<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="text-align: center;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="text-align: center;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>As many of you know, I have started an electronic reprint series at the University of Michigan's Center for Japanese Studies Press. Here's the URL if you haven't visited: </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><A href="http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/filmseries..html">http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/filmseries.html</A></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV>One of the projects that has been in the works is David Bordwell's book on Ozu. We are still in the midst of preparation, but some industrious soul discovered the book—obviously, you can't hide anything from Google. We have yet to make a page for the book in the reprint series website. David will be writing a new introduction for the electronic version. And we hope to improve on the photographs, which really look poor. But it's out, and we are happy to make the release of this a gradual thing. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So David has announced the reprint in his blog, and here I am announcing it here. I'm including the text of his blog entry below, but why not visit his homepage and check out what else is there? </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><A href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=59">http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=59</A></SPAN></FONT></B></FONT><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B>You'll find a link to the book in his blog entry. Enjoy. Rethink Ozu. Use it in your classes! </B></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></B></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B>Markus</B></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></B></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</B></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#577382" face="Verdana"><B><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></SPAN></FONT></B></FONT><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px"><A href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=59"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14.7px;"><B>I Wrote a Book, But…; or, What Did the Professor Forget?</B></SPAN></FONT></A></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">From DB:</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">My 1988 book, </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><I>Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema</I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">, is available again, I’m happy to report. There’s a little backstory, probably of interest only to those who follow the zigzags of academic publishing.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Around 1990 the British Film Institute declared the book out of print. The US copublisher, Princeton University Press, agreed to keep it in print under two conditions.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">First, I would have to pay for the cleaning of the preprint material (the sheets of plastic on which the master copies of the pages were printed). Cost: $1000. Second, I would receive no royalties. I agreed to the terms, since I wanted to have this book, for all its faults, available.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">So for about a decade, the book was still out there. I enjoyed the anecdotal value of getting royalty statements reading: </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><B>Your royalty payment is $000.00</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">. Still, all those decimal points sort of rubbed it in. Wouldn’t $0 have been enough?</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">As Ozu’s centenary approached in 2003, I contacted Princeton to alert them. Maybe there’d be a bump of interest in Ozu, and they might want to do another printing. But the Press replied that, um, they had some months before declared their edition out of print.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">Publishers have a habit of not telling authors about decisions like this. There’s no fun way to announce that a book is orphaned, or maybe slain. Then too there’s the somewhat awkward matter of returning a piece of intellectual property that might become an asset some day. Anyhow, Jerry Bruckheimer wasn’t likely to pick up the movie rights to </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><I>Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema</I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">, and so after regaining copyright control, I took the book on the road.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">No surprise: Other publishers were not crazy about reprinting a big fat book with lots of pictures, published fifteen years before and probably bought by every soul who might ever want a copy. I’d hoped that a book on very likely the greatest film director who ever lived might be worth keeping around. But no, alas.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Every month or so, as the Ozu touring program roamed greater North America in 2003 and 2004, a fan would email asking me to sell a copy of the book. Web booksellers were demanding up to $600. The thought of selling one to a book dealer at a jacked-up price, perhaps with a signature affixed, did cross my mind, but I had only two copies of my own.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Eventually I learned of the publishing program launched by the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. The Center had begun posting out-of-print books on Japanese cinema online. I contacted Markus Nornes, who generously sponsored and oversaw the project.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">I learn from a correspondent that the book is now available in pdf form </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cjs;cc=cjs;idno=0920054.0001.001;node=0920054.0001.001%3A4.4;frm=frameset;view=toc"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#CC660A">online</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Now you can read the book, and can even buy a print-on-demand copy if you want. (I look forward to the $000.00 checks from Ann Arbor.) The downside: The 500-plus pictures range from tolerable to terrible. I also planned to write an introduction with updates and corrections, and I still hope to do that. There’s even talk about replacing some stills, perhaps with color frames.</SPAN></FONT></P><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Georgia; min-height: 19px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><BR></SPAN></DIV><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">So if you’re interested in Ozu, Japanese film history, or the poetics of cinema, you might want to check this out. Of course you can instead crack your piggy bank and order the </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&y=0&tn=ozu+and+the+poetics+of+cinema&x=0"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#CC660A">single copy</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> of the original I’ve found on what our President calls the Internets.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">If I were in an Ozu film, I’d probably now emit a sigh mixing satisfaction and resignation. Then I’d reach for a beer. Or at least an orange drink. No, a beer.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><B>Update</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">, November 10: I’d thought that print-on-demand copies would be available, but Carsten Czarnecki points out that the Center site doesn’t seem to indicate that. I’ll check further.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><B>Update #2</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">, same day: Our keen-eyed web tsarina Meg has found still other copies of the original book available, at prices starting at $118.95, </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><A href="http://www.fetchbook.info/compare.do?search=0691008221"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#CC660A">here</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">. Please remit 10 % finder’s fee to her.</SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>