The Modernization of Japanese Film

hiroshi komatsu
From the mid-1930s, when sound film began to replace
silent cinema in Japan, the Japanese studios modelled
themselves on the Hollywood system. This was true not
only of the institutions, but also of the form of the films
produced, which were based around the unfolding of a
narrative where all techniques were in the service of
telling a story and eliciting particular emotions. This
system dominated Japanese film production in the postwar period, but it was not monolithic or indestructible.
Mizoguchis films can be seen as deviations, and Kurosawas Rashomon (Daiei, 1950) provided a decisive break. It
did not simply portray the truth of the narrative, but, by
presenting multiple, conflicting views of the same event,
made many interpretations possible and demanded active
reading by the audience. Rashomon was the first film to
introduce the concept of the modern into Japanese
cinema.
Modernization first appeared in a change in the subjectmatter tackled by film-makers. For example, Nikkatsus
Taiyo no kisetsu (Season of the sun, Takumi Furukawa,
1956), adapted from the novel of Shintaro Ishihara,
approached the subject of the anger of modern youth by
directly depicting the rebellion of juveniles against the
older generation. The film was not innovative in terms of
film form, but by using the classical narrative mode drew
attention to the challenge to tradition represented by new
morals and behaviour. In the same year, Nikkatsu adapted
Ishiharas new novel Kurutta kajitsu (Crazed fruit, Ko Nakahira, 1956). This represented an attempt to establish the
angry youth film as a genre, after the model of Nicholas
Rays Rebel without a Cause and Ingmar Bergmans Summer
with Monika. There was a bourgeois idealism inherent in
the literature of Ishihara which was mirrored in these
adaptations of his work. The films lacked any dimension
of class-consciousness but represented rebellious youth
in an imaginary world. This tendency towards a lack of
realism of setting was to constitute an important element
of Nikkatsus youth films and action films for years to
come.
In the 1950s, then, Nikkatsu tried to modernize
Japanese cinema by establishing a new genre, aimed at
and focusing on the younger generation. However, despite
the popular success of many of these films the genre rarely
produced anything other than standardized B movies of
little lasting interest. This had much to do with the restrictions placed on film-makers by the studios. The genre did
not attract eminent established directors, nor produce
artists of its own. The one exception was Seijun Suzuki,
who began his directing career making action films for
714

Nikkatsu. He made a series of these films between 1956

and 1963 which were classed as B movies, but which stood
out from those made by other genre specialists of the
time. He ornamented the stereotyped story-lines of the
genre with deliberately artificial images, and he pushed
the most standard action film beyond the ordinary
through the use of attractive shot composition and unique
mise-en-sce`ne. After 1964, promoted from low-budget B
films, he turned his hand to adapting literature for the
screen, but he continued to develop the style he had established on his action movies. Gradually Suzuki decreased
the importance of a rational and logical story in his films.
For example, in the gangster film Koroshi no rakuin (The
brand of killing, Nikkatsu, 1967), the plot, which generic
conventions dictate should be clear, was transformed into
a labyrinth. The increasing complexity and difficulty of
his films finally led to his dismissal from Nikkatsu in 1968.
While Nikkatsus youth films were set in imaginary
bourgeois circumstances, Shohei Imamura, working in
the same company, developed a very different milieu for
his films. After working as the assistant director to Yasujiro
Ozu at Shochiku, Imamura moved to Nikkatsu to work
with Yuzo Kawashima. Since his debut film in 1958
Imamuras concern had been with the world left behind
by the development of Japanese bourgeois society, and
the energetic people living in that world. His films were
fundamentally different from the Nikkatsu action films,
as they were not dependent on the method of realism.
They included caricature-like depictions of strange people,
blended with ethnographic and sociological concerns,
and humour inherited from Kawashima. Many of his films
from this period bore more resemblance to films made by
independent companies than the output of a major studio
like Nikkatsu. After Nippon konchuki (Insect woman,
Nikkatsu, 1963) Imamuras concerns gravitated towards
issues of sex, and his films examined the sexual impulse
that he believed existed at the root of all people.
Kiriro Urayama directed realistic films with a social
message at Nikkatsu. He had been the assistant director
to Imamura before making his first film in 1962, and he
went on to work mostly in the youth film genre. However,
films like Kyupora no aru machi (The street with the cupola,
Nikkatsu, 1962) and Hiko shojo (The bad girl, Nikkatsu,
1963) were different from the stereotyped Nikkatsu films
of the genre, as they contained political elements. By the
late 1960s, both Imamura and Urayama had developed a
metaphysical quality in their films. Urayamas last film at
Nikkatsu, Watashi ga suteta onna (The girl I abandoned,
1969) concentrated on the subjective experiences of a man

