worldview 155
11. A revised diagram of Nishida’s philosophical worldview 156
12. Nagae’s cinematic worldview 158
13. Hanada Kiyoteru’s philosophical worldview 177
14. Hanada’s cinematic worldview 178
ix