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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=amnornes@umich.edu href="mailto:amnornes@umich.edu">Mark Nornes</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=kineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
href="mailto:kineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu">kineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=my15@nyu.edu
href="mailto:my15@nyu.edu">Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto</A> ; <A
title=amnornes@umich.edu href="mailto:amnornes@umich.edu">A. M. Nornes</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, December 09, 2003 2:44
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Announcing Kinema Club III</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Please forward around!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}<BR><?/fontfamily><?/center><?fontfamily><?param Gill Sans><BR><BR><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger>Announcing...<?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><BR><?/fontfamily><?center><?fontfamily><?param Gill Sans><?color><?param 3838,7474,D1D1><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger>Kinema
Club III<?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/color><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><?bigger><BR><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?/bigger><?color><?param 3838,7474,D1D1>New
York University, February 13-14, 2004<BR><B>Organized by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
and Abé Mark Nornes</B><?/color><BR><?/fontfamily><?/center><?fontfamily><?param Gill Sans><BR>The
success of Kinema Club II in Honolulu left participants screaming for more. So
here you go! Kinema Club III will be held at New York University, and
the format will be more like our first outing. Papers will be distributed
beforehand in mid-January, and presenters will give only the barest of
introductions before opening the floor to discussion. <BR><BR>This also
means that space at the table is limited to about 20 participants. We will
fill those seats on a first come, first served basis starting with this email.
<U>If you would like to come to New York for Kinema Club III please contact us
now. </U> <BR><BR>If you are unable to come (or get turned away for that
matter) fear not. We will hold Kinema Club IV in late spring/early summer
2005. This will be a large gathering---perhaps larger than this year's
event---and if you would like to host it please contact us directly.
<BR><BR>Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
(<U><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFF>my15@nyu.edu<?/color></U>) & A. M.
Nornes
(<U><?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFF>amnornes@umich.edu<?/color></U>)<BR><BR><B><?bigger>Schedule<?/bigger></B><?bigger><BR><?/bigger><I>February
13 (Friday)</I><BR>15:00-18:00<BR><B>--Tom Lamarre,</B> “Worlds without
Others: Anime and the World-Making Power of the Fetish”<BR><B>--Satomi Saito,
</B>“The Evolution of Anime Language: Anime Consumption”<BR><BR><I>February 14
(Saturday)</I><BR>9:00-12:00<BR><B>--Daisuke Miyao,</B> "Stardom and Japanese
Modernity: Sessue Hayakawa and the Pure Film Movement"<BR><B>--Mark
Anderson,</B> "The Star System in Japanese
Cinema"<BR><BR><I>14:00-17:00</I><BR><B>--Michael Raine,</B> "Non-intensive
<I>Mise-en-scene</I>: Textual Analysis and Japanese Popular
Ephemera"<U><BR></U><B>--Catherine Russell,</B> "Naruse at P.C.L. (1935-37):
The Moga and her Sisters"<BR><BR><B><U><?color><?param 3838,7474,D1D1><?bigger>Abstracts<?/bigger><?/color></U></B><?bigger><BR><BR><?/bigger><B>Worlds
without Others: Anime and the World-Making Power of the Fetish<BR>Thomas
Lamarre</B><BR>This paper is basically a comparison of two kinds of fetish,
one that opens world-making power, one that forecloses it. My examples
of the foreclosure of world-making power come from recent series that try to
construct histories across different media — primarily <I>Blood: The Last
Vampire</I> with its animated film, video game, novels and manga; and the
recent <I>Matrix</I> sequel, with its video game and animated films (a
strategy borrowed from <I>Blood</I> and other anime series). I argue
that the multi-planar aesthetics (or internal montage) characteristic of many
anime films and series allow for the production of ‘signature layers’ within
the image. The spectator attends to, and often notes the difference
between, character designer, writer, producer, and director. The use of
signature layers has allowed anime to explore the possibilities for histories
across media — and potentially new ways of imagining history and media.
Yet it is a strategy of serialization that remains so close to the
logic of the commodity fetish that is almost indistinguishable from it.
