Introduction and cfp for SCMS 09 in Tokyo

[Patrick Crogan]

Greetings all from Bristol in the UK.
I'm at Univ of the West of England here, in film and media studies. I
have a range of interests including long-standing ones in Japanese
cinema and animation.
 
I'm organising a panel on Shohei Imamura for the upcoming society for
Cinema and Media studies conference next May in Tokyo. I have 2 spots
filled for it and am inviting anyone interested to submit something to
me for the other 1 or 2 spots. The panel is fairly broad in its purview
of exploring aspects of Imamura's legacy in the wake of his death about
2 years ago. Below is my draft panel description for submitting to give
you an idea. 
 
please contact me directly if you are interested or have any questions.
Abstracts to be about 400 words (=2500 characters with spaces)
 
thanks
patrick
 
Panel overview:
Shohei Imamura: Lessons and Legacies

 

This panel will reflect on Shohei Imamura's film making and film
educational activities in the wake of his passing in 2006. Given the
significance and influence of Imamura's work in Japan and
internationally over the course of his more than 40 years of film
practice, suprisingly little scholarship has been produced about his
films, particularly in the anglophone world. One of only very few
filmmakers to win 2 Palme D'Ors at Cannes, Imamura produced striking,
challenging, bitingly humourous and reflexive films in a range of
aesthetic styles and generic categories. He was a leading member of the
leftist avant-garde film movement known (rather ambivalently) as the
Japanese New Wave. His works dealt with the 'uncivilized,' unauthorized
vision of peasant and working class existence in Japan (Richie, 1997).
Imamura also founded an independent film school, the Japan Academy of
Moving Images (JAMI), on the outskirts of Tokyo in the 1980s in order to
foster a different kind of socially engaged education and training for
filmmakers, actors and animators.

 

The papers comprising this panel will explore some aspects of Imamura's
film-related activities in order to begin to redress the lack of
critical attention paid to the work of this major innovator in cinema.
This includes his efforts to improve the teaching of filmmaking and
acting in Japan. Tadao Sato, critic and historian of Japanese film and
former President of JAMI, will address the history, politics and
pedagogical principles informing Imamura's establishment and ongoing
involvement in this non-state funded film school in the complex terrain
of Japanese institutional education. Patrick Crogan will consider
Imamura's moving and exceptionally restrained 'Hibakusha' (nuclear
survivor) film, BLACK RAIN (KUROI AME, 1989), comparing it both to his
earlier, 'messy' works (cf. Quandt, 1997) and to his final film, the
short included in the SEPTEMBER 11' 09' 01 collection (2002). The
significance of its subject-war, and how to live on in its wake-and how
it is treated will be considered as one of his most important lessons
for those who inherit his works.
 
Patrick Crogan (Ph D, Univ of Sydney)
Senior Lecturer in Film and Media and Cultural Studies
 
Department of Culture, Media and Drama
University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
patrick.crogan at uwe.ac.uk
Tel. +44 (0)117 3284333
 


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