CFP: Another SCMS Tokyo panel proposal

[rwdavisjr at ca.rr.com]

Hi all. I'm hoping to put together a panel for the SCMS Tokyo conference next May. The topic: Contemporary Japanese Cinema - Distinctive Narrative Strategies. Pretty broad, I know. Here's the blurb I put together for the SCMS website:

The Hollywood creative chain seems either unable or unwilling to resolve the tension between the genre film's natural tendencies toward spectacle and the dictates of character-driven Syd Field-based, three-act storytelling, between fragmentation and individuation, on the one hand, and by-the-book narrative development, on the other. Some recent Japanese genre films – I’m thinking about films like Fukasaku’s Battle Royale, Sono’s Suicide Club, and Morita’s Mohou han – deal with, each in its own way, this tension between content fragmentation and the unity demanded by western screenwriting dogma, between the ballooning screen time devoted to high-energy set pieces and the dramatic "needs" of psychological development.

This panel, then, would explore some distinctive approaches to narrative in contemporary Japanese film. That distinctiveness may present itself as either (explicitly or implicitly) an “alternative” to the Hollywood cinematic codes, or as a development of traditionally Japanese narratological strategies, or in some other way.

If interested in presenting a paper or making a response, please send me, by email, a 200-300 word proposal by August 7.

If you're interested, send your proposal to: rdavis at fullerton.edu

Thanks. bd