the modernization of japanese film

who had abandoned a girl. However, this highly reflective

film, which included some hallucinatory shots, was
thought too abstract by the Nikkatsu executives. The film
companies did not like to see their directors bring such
experimental elements to their work. Directors were
required to follow the norms of the genre and remain
within the limits and rules laid down by their companies.
Directors with a desire to experiment had to fight continually with the conservatism of the executives of their
companies, and many found it an impossible task.
Imamura realized that he could not make the films he
wanted to at a major studio. After making Akai satsui
(Intentions of murder) in 1963 he left Nikkatsu to found
his own independent production company.
During the 1950s most independent companies had
been organized by groups with socialist sympathies. Directors like Tadashi Imai and Satsuo Yamamoto produced
films with a political message. The independent sector,
then, was not interested in the development of film form
and could not be considered avant-garde. However, in the
1960s the situation changed. New independent companies
began to be established to produce films that could not
be made at the major studios but that were primarily
concerned with extending the boundaries of Japanese film
and not just with political messages from a specific party.
Out of such newly founded independent companies, the
so-called New Wave was born.

crisis in the studios

There were six major film companies in Japan in 1960:
Nikkatsu, Daiei, Toho, Toei, Shochiku, and Shin Toho. Shin
Toho produced only sensationalist films for which there

proved to be a limited market, and it went bankrupt in

1961, leaving five major studios throughout most of the
1960s.
From the late 1950s the bulk of Nikkatsu output had
been genre staples such as the youth film and action film.
The classics of Japanese cinema of the 1950s had been
produced by Daiei: Kurosawas Rashomon, Mizoguchis
Ugetsu monogatari (1953), Chikamatsu monogatari (The crucified lovers, 1954), Naruses Inazuma (Lightning, 1952),
Kinugasas Jigokumon (Gate of hell, 1953), and Kozaburo
Yoshimuras Yoru no kawa (Night river, 1956). The
company had trained young directors like Yasuzo Masumura, and had let Kon Ichikawa develop his talent on
a series of literary adaptations such as Enjo (Flame of
torment, 1958), Nobi (Fires of the plain, 1959), and Ototo
(Younger brother, 1960) in order to fill the vacancy left
in the field of artistic film by the death of Kenji Mizoguchi
in 1956.
The Toei Company laid stress on the production of widescreen films after 1957. Its policy of attracting large audiences (especially men) to its entertainment jidaigeki
(period drama) had been extremely successful, and by 1960
Toei had become the most profitable film company in
Japan. The company relied on the regular and rapid production of standard and stereotypical genre films for this
success, and so their widescreen jidaigeki were not of the
highest artistic quality. Toei also produced highly artistic
films by the masters of the pre-war era, like Daisuke Ito,
Tomotaka Tasaka, and Tomu Uchida, but the company did
not provide a place for young talent with innovative ideas.
The same was true of Toho, where the directors of the
pre-war era, like Mikio Naruse and Shiro Toyoda, were able
A scene from Kuratta kajitsu
(Crazed Fruit, 1956), Ko
Nakahiras film of affairs and
revenge that attempted to
popularize the youth genre in
the Japanese film industry

715

Akira Kurosawa
(1910 )

