“Film and I came of age together.”
―Iijima Tadashi
Flyer in Japanese (Click to Download Incl. Backside / Picture by Furukawa Osamu)
Whose name springs to mind when you see the words “Waseda” and “films” side by side? In all likelihood there are so many famous names that it’s impossible to count them all. From the age of Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) on, Waseda has produced numerous graduates active in theatre, film, and broadcasting.
What may not be so well known is that when the idea of establishing a film studies department was first mooted, there was already someone at Waseda who was urged by the University to put the new department on a firm footing.
That person was Japan’s pioneering film critic Iijima Tadashi (1902-1996). This exhibition, timed to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Iijima’s death, features materials he donated to the Library as well as other film related materials.
Flyer (backside)
In 1946, immediately after the end of the War, Iijima was appointed lecturer in the newly established Department of Fine Arts at Waseda and continued to teach at the University until his retirement. Iijima was born in Tokyo in 1902, just seven years after the birth of cinema itself. Ever since as a junior high school student he saw the film The Scarlet Car (1917), his life was inextricably interwoven with films. At about the same time, D. W. Griffith (1875-1948), the American so-called “father of cinema,” also discovered the expressive medium of film. In Europe the avant-garde film movement had born fruit, and in Japan the Pure Film Movement had emerged. The subtitle of the exhibition borrows the words of Iijima himself, whose life coincided with the spectacular rise of cinematic art.
Waseda University Library has a valuable collection of books from around the world that Iijima assembled from his student days onwards (Iijima Bunko = Bunko no. 26). This exhibition features the materials from Iijima Bunko and also never-before-exhibited Iijima’s draft manuscripts and original film scripts, as well as film magazines from the Taisho and Showa periods to which Iijima himself contributed as an independent critic.
Waseda University Library
Dates Venue
Dates: March 24 (Tue) – May 17 (Sun), 2026
Hours: 10:00 – 18:00 / Sundays 10:00 – 17:00
Venue: Exhibition Room, Center for Scholarly Information, 2nd floor
- Admission Free. Visitors without a library card can enter, too.
- Short Hours ( – 17:00): 3/28(Sat), 4/4(Sat), 5/2(Sat)
- Irregularly Closed: 5/3(Sun) – 5/6(Wed)
List of Exhibition Materials
Virtual Museum
Coming soon…
Supported by
enpaku
