J-horror Inquirer article
Ian Conrich
ian
Fri Jun 9 13:06:05 EDT 2006
I've been watching the recent J-Horror and horror film debates with great
interest and been holding back from replying as I wasn't sure of the extent
to which non-Japanese film discussion could be introduced. But I thought it
important to establish a few points and key facts, which I will write over
the next two emails.
Regards the term "Horror", I am very much with Aaron on this one. I have
researched the use of the term in the UK to describe a type of film and it
did not begin to dominate until the very late 1950s. Certainly throughout
the 1930s and 1940s films were more commonly labelled as mysteries,
thrillers or uncanny. In the 1930s the term 'horror' was a minority term in
the UK and in the 1920s gothique was more common. The 'H' (for 'Horrific')
classification was introduced January 1933, and note it was not originally a
certificate; it was an advisory classification, with the 'H' certificate
eventually introduced 1 January 1937. The 'H' rating ended in 1951, and I
have found no real increase in the term 'horror' to describe a film when it
was around, in fact the monster films were often labelled 'horrific'. It is
possible that the term 'horror' grew in usage in the UK in the late 1950s as
an extension of the then defunct 'H' rating, but it is more likely linked to
developments in the US, where the term had been growing in usage since the
early 1940s (note Hammer's Dracula [1958] was titled 'The Horror of Dracula'
in the US). A significant factor here was the rise of the American graphic
comics in the 1950s which were termed 'horror' comics in both the US and the
UK. Moreover, the 'H' rating was far from applied to just horror films (as
we would term them now) - 55 films received the 'H' rating and this included
a United Nations war crimes film and Abel Gance's 1938 anti-war crime movie
'J'accuse'. Of the 55 I would say 38 could be viewed by modern genre
definitions as 'horror'. Discussion of the 'H' rating can be found in my
article 'Horrific Films and 1930s British Cinema', which appears in Steve
Chibnall and Julian Petley (eds.), 'British Horror Cinema' (Routledge,
2001). In this article I write in my introduction -
"If British horror films of the 1930s are determined by their correspondence
to the Hollywood monster movies then there are only examples of a fragmented
genre: Castle Sinister (1932), The Ghoul (1933), The Unholy Quest (1934),
The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936), Dark Eyes of London (1939), and The
Face at the Window (1939)...British film censorship with its disinclination
to pass images of horror impeded the development of a British genre. As I
have argued elsewhere, this led to filmmakers importing 'horror into
comedies and thrillers rather than attempting to make outright horror films'
(Conrich 1997: 228).
So concerned about horrific images was the British Board of Film Censors
(BBFC), that it introduced a new form of film classification - the 'H'
rating (which existed from 1933-1951) - and this grouped together films
deemed 'horrific', including the Hollywood monster movies amongst others.
Subsequently 'horrific films', as opposed to 'horror films', was the
dominant term. Films released in Britain hoping to distance themselves from
the label 'horrific' employed promotional campaigns that variously marketed
the productions as 'uncanny', a 'mystery', or a 'melodrama'. This article
will suggest that there was in fact no British horror cinema of the 1930s.
There were, instead, British productions of a 'horrific' nature; comedies,
thrillers and melodramas with 'horrific' elements; and American horror films
which were frequently referred to in Britain as 'horrific' films.
I would also like to point out that in the US films such as 'Dracula' (1931)
were marketed not as most writers have assumed; 'Dracula' was in fact
marketed significantly as a love story. As I write in my article 'Before
Sound: Universal, Silent Cinema, and the Last of the Horror-Spectaculars',
in 'The Horror Film' (Ed.) Stephen Prince, (Rutgers University Press, 1994)
-
"It needs to be recognized that the types of films produced and the manner
in which they were marketed and reviewed in this period [the 1930s] can lead
away from the idea of a horror genre. Dracula, for instance, employed
publicity that sold the film as a love story, emphasizing seduction and
"passion". Films that could be seen as horror were throughout the 1920s and
1930s commonly termed "uncanny" "thriller", "mystery", and "gothique". In
the UK, in particular, "horrific" was a dominant term as many of the monster
movies were awarded an 'H' (for "horrific") rating. The idea that films were
"horror" did occur, but, as Rhona J. Berenstein writes, not "as a generic
label". She sees in the 1930s a "generic looseness", and the need therefore
to view the films in "cross-generic terms".
I hope this can be of some help.
Ian
Ian Conrich,
Roehampton University
22 <#_ednref1> See Conrich: 58-61.
23 <#_ednref2> Rhona J. Berenstein, Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender,
Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996): 12.
24 <#_ednref3> Ibid: 11.
> I take all your points Aaron. But "Horror" is a pretty amorphous genre in
> any sense of the word, having been used to describe films as diverse as the
> numerous versions of DRACULA, DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, PSYCHO, WITCHFINDER
> GENERAL, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH, THE EXORCIST and oddities like VAMPYROS
> LESBOS or Mexican wrestling films like SANTO VS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER. My
> previous potted history of the horror genre I guess was more applicable to
> the gothic tradition as practised by Hammer and the Italians, and which I
> see as more prevalent in the 60s Kaidan than in later American modern
> horrors from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE onwards.
