Markus Nornes

Markus Nornes is a scholar of Asian cinema and documentary filmmaker. He specializes in Japanese studies, documentary and translation theory. He arrived at University of Michigan in 1996. Much of his work has explored the history of Japanese documentary and its theoretical implications, as well as nonfiction production in other parts of Asia. Nornes has also published widely on the topic of screen translation.

Throughout his graduate work and into his career at University of Michigan, Nornes worked as a programmer on the international film festival circuit. As a Coordinator at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, he organized major retrospectives with complex, hefty catalogs. They include Nichibei Eigasen: Media Wars—Then & Now (commemorating the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, 1991), In Our Own Eyes: First Nations’ Film and Video Festival (1993), and Den’ei Nanahenge: Seven Transfigurations in Electric Shadows (for the cinema centenary, 1995). At UM, he regularly programs events by visiting filmmakers from China, Japan and Korea.

Nornes’ research centers on the cinemas of Asia, particularly the non-fiction form. His first book is a history of the first half-century of documentary in Japan. It examines the emergence of documentary, its exploitation by left-wing movements, and ultimately its cooptation by the government in waging war across Asia. He followed this up with a monograph following the life trajectory of director Ogawa Shinsuke. Ogawa left PR filmmaking in the 1960s to organize a powerful collective of young activist artists, leaving an indelible impact on both Japanese and Asian documentary. As with his work on Chinese documentary, Nornes is foremost concerned with the political and ethical complexities of producing documentary at times of social tension or political crisis.

Nornes also specializes in film translation. He has translated subtitles for Japanese films and written a monograph on the subject. In the course of uncovering the history of film translation from the silent to the digital eras, he delivers a polemic that calls for “abusive translation.” This is an approach to subtitling, dubbing and interpretation that accounts for the material qualities of language, celebrating moments of untranslatability and advocating for innovative translations that tamper with convention. He has brought this stance to his own subtitling of Japanese films.

He made the 5-screen video installation entitled The Player Played (2017), on the first shot of Robert Altman's The Player. In 2018, he released The Big House, a film he co-directed with Soda Kazuhiro, Terri Sarris and students from the University of Michigan (https://www.kazuhirosoda.com/thebighouse). He recently completed another film with students and Chris McNamara on the 2020 Michigan Primary entitled When We're Together.

In 2021, Professor Nornes released his new Open Access monograph, Brushed in Light (University of Michigan Press, 2021), which is on calligraphy in East Asian cinema. Currently, he is working on a critical biography of filmmaker Adachi Masao, and a major multi-volume collection of Japanese film theory in translation.

Works-in-Progress

• Calligraphy in East Asian cinema
• The history of film theory in Japanese cinema
• Japanese pink film

Affiliation(s)

• Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Film, Television, and Media
• Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
• Professor, School of Art & Design
• Center for Japanese Studies
• Center for Chinese Studies
• Nam Center for Korean Studies

Award(s)

• Faculty Research Grant for Taiwan Studies, Ministry of Education, Taiwan (2011)
• Visiting Professorship, Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC (2010)
• Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese studies, Harvard University (2008-2009)
• Japan Foundation Research Fellow, Tokyo, Japan (2004-2005)
• Fulbright Research Fellow, Tokyo, Japan (1999-2000)

Field(s) of Study

• Japanese Cinema
• Asian Cinema
• Documentary
• Moving Image Translation