Aoyama Shinji's (anti)emperor collage-film

Anne McKnight mcknight at usc.edu
Fri Feb 27 14:25:58 EST 2009


Thanks, Aaron. it's the landscape connection I find very interesting.  
It's actually Yamane Sadao who makes the connection between the 2  
films, between landscape (fûkei) in both and disrespect/treason  
(fukei, from a Meiji 15 article of criminal law) in the Watanabe book/ 
Bigakko film.

Do you remember it as an especially "lyrical" film? I'd be interested  
in the jist of the criticism, if you remember anything.

"Roji e" seemed to me to be keeping Adachi et al's "fukei-eiga" very  
much in mind, though it uses literature as an interface as much as the  
film you see itself. The dissonant score by Otomo, the interface that  
doesn't quite let you "fit" into the film, the constant motion of  
vehicles, the re-visiting of old spots, etc., were all quite similar.  
So I wondered about "Sude ni..." in that regard.

BTW--Justin, I believe Aoyama was an instructor there. He has a  
chapter in Kurosawa Kiyoshi's book "from the Eiga bigakkô" where he  
talks about cinematography. (Look it up on Amazon, the URL was too  
long to paste...)

On Feb 27, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Aaron Gerow wrote:

>>
>> am wondering if anyone has seen a film of Aoyama Shinji's--"Sude ni  
>> oita kanojo no subete ni tsuite wa kataranu tame ni." He made it in  
>> 2002, right before "Yuriika."
>
> I saw this at Athenee a long time ago when it was made (that would  
> be 2000, by the way). Aoyama made this with his Bigakko class, and  
> it is quite different from Roji e (there is no Izuchi-san running  
> around reading quotes). It is mainly landscape images with voice- 
> over reading various passages. There was some criticism at the time  
> about whether Aoyama was sufficiently critical of passages relating  
> to the imperial system.
>
> Aaron Gerow
> 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
>
>
>


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