[KineJapan] Alan Booth's film criticism

Timothy Harris tjgharris at gmail.com
Tue Dec 4 06:37:03 EST 2018


I am the editor of 'This Great Stage of Fools' ( brightwavemedia.com ) , an
anthology of shorter writings by Alan Booth, author of the very
well-received 'The Roads to Sata' (Weatherhill & Penguin) and 'Looking for
the Lost'' (Kodansha). The introduction is by myself, and there is an
afterword by Karel van Wolferen. These shorter writings include well over
100 pages of the  reviews of Japanese film that Booth wrote for the Asahi
Evening News between  1979 and 1990 (I was his editor). The reviews are
very perceptive and beautifully written, and provide a very good account of
what was happening in Japanese cinema in the decade 1979-1989. The
remainder of the book is given over to pieces on Japanese festivals and
folksongs, two long articles on the great Tsugaru shamisen player Takahashi
Chikuzan and on a walk the length of Shikoku, and some final, and
harrowingly funny essays on what it is like to die from cancer -- Booth
died in 1993.

The book contains some of Booth's best writing, and the film reviews are,
by any standards, extraordinary in their perceptiveness and quality of
judgement. Since I was his close friend, his editor for many years during
his life, and editor of this book after his death, I am obviously
prejudiced in his favour, but I should be very grateful for any advice from
subscribers to kinejapan as to how it might be possible to get this book
better known among those who are interested in Japanese cinema.

Timothy Harris
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