In 1951 Akira Kurosawas film Rashomon (1950) won the

Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, thereby opening
the doors of the western art circuit to Japanese cinema.
Rashomon consists of four different versions of the same
event, the attack on a nobleman by a bandit, and despite
its Japanese setting is conceptualized around a very occidental theme; the relativity of truth. This combination of
Japanese and western influences is a feature of Kurosawas film-making, and has contributed to his continuing popularity in the West.
The dynamism of Kurosawas method of story-telling
through images has always gone hand in hand with a humanist treatment of his subjects. A fascination with social problems and human nature forms the constellation
of Kurosawas universe, and provides the link between
his violent feudal epics and modern-day dramas. Kurosawa displays an unparalleled directorial power to create dense fictional worlds; a skill already evident in his
first film Sugata Sanshiro (1943). The story composition of
his films, which proceed toward their climaxes through
a combination of realist description and occasional moments of romanticism, attains its classical completeness
in films such as Norainu (Stray Dog, 1949). This classical
form is constituted by occidental stylea mlange of European and Hollywood modes. Many of the cinematic
forms in Kurosawas films have been based on westernstyle montage. Even when he employs Japanese classical
performing arts like Noh and kabuki, they are articulated in the occidental mode, as in Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi (They who step on the tigers trail, 1945) and Throne
of Blood (Kumonosujo, 1957), an adaptation of the story of
Macbeth. A concern with non-Japanese themes is evident
in Kurosawas adaptations of western literary sources, including Dostoevsky, Gorky, and Shakespeare.
However, Kurosawa sought more than the intellectual
world view of European literature. He also developed
film as an entertainment form. He was deeply influenced
by Hollywood movies, particularly those of John Ford.
That which Ford expressed through the Western appeared in the form of jidaigeki (period films) in Kurosawas films; Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai, 1954),
Kakushitoride no sanakunin (The Hidden Fortress, 1958), Yojimbo (1961), and Tsubai Sanjuro (Sanjuro, 1962). The samurai films Yojimbo and Seven Samurai in turn inspired
Sergio Leones A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and John Sturgess
The Magnificent Seven (1960); evidence of the cross-fertilization between Kurosawa, American genre movies, and
the European art circuit.
Humanity lies at the centre of Kurosawas themes, an
approach which has formed the basis of his world view
since his early works. It appears most clearly in Ikiru
(1952), which was partly inspired by Goethes Faust, and
also in Red Beard (Akahige, 1965). While this concept of humanity is meant to be universal, it came to seem some-

716

The Seven Samurai (1954)

what anachronistic as a film theme in the agitated social

situation of the late 1960s, when new Japanese directors
were making innovative works, and numerous foreign
films made by the new generation were imported into
Japan. Kurosawas film art came to be regarded as oldfashioned in this period. He appeared to reach a creative
impasse; Dodeskaden (1970) reveals this perplexity in its
form, and his artistic problems may have contributed to
his attempted suicide in December 1971. However, with
Dersu Uzala, made in the USSR in 1975, Kurosawa overcame these problems and developed his style further, in
the form of the epic. Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)
were made on a massive scale in terms of length, theme,
and spectacle, and remain among Kurosawas most impressive work. He then turned to more personal visions,
as seen in Yume (Dream, 1990) and Madadayo (1993), an
approach which had not been seen in his previous films.
HIROSHI KOMATSU
Select Filmography
Sugata Sanshiro (1943); Norainu (Stray Dog) (1949); Rashomon
(1950); Ikiru (1952); Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai)
(1954); Kumonosujo (Throne of Blood) (1957); Kakushitoride no
sanakunin (The Hidden Fortress) (1958); Yojimbo (1961); Tsubai
Sanjuro (Sanjuro) (1962); Akahige (Red Beard) (1965);
Dodeskaden (1970); Dersu Uzala (1975); Kagemusha (1980); Ran
(1985); Yume (Dream) (1990); Madadayo (1993)
Bibliography
Desser, David (1983), The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa.
Richie, Donald (1984), The Films of Akira Kurosawa.

