CJS Noon Lecture ~ "Modern Cities and Filmmaking in Japan Around 1910: Differences between Tokyo and Kyoto"
Thursday, March 8, 2012
5:00 AM
Room 1636, School of Social Work Building, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor
Manabu Ueda is a Research Associate of the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University. Dr. Ueda completed the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Letters at Ritsumeikan University in literature. Ueda specializes in film and media studies and is the co-author of works including "Japan Film History Library 10: Film and War" (Shinwasha).
Tokyo and Kyoto are filmic cities in that, from the very beginning of the production of moving pictures in Japan up to the present day, the cities have been home to most of Japan’s film studios, as well as the sites where the majority of Japanese films were produced. During the silent film era, Japanese film production came to be colored by regional differences, whereby Tokyo became home of the gendai-geki , or contemporary dramas, whereas Kyoto became associated with jidai-geki, or period dramas. The regional characteristics of film production in Kyoto were particularly influential in inventing the modern era’s image of traditional Japan. In order to understand, to a certain extent, the historical and social conditions from which these regional characteristics arose, this lecture will compare the regional differences among the moving picture theaters that were emerging in Tokyo and Kyoto around 1910.
Tokyo and Kyoto are filmic cities in that, from the very beginning of the production of moving pictures in Japan up to the present day, the cities have been home to most of Japan’s film studios, as well as the sites where the majority of Japanese films were produced. During the silent film era, Japanese film production came to be colored by regional differences, whereby Tokyo became home of the gendai-geki , or contemporary dramas, whereas Kyoto became associated with jidai-geki, or period dramas. The regional characteristics of film production in Kyoto were particularly influential in inventing the modern era’s image of traditional Japan. In order to understand, to a certain extent, the historical and social conditions from which these regional characteristics arose, this lecture will compare the regional differences among the moving picture theaters that were emerging in Tokyo and Kyoto around 1910.
