Japanese Cinema

A Personal Journey

by Peter Cowie

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Pub Date Jun 07 2022 | Archive Date Jul 13 2022

Stone Bridge Press

Arts & Photography | Multicultural Interest | Nonfiction (Adult)

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Description

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.

This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas, beginning with the classic directors who came to the fore in the postwar period and became legendary names on the art house circuit: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kobayashi, Naruse, and Oshima, among others. Japanese Cinema traces the common themes explored by these directors as well as the impact of important historical and cultural issues, including World War 2, the representation of women, and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s.

Finally, Peter Cowie surveys the state of contemporary Japanese film and its greatest living practitioners, Hirokazu Kore-eda among them, as well as the international face of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki. Cowie brings a lifetime’s commitment to film to bear on the human relationships so well explored by these Japanese auteurs.

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.

This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas...

Advance Praise

"Peter Cowie has introduced more people to the glories of foreign cinema than any living writer. Japanese Cinema: A Personal Journey is both a warm labor of love and an indispensable work of scholarship, suitable for novices and aficionados alike. It's the only book you need to read on the subject."
—Mick LaSalle, author of The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses

"Peter Cowie invites us to travel along with him through decades of exceptional Japanese films. Along the way we meet many of Japan’s beloved directors and a host of others who have been influential in producing and promoting Japanese films (Madame Kawakita, Donald Richie, cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, to name a few). This ‘personal journey’ extends from the frozen north of Hokkaidō to the warmer port cities of Hiroshima and Onomichi, and beyond. Along with Cowie, we explore Japan’s “alternating currents of violence and reflection” through his intimate, but also expansive, point of view."
—Dr. Linda Ehrlich, Author of Cinematic Reveries: Gestures, Stillness, Water

"Peter Cowie has introduced more people to the glories of foreign cinema than any living writer. Japanese Cinema: A Personal Journey is both a warm labor of love and an indispensable work of...