the modernization of japanese film

to develop their careers, but young directors found that

they were highly restricted by the limitation of the studio.
Eventually prominent new talents only emerged from the
two oldest of the large companies: Nikkatsu and Shochiku.
Together with several young directors working in the independent companies, they were to constitute the Japanese
New Wave in the 1960s.
At Nikkatsu young film-makers who had developed
their talents within the company (like Seijun Suzuki,
Shohei Imamura, and Kirio Urayama) were leaving to
further their artistic visions. A similar thing was happening at Shochiku. Shochiku was a very conservative
company and they regulated and protected even the tone
of their films. Yasujiru Ozu continued to make a film each
year for the company, but apart from him only Keisuke
Kinoshita had been given any kind of autonomy. Even he
was not immune to interference from above. When he
directed his rather bold film Narayama bushi-ko (Ballad of
Narayama, 1958), Shiro Kido, the principal of the
company, criticized its violent content and objected to the
adaptation of the story.
The conservatism of Shochiku prevented them from
exploiting the rise of new genres like the action film
which Nikkatsu and other companies were successfully
producing. This policy precipitated the decline of Shochikus fortunes at the box-office. As profits fell the
company began to lose its place as one of Japans major
studios. Under pressure, Shochiku launched a new policy
in 1960: while continuing to maintain the production of
their traditional films, the company gave young directors
the opportunity to make the films they wanted with a
new degree of freedom. This strategy was aimed at capturing the attention of the young audience who had not
been drawn to the companys products before. Thus the
so called Shochiku New Wave directors Nagisa Oshima,
Yoshishige Yoshida, and Masahiro Shinoda emerged on to
the stage of Japanese film.
Oshimas Seishun zankoku monogatari (A story of cruelty
of youth, Shochiku, 1960) depicted young peoples selfdestruction with a harsh reality that had been absent
from previous youth films. Produced in the middle of the
campaign against the JapanUSA Security Treaty, political
messages were woven into the drama. However, unlike the
leftist party-political films of the independent companies,
Oshimas message was directed toward the audiences own
identity and independence, and it is this which gives the
film its avant-garde edge. In Nihon no yoru to kiri (Night and
Fog in Japan, Shochiku, 1960), which deliberately echoed
the title of Resnaiss 1955 film on concentration camps,
Nuit et brouillard, political discussion was central to the
film, reaching beyond the scope sanctioned by Shochikus
production policy. Oshima was forced to leave the studio
and from this point worked outside the mainstream by
founding his own production company.

Yoshishige Yoshidas Rokudenashi (Good-for-nothing,

1960) was in many ways similar to Oshimas Seishun
zankoku monogatari. Rokudenashi takes as its subject the
crimes of four students, and in it Yoshida tried to achieve
a new type of drama by deconstructing the traditional
ideology of Shochiku. His next film Chi wa kawaiteru (Dry
blood, 1960) was also a crime film, but with an element
of social concern evident in an attempt to deconstruct and
examine the old moral order. Like Oshima and Yoshidas
films, Masahiro Shinodas Kawaita mizuumi (Dry lake,
1960) also had college students as the protagonists. These
three new Shochiku directors revealed the violent reality
of the modern society in which they lived, through films
focusing on the lives and behaviour of people of their own
generation. This New Wave at Shochiku lasted a very short
period because its central figure, Oshima, left the
company shortly after making Night and Fog in Japan. In
spite of this, Yoshida and Shinoda remained at Shochiku
until the mid-1960s and both made interesting films
within the limits of the companys policy.
Some New Wave directors appeared from outside the
major companies. Susumu Hani had been working in the
1950s at Iwanami Eiga, the film-production section of a
publishing company which made science and education
films, and so his method of direction was completely
different from that of those who studied film-making in
the mainstream film companies. In 1961 he made his first
feature Furyo shonen (Bad boys), using the mixed styles of
documentary and fiction. In this film, which was based
around the lives of boys in a reformatory, Hani did not
use professional actors but improvised scenes with boys
who had experience of such institutions. In his subsequent films Hani continued to use a documentary
method of shooting which came to be seen as an alternative form of fiction film. It influenced other filmmakers, for example Shohei Imamura, who used a similar
method in Ningen johatsu (A man vanishes, 1967).
Hiroshi Teshigahara was another influential film-maker
who emerged from the independent sector. As in the case
of Susumu Hani, Teshigaharas success lay in the unique
film form he was able to develop from his position outside
the major film companies. Like Hani he had made documentaries in the 1950s, which were the point of departure
for his feature films. From his first feature, Otoshi ana (The
pitfall, 1962), he devoted himself to adaptations of Kobo
Abes literature. The visualization of existentialist stories
was his main concern throughout the 1960s, Susa no onna
(Woman in the dunes, 1964) being the most successful
work among these adaptations.
The creative films of the New Wave occurred at a time
when mainstream Japanese film production was in crisis.
In 1953 television broadcasting had begun in Japan,
and the spread of television ownership had started to
affect cinema attendances. The number of cinema-goers
717

