Problem: Applying western theories on japanese films

[Bruce Baird]

Dear Robert,

You touch on an issue that I think all of us struggle with on a daily  
basis.  So much of our theoretical apparatus comes from Euro-American  
thinkers who were working in a specific place and time, so I think  
its is at the very least a truism that whatever approach you take  
will need to be modified just as much as it enables you to comment on  
J-Cinema.  Many of us end up commenting extensively on the theory at  
hand in the process of using it as a way of  noting the ways that the  
theory is inadequate.  Its also tempting (but difficult) to try to  
think of the counterfactual theory that would have happened if Japan  
had evolved independently of Euro-America.

That said, about the specific issue of ocular dominance, Esperanza  
Ramirez Christensen has an article (which I don't have the citation  
of at the moment, but I am sure you can find if you look for it--it  
might have been in the volume she edited for AJLS??) about kaimami,  
(looking through a gap) which you might find useful for articulating  
a kind of ocular dominance that was also shared by  
premodern-"Japan."  That is to say, that Crary and Lowe,  
notwithstanding, there _might_ be compelling reasons to believe that  
ocular centrisim is not an exclusively Western phenomenon.  Moreover,  
ukiyoe painters are picking up perspective from the various jetsam  
that finds its way into Edo Japan long before the Perry's gunboats.

Also, much work has been done on the Chinese character and the way  
that it alters the issue of visuality.  Pound, Eisenstein, and Brecht  
(among many others) discovered/invented theories after contact with  
China and Japan that have far reaching implications for ocular theories.

But maybe we could continue to have a discussion about the underlying  
principle of your question as well??

Cheers,

Bruce


On Oct 12, 2007, at 6:30 AM, Robert.Geib at gmx.de wrote:

> Dear subscribers of KineJapan,
>
> First, I want to introduce myself: I?m a young scholar of media  
> studies from Jena, Germany. I?m currently preparing my dissertation  
> on body & memory in contemporary japanese cinema. I want to show  
> that current japanese films (Kurosawa, Tsukamoto, Oshii and others)  
> contribute aesthetically to a broad debate about body and memory in  
> cultural- and media studies.
>
> Drawing on the works of film phenomenology, the writings of  
> Foucault and Deleuze and recent trauma theory, I want to articulate  
> a specific view of the body and memory that emerge through close  
> analysis of these films. Of course I?m just in the first steps of  
> my research and I have a lot more preliminary research on the topic  
> to do, but a certain problem has already occured and I wonder if  
> some of you could help me out.
>
> The reemergence of the body and memory particular in film practice  
> and theory since the late 1980s is closely linked to a criticism of  
> the dominance of ocular vision in certain branches of film theory.  
> These theories are based on certain assumptions, stated by Jonathan  
> Crary and Donald Lowe among others, that ocular centrism is a  
> distinctive feature of modern (western) societies. This mode of  
> perception that can be traced back to philosophical belief systems  
> of the Enlightment, the invention of single-point perspective in  
> the Renaissance and technological changes of the media landscape  
> (namely photography and cinema).
>
> Now I?m a little reluctant to apply these models of a history of  
> perception and subject formation on japanese cinema; models that  
> are based on the analysis of specific historic, aesthetic and  
> social circumstances in western europe. Although many ideas of the  
> Enlightment were adopted in the Meiji restauration and technologies  
> like photography and cinema were quickly imported and assimilated,  
> I?m not sure if the implicit hierarchy of the senses (which can be  
> broken down to a slogan like 'seeing equals knowing') has found  
> it's way into the modern japanese society (given the complex nature  
> and history of japanese adaptation of foreign ideas).
>
> Do you suggest, that japanese cinema is a 'special case' and cannot  
> be approached by models and theories based on western thought?  
> Should they be used reflectively, assuming the role of a distant  
> observer, always insisting on the 'special case' of the japanese  
> history of art and perception? Or should I take a more postmodern  
> approach, where I don?t really care about the 'otherness' of  
> japanese cinema (thereby also circumventing the notion of the  
> 'exotic') and simply apply these theories if they seem viable?
>
> I really hope that I?m not beating any dead horses here, but I  
> would very much appreciate if some of you could comment on my  
> problem and suggest further literature on that issue.
>
> Thanks in advance and greetings from Germany,
> Robert Geib
>
> -- 
> Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh?rt?
> Der kanns mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

Bruce Baird
Assistant Professor
Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Massachusetts Amherst
But?, Japanese Theater, Intellectual History

717 Herter Hall
161 Presidents Drive
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003-9312
Phone: 413-577-4992
Fax: 413-545-4975
baird at asianlan.umass.edu




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