David Bordwell's Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema

[Mark Nornes]

As many of you know, I have started an electronic reprint series at  
the University of Michigan's Center for Japanese Studies Press.  
Here's the URL if you haven't visited:

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/filmseries.html

One of the projects that has been in the works is David Bordwell's  
book on Ozu. We are still in the midst of preparation, but some  
industrious soul discovered the book—obviously, you can't hide  
anything from Google. We have yet to make a page for the book in the  
reprint series website. David will be writing a new introduction for  
the electronic version. And we hope to improve on the photographs,  
which really look poor. But it's out, and we are happy to make the  
release of this a gradual thing.

So David has announced the reprint in his blog, and here I am  
announcing it here. I'm including the text of his blog entry below,  
but why not visit his homepage and check out what else is there?

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=59

You'll find a link to the book in his blog entry. Enjoy. Rethink Ozu.  
Use it in your classes!

Markus

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++




I Wrote a Book, But…; or, What Did the Professor Forget?

 From DB:

My 1988 book, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, is available again, I’m  
happy to report. There’s a little backstory, probably of interest  
only to those who follow the zigzags of academic publishing.

Around 1990 the British Film Institute declared the book out of  
print. The US copublisher, Princeton University Press, agreed to keep  
it in print under two conditions.

First, I would have to pay for the cleaning of the preprint material  
(the sheets of plastic on which the master copies of the pages were  
printed). Cost: $1000. Second, I would receive no royalties. I agreed  
to the terms, since I wanted to have this book, for all its faults,  
available.

So for about a decade, the book was still out there. I enjoyed the  
anecdotal value of getting royalty statements reading: Your royalty  
payment is $000.00. Still, all those decimal points sort of rubbed it  
in. Wouldn’t $0 have been enough?

As Ozu’s centenary approached in 2003, I contacted Princeton to alert  
them. Maybe there’d be a bump of interest in Ozu, and they might want  
to do another printing. But the Press replied that, um, they had some  
months before declared their edition out of print.

Publishers have a habit of not telling authors about decisions like  
this. There’s no fun way to announce that a book is orphaned, or  
maybe slain. Then too there’s the somewhat awkward matter of  
returning a piece of intellectual property that might become an asset  
some day. Anyhow, Jerry Bruckheimer wasn’t likely to pick up the  
movie rights to Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, and so after regaining  
copyright control, I took the book on the road.

No surprise: Other publishers were not crazy about reprinting a big  
fat book with lots of pictures, published fifteen years before and  
probably bought by every soul who might ever want a copy. I’d hoped  
that a book on very likely the greatest film director who ever lived  
might be worth keeping around. But no, alas.

Every month or so, as the Ozu touring program roamed greater North  
America in 2003 and 2004, a fan would email asking me to sell a copy  
of the book. Web booksellers were demanding up to $600. The thought  
of selling one to a book dealer at a jacked-up price, perhaps with a  
signature affixed, did cross my mind, but I had only two copies of my  
own.

Eventually I learned of the publishing program launched by the  
University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. The Center had  
begun posting out-of-print books on Japanese cinema online. I  
contacted Markus Nornes, who generously sponsored and oversaw the  
project.

I learn from a correspondent that the book is now available in pdf  
form online.

Now you can read the book, and can even buy a print-on-demand copy if  
you want. (I look forward to the $000.00 checks from Ann Arbor.) The  
downside: The 500-plus pictures range from tolerable to terrible. I  
also planned to write an introduction with updates and corrections,  
and I still hope to do that. There’s even talk about replacing some  
stills, perhaps with color frames.


So if you’re interested in Ozu, Japanese film history, or the poetics  
of cinema, you might want to check this out. Of course you can  
instead crack your piggy bank and order the single copy of the  
original I’ve found on what our President calls the Internets.

If I were in an Ozu film, I’d probably now emit a sigh mixing  
satisfaction and resignation. Then I’d reach for a beer. Or at least  
an orange drink. No, a beer.

Update, November 10: I’d thought that print-on-demand copies would be  
available, but Carsten Czarnecki points out that the Center site  
doesn’t seem to indicate that. I’ll check further.

Update #2, same day: Our keen-eyed web tsarina Meg has found still  
other copies of the original book available, at prices starting at  
$118.95, here. Please remit 10 % finder’s fee to her.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20061110/d37d9da4/attachment.html