Nagisa Oshima
(1932 )

Social critic, political agitator, and now a well-known

television personality, Nagisa Oshima has always pursued a cultural strategy of which film-making is only a
part. At the same time, Oshimas cinema itself does not
remain within the domain of classical film art. In his best
films he shows as interest beyond the illusionism designed for telling a fictional story. This attitude pushed
him into the foreground of the Japanese avant-garde in
the 1960s, and made him one of the most influential
film-makers in Japanese history.
His first film Ai to kibo no machi (A town of love and
hope, 1959) was made at the Shochiku studio, and ought
to have reflected the totally conformist ideology of that
company. However, the completed film departed from
the formula, and ended with the despair of a lower-class
boy, quite contrary to the hope in the title of the film.
Oshima was not interested in producing the traditional
film laid down by company policy, and it was not easy for
him to remain at the studio and still make films which
matched his ideals and ambitions. However, he made
three films at Shochiku in 1960 that were closely connected to the contemporary political movement and its
breakdown. He also made political statements outside
his films, and, central though it is for him, cinema must
be thought of as only one of his methods of expression.
Oshimas work is radically different from the official
post-war political cinema that used only mediocre film
form to present a particular partys policy. Oshima not
only took a radically anti-Stalinist new left political
stance, but his film form was also revolutionary. For example, the total number of shots in Nihon no yoru to kiri
(Night and Fog in Japan, 1960) is less than fifty. Constituted
by long takes and panning, and structured around an intense, lengthy political discussion, with complex flashbacks re-presenting the memories of characters, this was
an avant-garde film that defied the entertainment demands made by the studio. It employed methods never
before seen in Japanese cinema, and proved immensely
influential on other young film-makers.
Oshimas films are responses to actual events,
changes, and problems in Japanese society, and so each
film inevitably holds a close connection with the time in
which it was made. This can be seen in terms of form as
well as content. Oshima does not cling to a consistency in
film form, but uses and develops avant-garde techniques
appropriate to the moment and the subject. Unlike Nihon
no yoru to kiri, Hakuchu no torima (Violence at High Noon,
1966) is constituted by many shots. Even in the same year
different subjects receive radically different treatments,
as between Death by Hanging (Koshikei, 1968) and Kaette
kita yopparai (Three Resurrected Drunkards, 1968).
Oshima was always sensitive to phenomena that were
controversial and contemporary. Etsuraku (The Pleasures of
the flesh, 1965) and Hakuchu no torima comment on the

718

Japanese pornographic film (known as the pink film),

particularly the works of Koji Wakamatsu. Politics and
sex are the most important themes for Oshima, and he
directly challenged the system of film censorship that
concealed sex and permitted violence by daring to make
the hard core Ai no corrida (In the Realm of the Senses, 1976).
He also challenged the institutional form of cinema by
commenting on the so-called experimental and underground cinema in The Man Who Left his Will on Film (Tokyo
senso sengo hiwa, 1970) and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Shinjuku dorobo nikki, 1969).
After completing the masterpiece Gishiki (The Ceremony,
1971) Oshima realized that his political message was losing its impact. He made one more film, Natsu no imoto
(Dear Summer Sister, 1972) and broke up his independent
company. Since 1976 he has been making films in collaboration with foreign companies, and has moved away
from a direct cinematic involvement with the actualities
of modern Japan. In films such as Ai no borei (Empire of Passion, 1977), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (Senjo no Merry
Christmas, 1982), and Max mon amour (1986), any political
involvement or challenge to avant-garde film-making
has virtually disappeared. In contemporary Japan, Oshima has become extremely famous for his activities as a
commentator and a television personality, a fame that
has come to overshadow his cinematic achievements.
HIROSHI KOMATSU
Select Filmography
Ai to kibo no machi (1959); Nihon no yoru to kiri (Night and
Fog in Japan) (1960); Etsuraku (1965); Hakuchu no torima
(1966); Koshikei (Death by Hanging) (1968); Kaette kita
yopparai (1968); Shinjuku dorobo nikki (Diary of a Shinjuku
Thief) (1969); Tokyo senso sengo hiwa (The Man Who Left his
Will on Film) (1970); Gishiki (The Ceremony) (1971); Natsu no
imoto (Dear Summer Sister) (1972); Ai no corrida (In the Realm
of the Senses) (1976); Ai no borei (Empire of Passion) (1977);
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, (1982); Max mon amour (Max
my Love) (1986).
Bibliography
Oshima, Nagisa (1992), Cinema, Censorship, and the State.

