National Identity / Transnational Identity

[Alan Kita]

For most of the world, aside from Japan and the U.S./Canada, film seems
to be an integral part of culture and thus, film is also used to forge a
national identity.  Witness the growing number of films made available
from Iran and Vietnam.  The three cinemas that seem to exist in the
China(s) - China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

There is an attempt in the U.S. to forge an American cinema by
preserving the past, i.e., the films being restored and preserved by
national agenda.  But as far as contemporary films, we seem to have
segmented out national cinema into African American films, Native
American films, Asian American films, gay/lesbian films, women films,
etc.

How has Japanese cinema being viewed in terms of a "national" identity? 
It seems Japan has done well in "nationalizing" traditional arts and
culture, but how about cinema?

Alan

Aaron Gerow wrote:
> 
> Discussions have gotten a bit heated on this issue, so I do remind people
> to contain themselves.  And while the issue is very important, also try
> to keep it close to the subject of the list: Japanese moving image
> culture.
> 
> In order to do the latter, I would like to revive a few important points
> that seem to have gotten lost in the discussion.
> 
> 1) Why is NHK reporting this and in what way is it doing so?  While I do
> think the story of Sugihara is important, I can't help but think that
> current media coverage of it becomes inevitably linked to the discourse
> of Fujioka Nobukatsu and other neonationalists who want to create new
> "Japanese heros" on which to rebuild national pride.  The filmmaker's
> intention in making his film was clearly to create a locus for building
> Japanese-American identity, but we have the problem here when a text
> crosses the boundaries of discursive fields and is now going to be used
> to construct Japanese national identities.  What are the problems/changes
> involved in that?
> 
> 2) Most of the discussion so far has focussed on the issue of
> "concentration camp" vs. "internment camp."  This is an important issue
> for those in the U.S. and elsewhere, but I would ask what it means in
> Japan?  Birgit's initial post implied that NHK was not innocent in
> connecting the Sugihara/concentration camp issue to the Japanese-American
> internment issue.  We can argue about how to link the two phenomena
> historically/politically/culturally, but I think one question that
> remains is again how the Japanese-American internment issue is being
> articulated in terms of the contemporary Japanese identity politics.
> That is, perhaps there is something about the structure of NHK discourse
> (it is, of course, a "public network") which made it less interested in
> developing the Nazi concentration camp issue in relation to the film,
> than the Japanese-American internment issue.
> 
> Again, just a few questions related to the image issue.
> 
> Aaron Gerow
> KineJapan owner