These series foreclose the world-making power of the fetish in the
commodity.<?/fontfamily><?fontfamily><?param Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro> <?/fontfamily><?fontfamily><?param Gill Sans><BR><BR>As an example of
animation that opens world-making power differently, I call on a recent
Japanese animated series, <I>Chobits</I>, based on the popular manga penned by
the four-women team named CLAMP. (CLAMP is team known for their
reworking of different genres, and <I>Chobits</I> is their version of (or
response to) <I>hentai</I>.) Although <I>Chobits</I> also remains
disturbingly close to the logic of the commodity fetish, the way in which
<I>Chobits</I> reworks the conventions of <I>hentai</I> allows us to see what
is at stake in <I>hentai</I> — the narrative and visual construction of a
‘world without others.’ I look at how <I>Chobits</I> works narratively
and visually to construct its world without others — to remove otherness from
the structuration of the visual field. This not only tells us about how
<I>hentai</I> works. It also offers another way to think about
how, in the drive to produce new worlds, the multi-planar aesthetics of anime
strive to go beyond the logic of commodity fetish. While (perhaps
inevitably) <I>Chobits</I> and other hentai may fall short, their virtue is to
show the problem so clearly.<BR><BR><B>The Evolution of Anime Language: Anime
Consumption<BR>Satomi Saito</B><BR>Japanese animation, now commonly referred
to as anime, is an interesting field of study, not just because of its
popularity in the global market today but because of the way it disturbs
existing disciplinary boundaries. Despite its demand from the side of
students, anime has always been a nuisance for scholars and teachers of
literary studies, Japanese studies, and film studies. Anime resists
these disciplinary approaches firstly because anime’s dominant format, which
is the serialized TV program, is hopelessly multiple denying the notion of
authorship and textual coherency. Moreover, anime cannot fit into a
single medium, cell-animation, since it developed along with fan cultures that
traverse several different media such as manga, music, garage kits, idol
culture, and a game. What we see in anime culture is a media-mix
consumption that characterizes the global consumer market today. If we
fail to see the role of anime in media-mix global markets, we end up
reinforcing the same disciplinary problems by accommodating anime harmoniously
into existing boundaries.<BR><BR>In my paper, I would like to discuss
possibilities of a new visual theory for anime analysis that makes it possible
to treat anime not as a coherent category, but as dynamic media-mix phenomena.
When Japanese animation started to target young adult audience, which is
also the birth of “anime,” it went through changes in its visual aesthetics.
Characteristics of limited animation, i.e. segmentation of shots and
reliance on still images, introduced the issue of point-of-view comparable to
cinema. This point-of-view links the discourse not simply to the
story-world as in cinema but also to the characters that are extremely
fetishized with excessive details, shades, and highlights which inevitably
makes the images flat and static. This change in visual aesthetics is
resulted from the changes in consumer habits in the 80s. The consumption
of stories, which facilitated the proliferation of manga-based animation
(telebi manga) in the 70s, was gradually substituted by the consumption of
images (anime characters) in the 80s. Instead of plots and stories,
rapidly consumable “flat” characters became primal commodities that traverse
multiple media in the 90s. In such circulation of images, stories these
characters convey become more and more marginal; or rather they become
something that can be fabricated depending on the consumers’ demands in its
aftermarket.<BR><BR>By treating anime as a new mode of consumption, my paper
will offer an alternative to the thematic analysis of anime that presumably
reflects contemporary Japanese society and to the historical analysis of anime
that traces its chronological history to pre-war era presupposing anime’s
identity as cell-animation.<BR><BR><B>Stardom and Japanese Modernity: Sessue
Hayakawa and the Pure Film Movement<BR>Daisuke Miyao</B><BR>Sessue Hayakawa
(1886-1973) was a very popular silent film star in the<BR>United States from
1915 until 1922. He was the only non-Caucasian movie<BR>star who had the
status of a matinee idol. Hayakawa’s unique stardom was<BR>formed and received
at the complex intersection of global film culture and<BR>social and cultural
discourses, especially on race, class, gender, nation,<BR>and modernity. Films
and film stardom have been produced and consumed in<BR>locally specific
contexts and various conditions of reception. Miriam<BR>Hansen claims, "To
write the international history of classical American<BR>cinema, therefore, is
a matter of tracing not just its mechanisms of<BR>standardization and hegemony
but also the diversity of ways in which this<BR>cinema was translated and
reconfigured in both local and translocal contexts<BR>of reception." This
paper examines the way Hayakawa’s stardom was<BR>differently appropriated and
articulated within the social and national<BR>formation by various and
contradictory political, ideological, and cultural<BR>interests before,
during, and after his or her public circulation.<BR><BR>The 1910s was the time
when the American film industry achieved global<BR>market dominance, largely
during and due to the First World War. The 1910s<BR>and early 20s marked a
pivotal period with Hollywood coming into existence<BR>as a global center of