The Ceremony (Gishiki, 1971)

the modernization of japanese film

continued to increase to 1958, but thereafter gradually

declined. The film companies tried to recapture audiences
by producing films in colour and films featuring established stars. In 1957 the Toei production company shifted
production practices to the manufacture of widescreen
film, and the other major studios followed soon after. In
1962 Daiei produced the first Japanese 70 mm. film Shaka
(The life of the Buddha, directed by Kenji Misumi), which
appealed to the audiences desire to see dramatic spectacle
on a large screen.
Although the technology was new, there was a strong
tradition of spectacles of this kind in Japanese cinema,
and so there was a ready-made audience for these productions. For example, every summer the major companies released a ghost film, and in December, a new
version of the dramatic story of the loyal forty-seven
Ronin. Following the huge box-office success of Gojira
(Godzilla, Ishiro Honda) in 1954 Toho released many
monster and science-fiction films every year. The production policies of big film producers exploited the
custom for Japanese people to enjoy something individual
and special in each season. From 1969 Shochiku produced
the series Otoko wa tsuraiyo (Tora-san, Yoji Yamada) for
seasonal viewing. The policy of recycling a specific spectacle in a series of films had been a part of Japanese cinema
since the silent years. These repeating spectacles had constituted an important part of Japanese film-making that
co-existed with, but never crossed with, the creation of
art cinema. The yearly repetition of a dramatic spectacle
generally assured large box-office receipts. The plot of each
film in a cycle was almost identical, but their popularity
ensured that they were used as a last resort by the big
companies to defend cinema audiences from erosion by
television.
The monster film, the ghost film, and the Tora-san series
were made specifically to be the spectacles of particular
seasons. However, from the early 1960s when television
audiences began to surpass those of the cinema, the five
major companies each developed their own genre specialities. The yakuza (gangster) film genre from Toei, sold on
the sensationalism of violence, is one of the most prominent examples. From the late 1960s and into the 1970s
yakuza films were made continually. At Toho, monster
films as well as wordy war films were made as seasonal
spectacles, and for their regular programme Toho emphasized youth films and comedies. Shochiku also stressed
the comedy, from which films like the Tora-san series were
born. Nikkatsu and Daiei, however, could not penetrate
such genre lines and their fortunes declined as a result.

sex and violence

In 1971 Daiei went bankrupt and Nikkatsu took the dramatic step of turning to the production of soft-core pornography, called roman poruno. Sex films had been made

