Critical Conditions: Theory and Practice in Masumura Yasuzo and Yoshida Kiju(Workshop on July 23)
At least since the Soviets, the question of the relation of theory and practice has long been of central importance in cinema. In the 1950s and 1960s there was another efflorescence in theoretically informed practice, when writers for Cahiers du Cinema picked up the camera themselves. The dynamic relations between theory and practice in Japanese cinema history, however has not been available to non-Japanese readers.
In this presentation I will look at the work of two Japanese directors who wrote extensively on their theoretical positions that informed their work: Masumura Yasuzo (増村保造 1924-1986); and Yoshida Kiju 吉田喜重 (1933-). I read Masumura as a kind of speculative sociologist – focusing on Japanese specificity without succumbing to Nihonjinron. Yoshida articulates his interest in phenomenology in his writing, and realizes it on screen in a radical reconstruction of cinematic space. Finally I will reflect on the radical difference between the two theorist-practioners in how Yoshida deconstructs melodrama while Masumura reinhabits it to enable the genre’s signifying potential.
- Date & Time: July 23 (Mon.), 2018, 18:15-19:45
- Venue: Room 960, Bldg.#14, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
- Lecturer: Earl Jackson, University of California, Santa Cruz and National Chiao Tung University
- Title: Critical Conditions: Theory and Practice in Masumura Yasuzo and Yoshida Kiju
- Coordinators: Naoyuki UMEMORI (Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics); Yoshihiro NAKANO (Junior Researcher, ORIS)
- Language: English
- Open to: Students, faculty, staff and the general public
- Admission: Free