KC III comments

[Aaron Gerow]

Kinema Club III took place at NYU on the 13th and 14th, and thanks go 
to Markus and Mitsu for organizing it and to NYU for being the kind 
host. By my count, we had about 25 participants, which is a good 
turnout for such a forum. Given that people were supposed to read the 
papers beforehand, the discussion was the center and presenters had to 
deal with about 80 minutes of discussion each. Some with more 
controversial papers, the presenter had a lot of questions to answer.

I won't make any specific comments on papers--I offered enough there as 
it is--but just make some general observations. First, I thought it was 
encouraging that there are so many people out there with vibrant and 
original ideas and a lot of discussions--I really didn't see this that 
much in Japan. Sometimes the discussion was quite heady--many of those 
on KineJapan would never understand it!--but the discussions between 
people with different methodologies was, I hope, sobering for everyone 
on all sides. Some methodologies or concepts, such as "new media" and 
"vernacular modernism," came under healthy questioning, and some 
proposals, such as about delineating a "Japanese classical cinema" or 
seeing popular film spectatorship as sport spectatorship, was 
provocative even if a bit tenuous at present. I thought it was clear we 
all have to study more history and remain critical of our 
methodological stances in the face of historical and textual 
complications. I did wish there was more attention to the films 
themselves (on the first day, people didn't even get to see any clips). 
Perhaps at another workshop, we can select a couple pertinent texts, 
have individuals or groups present one film apiece, but have everyone 
see the film and read the paper beforehand?

There was talk about where to hold this next year and whether to try 
something like this in Japan. All good things to think about.

I hope others in attendance can offer their thoughts.

Aaron Gerow
Yale University
KineJapan co-owner