Japanese Cinema, film studies, Asian Studies

[michael wood]

I would like to thank Professor Izbicki for her thoughtful message and
attempt to "open up the discussion." I think that she does a very good job
of articulating the problem of x-studies. On the one hand, there is an
obvious marginalization of knowledge within the academy, but at the same
time, the "scholarly ghetto" allows us a space from which to at least feel,
if not actually carry out a form of intellectual guerrilla warfare. She is
perhaps right to question this sense of "radicalness," for so much often
comes down to funding and the pressure to not rock the status quo too much.
She concludes,

> I take Michael Wood's call for discussion as a call to examine the ideological
> and political implications of being
> involved-particularly in academia-in the study of cinema made in Japan.  Are
> there particular goals to accomplish
> with such study?  If no specific goals, are there pitfalls to avoid?  To what
> extent are these questions
> extensions of the ideological and political implications of participating in
> higher education in general?

This was in fact something that I was thinking about, having just read Dr.
Yoshimoto's _Kurosawa_. As a student of cultural studies constantly sensing
the disciplinary "constraints" of both an area studies (EALL, Oregon) and
methodology (History, Meiji), I could not help but find in Yoshimoto's study
and Izbicki's message essential questions that should be confronted. There
are certainly no easy answers.
In these discussions however, there often seems to be an underlying
assumption that "film" and "Japanese film" must be relegated to one specific
discipline. Although I might have profound disagreements with the way a
communications scholar "decodes" a specific film, I might also take issue
with the way someone in comparative literature reads that same film. Perhaps
it is naive of me to think that arguments for disciplinary segmentation (and
I know that this is NOT what Yoshimoto or Izbicki are calling for) are
problematic. Institutional concerns aside (funding, department hierarchies,
tenure, student quotas, etc.), is it not more conducive, if not also
utopian, to yearn for a space in which cultural texts are subjected to a
variety of methodologies, perspectives, readings, and critiques of those
readings. I suppose this statement begins to stink of relativism, so I might
also add that I still have faith in the idea that intellectual rigor will
become clear in the process of contesting texts. A text like _Kurosawa_
will, I hope, become important not only to film scholars, but also those
doing "literature," Japanese studies, Asian studies, anthropology, history,
comparative literature, etc.  It strikes me as strange that Richie ignores
Yoshimoto's work in his _Hundred Years of Japanese Film_. Was this done on
purpose or was it a matter of publishing deadlines?
I was also wondering if Dr. Izbicki, in her course focusing on developing
"perspectives and skills for accessing popular cultural products that
purport to present the past (and Japan) in some way," will limit the texts
to Japanese films, or if it will also include non-Japanese films dealing
with Japan? The problems that she hints at are probably very interesting
topics for this KineJapan. I would like to hear more, if she feels
comfortable in presenting them in the list-serve format. The idea of a
course that is neither history nor film is exciting. It is refreshing to
hear that one can teach a course such as this in a history department. I
won't mention any names, but it seems that some scholars of national history
like to jazz up their resumes with courses that claim to be about film, but
in fact just present some national history by showing "historical films."
Unfortunately the thinking is always limited to whether the film in question
is historically accurate or not.
Michael Wood