in Japan by independent companies since around 1963

under the name of pink film. At that time there had been
some sex films which had drawn praise from mainstream
critics, and the line between pornography and mainstream cinema was not rigid. For example, some of the sex
films of Koji Wakamatsu had certain avant-garde elements
and a political edge, and his work had been evaluated
highly from early on. The works of Tetsuji Takechi were
the most famous sex films before Nikkatsu launched the
roman poruno. Takechis films, unlike pink films, were
released through mainstream companies and screened in
ordinary theatres. Takechis sex films Hakujitsu mu
(Daydream, 1964) and Kokeimu (Scarlet daydream, 1964)
are regarded as having artistic value, particularly in the
use of hallucinatory sequences.
After November 1971 most films produced by Nikkatsu
were sex films, resulting in the unique phenomenon of
a major studio turning exclusively to the production of
pornography. However, while the roman poruno was part
of the sex film genre it was essentially narrative cinema
with many sex scenes and different from the explicit pornography of the so-called blue films. In early roman porunos,
directors like Tatsumi Kumashiro, Toru Murakawa, and
Toshiya Fujita developed interesting films, and the genre
soon became a place where young directors could learn
the mise-en-sce`ne of narrative film-making. Some of the
directors who would later constitute the core of Japanese
cinema learnt their craft from the roman poruno.
In the 1970s, with Daiei bankrupt, Nikkatsu making the
roman poruno, and the three other major companies only
manufacturing stereotyped genre films, there was little
scope for the production of high-quality art cinema in
Japan. Collaboration with the Arts Theatre Guild (ATG)
provided the only opening for directors interested in this
area. ATG had been founded with the aim of importing
quality foreign films, both classic and modern, into Japan.
In 1968 ATG began to produce films in collaboration with
other independent companies. This provided a home for
the directors of the New Wave who had been forced to
leave the major companies, and ATG helped realize the
further development of the work of Shohei Imamura,
Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, and Yoshishige
Yoshida. The company did not only help the New Wave
directors of the 1960s, but also provided opportunities
for younger film-makers like the television director Akio
Jissoji, and the poet Shuji Terayama. However, the golden
age of ATG did not last more than ten years, and by the
late 1970s it was no longer the centre of creative Japanese
cinema.
The degeneration of quality Japanese cinema became
conspicuous in the late 1970s. In 1975 the yearly boxoffice profits of imported foreign films surpassed those of
Japanese films. In this period the entrance fees at cinemas
in Japan were the highest in the world and the numbers
719

the modern cinema

19601995

Kazoku geemu (Family Game,

1983), Yoshimitsu Moritas
ironic dissection of the
traditional family film genre

who would risk paying high prices to see Japanese films

were steadily decreasing. Toei was still producing yakuza
films and Nikkatsu was still making roman poruno, production policies which assumed (and ensured) that the
primary audience was male. About half of the cinemas
that showed Japanese films were never entered by women.
Toei produced programmes for children as their seasonal
spectacle in summer and winter, and so during the holidays the film theatres filled with children and their
parents. This gave rise to the strange phenomenon of busy
family seasons, sandwiched between times when films of
sex and violence were shown to exclusively male audiences.
In the 1970s the major film companies seemed to have
lost the ability to develop new talent for their products.
This period did see the appearance of some talented directors like Kazuhiko Hasegawa and Mitsuo Yanagimachi,
but these came from outside the major companies. In
common with the New Wave of the 1960s, these young
directors took violence as their point of departure. The
depiction of violence seemed to open the way to new
creative forms, sidestepping the stereotyped films of traditional of Japanese cinema. However, the shocking
effectiveness of depictions of violence was lost by the
1980s.
In the late 1970s a new development added an edge to
Japanese cinema. Young people in their teens and twenties
began to make films with 8 mm. or 16 mm. cameras and
exhibit them to general audiences. Among these amateur
film-makers were some who would go on to give fresh
power to the impoverished national cinema. The directors
720

Kazuki Omori, Nobuhiko Obayashi, and Sogo Ishii came

from an amateur film-making background. Ishiis
dynamic direction and his quasi-surrealistic stories had a
character new to Japanese art cinema. The violent
elements of his films are comical and it is in this that he
can be distinguished from the other film-makers of the
time who could not sever their links to the New Wave of
the 1960s.

new developments
The significant Japanese films of the 1980s, however, were
characterized by an absence of violence. Kohei Oguri
adopted black and white and standard screen size for his
debut film Doro no kawa (Muddy river, 1981), which was
set in the 1950s. The nostalgia towards old film form
resembled Kei Kumais Shinobu gawa (The long darkness,
Toho, 1972). However, Oguris method has more realism
than Kumais, and represents through poetic qualities
the beautiful moments which Japanese people living in a
modern society too often forget. Yoshimitsu Morita made
a film using the traditional Japanese cinema theme of the
family. In Kazoku geemu (Family game, 1983) his ironic
handling of the traditional family film genre and television drama showed that there are new possibilities to
be found in the theme of the ordinary. The family film
genre of Shochiku and the films of Yasujiro Ozu examined
the attractiveness of images from daily life, a theme
revived in the 1980s. Very subtle movements of the mind
are seized in the description of daily life in Taifu kurabu
(The Typhoon Club, Shinzi Somai, 1985) and Uhoho tankentai (An unstable family, Kichitaro Negishi, 1987). Com-

