Richie on Standish

[Mark Nornes]

A NEW HISTORY OF JAPANESE FILM: A Century of Narrative Film, by Isolde 
Standish. New York/London: Continuum, 2005, 414 pp., 18 illustrations, 
$39.95 (cloth)

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fb20050821dr.htm

> However interesting many of the resulting conclusions of this book, 
> they do not, however, constitute a "history," if this term means 
> (dictionary definition) "a narrative of events; a story, a 
> chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a 
> people or an institution."
>
> Indeed, any book on Japanese cinema that favors pages on Nagisa 
> Oshima, Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano because of their political 
> possibilities, and does not even mention Mikio Naruse, cannot be 
> called a history.
>
> But then perhaps the idea of calling this collection a "new history" 
> is merely the publisher's. I notice that Continuum also has histories 
> of the Italian and French cinemas in more or less the same format. And 
> I know that publishers can fatally effect film books. 
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