Five New Books

[Mark Nornes]

The University of Minnesota Press asked if I would forward  
information about a certain book:

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An original examination of the postwar Japanese documentary.

FOREST OF PRESSURE: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary
Ab? Mark Nornes
University of Minnesota Press | 288 pages | 2007
ISBN 978-0-8166-4907-5 | hardcover | $75.00
ISBN 978-0-8166-4908-2 | paperback | $25.00
Visible Evidence Series, volume 18

A critical biography of filmmaking collective Ogawa Pro, Forest of  
Pressure explores the emergence of socially committed documentary  
filmmaking in postwar Japan. Benefiting from unprecedented access to  
the collective's archives and interviews with former members, and  
analyzing Ogawa Pro's films and works by other Japanese filmmakers,  
Ab? Mark Nornes addresses key issues in documentary theory and  
practice.

?Extraordinarily valuable, illuminating, and even entertaining,  
Forest of Pressure brims with the types of information that only a  
key insider can get his hands on.? ?Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

For more information, including the table of contents, visit the  
book?s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/N/nornes_forest.html

For more information on the Visible Evidence Series:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/byseries/visibleevidence.html

Sign up to receive news on the latest releases from University of  
Minnesota Press:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/eform.html

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Yes, Forest of Pressure is out and is now being delivered to the  
eager masses. Overnight, it jumped all the way from number 1,000,000+  
to 496,321 in the Amazon.com rankings! Of course, the description  
they list describes a Deleuzian take on film "hieroglyphs" by a  
Harvard professor, so it's hard to say if I'm stealing readers from  
Tom Conley or vice versa! That may explain why it's slumped back down  
to #1,115,692 and used copies are already going for over $80 a pop.

In any case, I also wanted to mention something about the cover. The  
image you'll see at the online stores was the original mock-up:

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I like the way Ogawa-san's arm drapes over the title. Unfortunately,  
a fashion-conscious friend noticed that the Penguin mark was on the  
wrong side of his shirt. The press didn't like the idea of publishing  
a flip-flopped photo, especially on the cover, and even if the  
original composition doesn't lend itself as well to the design. I  
argued that it was perfect?I'd call it my homage to Ogawa, who never  
hesitated tweaking reality for the sake of "design." They didn't buy  
it. Instead, the crazy, eclectic approach of the book itself will  
have to be my design-homage, inspired as it is by Ogawa's last big film.

In any case, it's out. The book was a death bed promise to Ogawa, who  
may not have liked the final product. At least parts of it. Enjoy.

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Just to make the post a little less self-serving, here are a couple  
other books just out:

Daisuke Miyao's Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational  
Stardom (Duke). This was the talk of SCMS last week. I saw the stack  
of copies reduce quickly, and overheard the Duke editor hand it to  
someone saying, "Check this book out. It's the hot seller right now."  
Here's the webpage: http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3? 
isbn=978-0-8223-3969-4

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D. A. Rajakaruna's latest book of screenplay translations: Ozu  
Yasujiro's Two Postwar Films (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Godage int'l, 2006).  
ISBN:  955-208936-0    It contains scripts for Late Spring and Early  
Summer.

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Yoshida Kiju just published a followup to his 1970 Jikohitei no  
ronri, entitled Henbo no riri (The Ethics of Changing Form). It's a  
fat collection of his writings from his entire career, edited by Hasumi.

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My University fo Michigan colleague from the law school, Mark West,  
published Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan  
and the United States (Chicago UP). It's a fascinating and quite  
funny look at scandal management (corporate corruption, sports  
cheating, political corruption, celebrity sexcapades, etc. etc.). It  
also has a cover I find incredibly distracting.

There are a few other books on the verge of release, but that's all  
for today.

Markus
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