VISUAL JAPAN: IDENTITY EXPLORATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE CINEMA

This course is one of the related/integrative activities of choice for students in the humanities of the Japanese curriculum, but is also recommended for students in the other curricula in order to gain an overview of the development of Japanese cinema from the post-World War II period to the present day in relation to the historical developments and political/cultural dynamics that have characterised the country, with a particular focus on identity issues that will naturally place it in dialogue with neighbouring East Asian countries (China and Korea).

The aim of the course is to provide students with basic knowledge and tools to understand communication strategies and figurative and visual languages used in Japan from the post-WWII period to the present day for self representation and to relate themselves to the world. Lessons will include case studies and use of audiovisual materials.

No prerequisites required, but it is recommended to attend the course with a good knowledge of post-World War II Japanese history.

The course aims to offer students some theoretical perspectives for the investigation of Japanese cinema from an identity perspective and identifies the cinematic birth of the contemporary "Japanese identity" in the New Wave revolution of the 1960s and then follows its changes up to the more recent international successes of Koreeda and Hamaguchi. The lectures will take both a diachronic approach, tracing the evolution of the Japanese film industry and its authors from the 1960s to the present day, and a synchronic one, focusing on a series of pivotal themes (zainichi, ethnic minorities and the relationship with the "other", memory of the war and the imperialist period, eco-disasters and the representation of natural disasters) around which the construction and problematisation of contemporary Japanese identity in cinema revolves.
The analysis of cinema in Japan also makes it possible to address, through the immediacy of the image, broader themes. Such themes include the economic dynamics and cultural flows linking China, South Korea and Japan, the different political practices (in some cases close to 'soft power' dynamics) involving the production and distribution of films in Asia but also in the global market, and the transition towards a global aesthetic versus what have long been analysed as national cinemas. In line with the most advanced international studies in the field of cinema in relation to political and social changes such as film festival studies and in direct contact with the practices of audiovisual production and distribution, the course provides students with both a historical-theoretical basis and keys to interpretations more directly related to the practices of cinema, orienting them towards the main moments in which the audiovisual industry is articulated: production, circulation and distribution.

Maria Roberta Novielli, Storia del cinema giapponese, Marsilio, Venezia, 2001 (from page 199)

Other materials will be provided by the teacher during classes and on the MOODLE platform

Written examination consisting of three essay questions

*In case of online exams an oral test will replace the written examination

Along with textbooks and explanations, a wide range of audivisual material will be employed, in order to complete and enrich oral knowledge.

Italian

written