The Cinematic Influence: Interaction and Exchange Between the Cinemas of France and Japan

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Exploring the multiple aesthetic and cultural links between French and Japanese cinema, The Cinematic Influence is packed with vivid examples and case studies of films by Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Claire Denis, Naomi Kawase, Michel Gondry and many others. It illustrates the vast array of cinematic connections that mark a long history of mutual influence and reverence between filmmakers in France and Japan. The book provides new insights into the ways that national cinemas resist Hollywood to maintain and strengthen their own cultural practices and how these national cinemas perform the task of informing and enlightening other cultures about what it means to be French or Japanese. This book also deepens our understandings of film's role as a viable cultural and economic player in individual nations. Importantly, the reader will see that film operates as a form of cultural exchange between France and Japan, and more broadly, Europe and Asia. This is the first major book to investigate the crossover between these two diverse national cinemas by tracking their history of shared narrative and stylistic techniques.

Reviews

France and Japan offer two of the worlds most vibrant and fascinating film cultures. This lively introductory survey maps out some of the major thematic and contextual contours of the dynamic inter-relationship between these two regions. * Alastair Phillips, Professor of Film Studies, University of Warwick, UK *
The book examines both cinemas -French and Japanese and the exchanges and influences between these two cinematic eco-systems (17) since their inception and more particularly since the 1940s. It probes into various cultural tropes pertinent to each culture and contrasts them while explaining how some of these can be shared. The authors are well informed of Japanese and French cinema. They unpack some of the stylistic and thematic ideas at their core. The segmentation is carefully thought-out, and incorporates the French New Wave, not to be confused with the Japanese Nouvelle vague. Their study is deeply indebted to some of the major critics/historians of Japanese and French cinema. It offers an interesting look at cross cultural differences and links between directors. The production and reception aspects are exposed, as well as some of the contemporary concerns regarding films today, their increased visibility at film festivals, East and West, in venues which have become a place for not only showing films but also creative meetings. As the reader navigates these respective cinematic productions, the complex nature of the Franco-Japanese filmic relationship is revealed when it comes to mise en scene, history, culture, various genres and concerns, literary adaptations, and locations. I plan to include this volume for an upcoming class on the encounter between east (Japanese) and west (French) cinemas. * Sylvie Blum-Reid, Professor of French & Film Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA *
This book is a wonderful antidote to the idea that the West holds the primacy in all aspects of the movie-making art and industry. Instead, it puts forward the principle of a cross-border dialogue, where there are no winners or losers, leaders or followers. Rather, its a realm of democratic exchange where two cultures commingle in their love for each others films. France and Japan, with their deep-rooted cinephilias, are the most eloquent and ravishing example of this love story. From the quasi-simultaneous emergence of the closely entwined French and Japanese New Waves, in the 1950s-60s, to Catherine Deneuve starring a Kore-eda film in our day, what a pleasure to navigate this fertile transnational conversation! * Lcia Nagib, Professor of Film, University of Reading, UK *

Author Bio

Peter C. Pugsley is Associate Professor in Media/Film Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. His research and teaching focus on Asian film and screenwriting. Ben McCann is Associate Professor of French Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. His most recent book is LAuberge espagnole: European Youth on Film (2018).