new "youth film'?

[Aaron Gerow]

David's additional comments reminded me of the issue of history. We  
can certainly cite youth films going back decades, with the moniker  
seishun eiga being applied. They can of course refer to a lot of  
films, including some of Oshima, but quite a few feature gentle  
characters in gentle settings. Yoshinaga Sayuri is nothing but  
gentle. The question is whether there is a new cycle or a sub-genre  
of youth film that we can locate that is qualitatively different from  
what came before.

I can't answer that now, but there is another question I thought of  
that might help us. I was having a chat with my colleague Bill Kelly  
the other day and he asked me why there are not more baseball films  
in Japan. I tried to argue that it is a matter of perception. There  
are certainly a number of these films (Hero Interview, Third,  
Kisaragi Cats Eye, Baseball Kids, Mister Rookie, Touch, Dokaben,  
Dynamite Dondon, Gyakkyo Nine, Battery, 3-4x10-gatsu, Enoken no Home  
Run O, Chong, etc. etc.), but many are either popular films or in the  
50s were B movies that just didn't get much attention abroad (or in  
some cases Japan). But the perception issue seemed not just to relate  
to numbers or distribution issues: there seemed to be a sense that  
there a fewer sports narratives in Japanese cinema, especially ones  
where an underdog team gets their act together and wins it all in the  
end.

Perhaps this is a mistaken perception. Or perhaps such narratives  
have existed, but were pursued in non-sports genres like the  
jidaigeki (in some ways, Seven Samurai is like this narrative).  
Certainly many manga have pursued this narrative, but there is a  
sense that film has not done that as much.

To make a long story short, then, one hypothesis could be that the  
films that David cites are "new" to Japanese cinema because they are  
bringing in these sports narratives--though not always in sports  
situations--to a medium that has not always featured them. If we  
accept that, then the question would be why now and whether there is  
something they are working against (as David suggests).

Just throwing something on the table.

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
site: www.aarongerow.com