the modernization of japanese film

pared to these movies, Nagisa Oshimas Merry Christmas,

Mr Lawrence (Senjo no merii kurisumasu, 1982), which
depicted the realistic situation of men living by violence,
seemed rather anachronistic.
In 1984 the actor Juzo Itami made his first film as a
director, Ososhiki (The funeral). This film, based around an
event frequently depicted in Japanese cinema, comically
described peoples behaviour at a funeral. Itamis startingpoint lay in the concept of the manual. In modern
Japanese society a manual is indispensable when embarking on anything new. If a new computer is bought the
manual must be consulted first, and from Itamis ironic
viewpoint, people cannot even conduct a funeral ceremony without the appropriate manual.
The popular comedian Takeshi Kitano made his debut
as the director of Sono otoko kyobo ni tsuki (Beware the
brutal man, 1989). From the late 1980s to the early 1990s,
some TV stars and novelists made their own films as directors. Most of these films were amateurish and had no sense
of film art, with the exception of the films of Takeshi
Kitano.
Since the mid-1980s, many of the major companies
films had depended on manga (Japanese comics) as their
story sources. By adapting the story of manga printed in
weekly magazines, a certain measure of box-office profit
is assured because of the already tremendous popularity
of the story-line and characters. The power of manga is
becoming nearly as influential as literature in Japanese
cinema. However, there has yet to be a truly cinematic
work based on a manga story.
Animated films have been made in Japan since the silent
years. As early as the mid-1910s some excellent animated
films were completed, including Noburo Ofujis experimental series Chiyogami Anime. After the war Toei emphasized the production of feature-length animated films.
Many animated films have been made for television in
Japan, the majority for children. However, the situation
changed in the 1980s, with feature-length animation for
a broader audience being produced. One of the most
important directors of this animation is Hayao Miyazaki,
whose works, such as Tonari no Totoro (Totoro, the neighbourhood ghost, 1988), constitute a definitive example of
contemporary Japanese art.
Until the 1970s cinema was in close collaboration with
television. All the major companies were making television films in parallel with their theatrical releases. In

the 1980s the situation became more complicated on

account of the diffusion of video. The film companies were
the suppliers of films for television and the video market,
but the more films the studios supply, the more the audiences are drawn away from the cinemas. Within a few
months of its theatrical release, a film can be seen on
the small screen, either on broadcast television or on
videocassette. The videocassette extends the life and reputation of film classics, but the cheap rental fee of videos
caused a decrease in the number of cinema patrons. The
circulation of pornographic videos also struck a blow to
the production of roman poruno. From the late 1980s
Nikkatsus box-office profits were diminishing each year,
and in 1993 Nikkatsu, the oldest film company in Japan,
went bankrupt.
In recent years several different genres have competed
for popularity at the box-office. In the late 1980s, for
example, films with animals in the leading roles enjoyed
great success. Audiences also gathered to see the animation films of Hayao Miyazaki. Films that are made for
a broad spectrum of the public, as well as films for children, are considered secure profitable subjects for the
studios. It is true that some part of Japanese cinema has
become infantile, but in order to attract audiences the
film companies have been forced to produce such films.
They made films using popular TV personalities to attract
teenagers, the reverse of thirty years before, when people
went to film theatres to see the actors who could not be
seen on the television.
The condition of Japanese cinema in the 1990s is still
unhealthy, with cinema attendances low. There is a danger
that theatrical Japanese cinema may disappear altogether.
The Tora-san series and animated films for families are
still a guaranteed source of profit, but the situation has
become so difficult that film can no longer be produced
with the creative freedom enjoyed by directors of the New
Wave.
Bibliography
Anderson, Joseph L., and Richie, Donald (1982), The Japanese Film:
Art and Industry.
Desser, David (1988), Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese
New Wave Cinema.
Nolletti, Arthur, Jr., and Desser, David (eds.) (1992), Reframing
Japanese Cinema: Authorship, Genre and History.
Sato, Tadao, et al. (eds.) (1986), Koza Nihon Eiga, vols. vi and vii.
Tanaka, Junichiro (1976), Nihon Eiga Hattatsu Shi, vols. iv and v.

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