film production and promotion to a certain degree.<BR>Japanese audiences were
often dismayed by the result and protested against<BR>Hayakawa’s
representation of Japan in the light of authenticity.<BR><BR>Simultaneously
they tried to utilize Hayakawa’s star image for their own<BR>political or
nationalist purposes. Since the end of the nineteenth century,<BR>the Japanese
government domestically adopted a modernization policy.<BR>Particularly after
World War I, Japan tried to participate in world politics<BR>and economy as a
modernized nation. As an attempt to compete with European<BR>and American
cultural colonialism and to bolster nationalism using cinema,<BR>Japanese
intellectuals and government officials initiated a movement, or a<BR>trend,
called "<I>jun’eigageki undo</I>," the Pure Film Movement, to
appropriate<BR>Hollywood-style filmmaking for the purpose of modernizing
cinema in Japan.<BR>In such a trend, Hayakawa’s American stardom was
incorporated into Japanese<BR>modernity in a complicated way. As an American
import, Hayakawa was praised<BR>because his star image had a universal appeal
well beyond Japanese cultural<BR>boundaries. As a Japanese actor, Hayakawa was
praised as an ideal<BR>representative of Japanese people and culture for his
popularity in the US,<BR>but simultaneously he was often criticized for
appearing in anti-Japanese<BR>films that were considered as distorting actual
Japanese national and<BR>cultural characteristics.<BR><BR><B>The Star System
in Japanese Silent Film<BR>Mark
Anderson</B><BR> I am interested in a
collaborative project that undertakes a<BR>historical survey of the star
system in Japanese film, its ties to genre, and the<BR>evolution of
typecasting as it relates to gender, class, and
ethnicity.<BR> <BR>The paper I will be presenting
examines the shimpa to silent film<BR>transition in connection with <I>Konjiki
Yasha</I> and <I>Hototogisu</I>. There are<BR>seventeen silent versions of
<I>Konjiki Yasha</I>. My preliminary research<BR>indicates that rival studios
placing their stars in this vehicle have<BR>something to do with this
incredible proliferation of remakes.<BR> <BR>The
notices on silent versions of <I>Konjiki Yasha</I> I've found so
far<BR>generally relate Entertainment Tonight type of information: where the
film<BR>is being shot, which stars are involved, and how anxiously the film
release<BR>is being anticipated. Much of the story seems to come from the
press buzz<BR>around the celebrity actors and
actesses.<BR> <BR>My paper will develop this line
of questioning toward answering how<BR>casting was conducted in early silent
family drama and from what point<BR>casting was relied upon in packaging and
marketing film to the public.<BR>Lastly, I will try to examine what the
particular codes of typecasting<BR>assume concerning gender, class, and
ethnicity in film roles and celebrity<BR>as sold to the Japanese public in the
early 20th century.<BR><BR><B>Non-intensive <I>Mise-en-scene</I>: Textual
Analysis and Japanese Popular Ephemera<BR>Michael Raine</B><BR>In the middle
of <I>Taiyo no kisetsu</I>, the first of the "taiyozoku" films of 1956, a
scene opens with a high angle extreme long shot of a group of young men about
to launch a boat in the harbor at Hayama. At the bottom of the screen we see
that they are chased by a group of young women in swimsuits. After importuning
them for a ride on the boat the leader of the girls asks where the boys are
from, which brings a geographically implausible reply that sounds like
"Shiga-ken, sa". But the line also sounds like "see you again, sa" a play on
the girls' strikingly foreign bodily presentation -- a low angle shot of
swimsuits and sunglasses -- that is reinforced when their leader replies to
her own question, saying that they're from the Yoshida English school. When
the boys' spokesman asks for the girls' names their leader replies, "Mary,
Sally, Michi, Judy … Elsa". That response leads one of the boys to ask after
their nationality to which Elsa replies, equally facetiously, "<I>Issei</I>,
of course. Everyone says so". That foreign affiliation seems the point of a
scene that ends without resolution (it is not clear whether the girls get
their ride, nor do they appear in the rest of the film), a point confirmed by
one of the boys who highlights this feminine detournement of nationality by
dubbing each of the boys with an archaic male name suited only for
<I>jidai-geki</I>. <BR><BR>Since "gender" is the single category most often
applied to ideology critique in the cinema, this scene should pose few
problems. In these arguments women are made to bear either the burden of
nationality (the woman as the threatened "Japanese thing" that must be
preserved) or the mark of a suspiciously anti-national modernity (the
<I>moga</I>, the <I>pan-pan</I>, or the <I>apure ge-ru</I>). The task of the
critic is to choose between these fetishizing and sadistic representations,
and to prosecute the film accordingly. Perhaps in the end that's the best
thing to do with <I>Taiyo no kisetsu</I>, a film for which it would be
difficult to mount an aesthetic defense. Instead, I would like to consider the
importance of non-intensive "mise-en-scene" to this portrayal of linguistic
and bodily "miscegenation", as it relates to 1950s Japanese "audio-visual
culture". That is, rather than find in the film hidden resources of formal
play or ideological tension, I will claim that the film's relation to the
social phenomena that produced it was one of citation, and that a more
productive understanding of how we should think of the film <I>as a film</I>
comes from an study of its connection to wider extra-cinematic discourses.