>
> As far as I can work out, the term was first coined in the early 30s when
> the British censors formed the new 'H' for "Horrific" certificate in the
> wake of the early Universal pictures. many of the German Ufa precedents had
> never been seen in Britain: NOSFERATU's release was blocked by Bram Stoker's
> widow, while THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI was suppressed due to those very
> British notions of good taste, or as one censor said at the time they were
> concerned that the asylum scenes would upset people in the audiences who had
> relatives in mental hospitals
>
> Most of the discussions in recent western writing centred around Japanese
> horror in the wake of the success of the Ring, for example the recent
> Edinburgh University Press book Japanese Horror Cinema, have tried charting
> a retroactive chronology that tries to find both local and foreign
> antecedents to the recent so-called J-horror boom, and have spread their
> search far and wide and come up with all sorts of ill-fitting examples
> ranging from Mizoguchi's UGETSU through Nikkatsu's Roman Porno ANGEL GUTS
> films to BATTLE ROYALE.
>
> What I would argue is that Nobuo Nakagawa and the directors at Shintoho were
> doing something very similar to the Hammer Studios in the UK, both in using
> safely-removed historical settings to critique feudal practises, and in
> emphasizing both the erotic and horrific elements of the stories, something
> which was never possible in either country due to pre-war censorship
> requirements. Thus modern horror became predicated on the short, sharp shock
> criterion and the amount of blood-letting, and the gothic on both its
> fantasy elements, its dream-logic and its exploitation of the cinematic
> medium's expressive possibilities. Other Kaidan films like UGETSU don't
> really fit this bill.
>
> I wonder when the use of the Katakanised "horaa" term crept into common
> parlance in Japan? I see the words "kaiki" (grotesque/fantastique) and
> "kyoufu" (fear/horror) scrawled on some of the posters Jason alerted us to.
> Wasn't the term "ryouki" (bizarre) also used to refer to the erotic horror
> hybrids in Japan too, such as Noboru Tanaka's Rampo adaptation of Rampo's
> WATCHER IN THE ATTIC. (And then again, don't the French tend to use terms
> such as "fantastique" rather than "horreur" when talking about these types
> of genre films?)
>
> So while I agree to some extent that we should take into account the various
> traditions in Japanese cinema and literature before we cast our net too
> widely and pluck out various titles that don't really fit the bill, I would
> also say that horror on a global level is a very tricky genre to define, and
> regardless whether a film was made in any part of the world to fit into this
> diverse genre, we should also look less at the content of the film in
> question than the (desired) effect it has upon audiences.
>
> This is a long, complex and fascinating discussion I think - sorry if I'm
> boring anyone though...
>
> Best,
>
> Jasper
> --
> Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
> www.midnighteye.com
>
> ===
>
> Available now in bookstores everywhere:
> The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge Press)
> by Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp
> http://www.midnighteye.com/features/midnighteye_guide.shtml
> "Easily one of the most important books on Japanese cinema ever released in
> English."
> - Newtype USA
>
>
>
> --------- Original Message --------
> From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Subject: Re: J-horror Inquirer article
> Date: 09/06/06 05:43
>
>>
>> Just one thought:
>>
>> One of the dangers when talking about the issue of East vs. West in
>> history of horror cinema is the terminology used. The fact is that
>> "horror" is a term used for Euro-American cinema that only
> recently has
>> been used in Japan. Before that, there were many other terms used,
>> especially kaidan eiga, bakeneko eiga, etc. The danger is that to use
>> the term "horror" to refer to films that were never discussed
> using
>> that term always threatens to impose the assumptions of that term on
>> films where it is inappropriate. The effect is thus to impose
>> Euro-American genre definitions on a foreign tradition--and to in
>> affect assume the West is the dominant tradition that Japan is only
>> copying. Even if one tries to allow for differences within
> "horror,"
>> one is still imposing a rubric with many assumptions that threatens to
>> obscure more than it reveals. One thing it obscures is the multiple
>> terms used to refer to different forms of film in Japan--again, kaidan,
>> bakeneko, kaiki eiga, etc.--terms that since they were separate,
>> indicate these films may not have been grouped together--as we do now,
>> perhaps artificially--under a single term like "horror."
>>
>> I think we should all step back and rethink our use of the term
>> "horror." I, for one, would be very averse to using the term
> "horror"
>> to refer to 1930s Shinko Kinema bakeneko films, for instance. (When
>> Kurosawa was here, I spoke of my doubts and he sympathized with my
>> worries.) We have to ask ourselves questions like this: What other
>> genre terms exist and what do they tell us about the films they refer
>> to? How did those terms function industrially or historically
>> (especially the relation to kabuki and rakugo in prewar films)? When
>> does the term "horror" appear in Japanese? How is it used and
> why? What
>> are we losing when we use the term? An even more basic question is
>> still this: Is the notion of "genre" itself equally applicable
> to
>> Japanese cinema as it is to American cinema (i.e., is the phenomenon
>> itself the same, given the Japanese studios' emphasis on studio styles,
>> on series, on the director, etc., instead of genres across studios)?
>>
>> These are all questions we need to ask when using the term
> "horror"
>> with regard to Japanese cinema.
>>
>> Aaron Gerow
>> Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
>> Assistant Professor
>> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
>> Yale University
>> 53 Wall Street, Room 316
>> PO Box 208363
>> New Haven, CT 06520-8363
>> USA
>> Phone: 1-203-432-7082
>> Fax: 1-203-432-6764
>> e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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