<BR><BR>In the course of that project I will discuss the aural and visual
composition of the scene, and the place of such <I>mise-en-scene</I> analysis
in the recent theorization of "visual culture" in the recent writing of Ella
Shohat, Robert Stam, and Nicholas Mirzeoff. I will conclude that attempts to
find abstract and non-exclusionary formulations of visual culture fall back on
less sophisticated "logic of the form" assumptions to give them structure.
Nationality (and Americanization) will still be the foreground topics of the
piece but I will also be concerned with changes in Japanese cinema as an
institution, and to changes in Japanese "body culture." Perhaps in the end,
this scene from <I>Taiyo no kisetsu</I> is most interesting for its striking
typicality: audio-visual culture is best understood as a web of nodes with no
center, and no automatic political consequences, rather than as a field
punctuated by self-deconstructing texts. <BR><BR><B>Naruse at P.C.L.
(1935-37): The Moga and her Sisters<BR>Catherine Russell</B><BR>In 1935 Naruse
Mikio was invited to join the new studio P.C.L. as a key new director of their
“modern” cinema. The move also corresponds to his shift to sound film
production. The analysis of Naruse’s films during the two years before P.C.L.
was integrated into the Toho enterprise suggest how his representation of
women and urban space coincided with the larger shifts in Japanese culture and
mass media during this period. Cultural historians Miriam Silverberg and Harry
Harootunian have discussed the interwar period in terms of the construction of
Japanese modernity as a discourse of everyday life. Naruse’s cinema
demonstrates how this discourse was articulated in filmic form, and how the
dynamics of “<I>modan</I> culture” gave way in the latter part of the decade
to a very different national culture that nevertheless remained grounded in
the everyday.<BR><BR>While Naruse’s cinema studiously avoided any direct
acknowledgement of the ascendancy of the military in Japanese life, two of his
films of this period include pairings of women associated with modernity and
tradition. <I>Otome-gokoro sannin kyoudai</I> (<I>Three Sisters With Maiden
Hearts,</I> 1935) and <I>Uwasa no musume</I> (<I>The Girl on Everyones Lips,
</I>1935) are both about sisters living in downtown Tokyo. While these two
films include characters close to the infamous <I>moga</I> figure of interwar
Japan, in Naruse’s cinema female characters are given a greater complexity
than is usually associated with the <I>moga</I> stereotype. <I>Tsuma yo bara
yo no ni</I> (<I>Wife! Be Like a Rose!</I>), the first Japanese feature to be
distributed in the U.S., includes his most engaging female character of the
period, played by Chiba Sachiko. Although there is no evidence to support
Burch’s claim that Naruse “refused certain norms of Western cinema,” <I>Tsuma
yo bara</I> is indeed among his most well-executed films. I will argue that,
despite Burch’s analysis, Naruse was not engaged in any kind of
“transgressive” practice; and while his films of the 30s are certainly
stylistically and formally idiosyncratic, his experiments were motivated more
by a need to find an appropriate means of expression for modern Japanese life,
than to challenge established patterns of representation.<BR><BR>The paper
will also include brief discussions of some of the other titles Naruse was
responsible for during this period: <I>Sakasu gonin-gumi</I> (<I>Five Men in
the Circus, </I>1935), <I>Kumoemon Tochuken</I> (1936), <I>Nynoni aishu</I>
(<I>Feminine Melancholy,</I> 1937) and <I>Nadare</I> (<I>Avalanche,</I> 1937).
These films suggest how Naruse contributed to a popular culture in which
gender norms were under continual revision and contestation. The volume of
films is in itself remarkable (he made 10 films during these three years), and
although the quality is uneven, there is a consistent articulation of a
“vernacular modernism” appropriate to the shifting dynamics of the public
sphere. Precisely because of its association with new industrial methods of
mass culture, Naruse’s cinema provides a privileged insight into the shifts in
the symbolic cultural economy of the period. My reading of these films is thus
particularly attuned to the details of fashion, architecture, music and
narrative as well as—or as elements of—cinematic style and effects of
gender.<BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE><?/fontfamily></BODY></HTML>