[KineJapan] Brushed in Light: Calligraphy in East Asian Cinema

[Michael Raine]

Thank you Markus -- for writing the book and making it freely available.

I'll be ordering a physical copy too -- looks beautiful!

Michael

On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 11:20 AM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Oh, you beat me to it, Aaron!  (The book's online version database is
> something of a work in progress, so I was waiting for an update to the
> keywords before announcing the book!)
>
> So this book sat on a back burner for over 30 years. Back in grad school
> at USC, I was eagerly watching every East Asian film I could get my hands
> on—at Chinatown and Little Tokyo theaters, Koreatown and Monterey Park
> supermarket videos, 16mm prints borrowed from the South Korean and
> Taiwanese consulates, art house retrospectives, the few VHS tapes on home
> video. I've always been fascinated by the relationship of text and screen,
> and couldn't help notice the wonderful ubiquity of calligraphy in the
> films. It was marvelous, lovely, and always creative (even when crude). For
> me, it was one thing that set East Asian film apart—or held it together.
>
> At the time, I thought this could make an interesting dissertation. I
> sheepishly spoke to a couple prominent Asian art historians. They almost
> laughed at me—"There's no calligraphy in film!" (You can read the book to
> find out their reasoning.) Long story short, they scared me off the topic
> and I set it aside but never forgot about it.
>
> Then in 2008-9, the Reischauer Institute graciously hosted me for a year.
> It was wonderful being around Stanley Cavell and David Rodowick—and
> revisiting their work—and suddenly something clicked. I figured out what I
> wanted to say about the cinematographic calligraph and moved the project to
> the front burner.
>
> I immersed myself in the subject. I visited the props departments of most
> of the major film studios. Talked to celebrated calligraphers. I quickly
> found that directors had nothing interesting to say, but propsmen and art
> directors and poster designers were brilliant and an absolute delight
> to talk to. It was so fun to research I hated to finish the writing.
>
> But I did, and now it's out. It is open access at:
> https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11373292
>
> But I hope you get the ($40) hard back paper version. I wanted a book as
> beautiful as the subject matter, and the University of Michigan Press
> delivered for sure. I love the squarish design, the 150+ color images. I
> hope you can at least have your library order it.
>
> This was the first book I've ever written off a corpus. I was lucky to
> have undergraduate research assistants help me make framegrabs from the
> 30,000+ DVDs in our Donald Hall Collection. Students started at A and Z
> respectively, and met in the middle. When they were done, we had over 2,800
> images of calligraphy from Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, PRC and South Korea.
>
> *And ALL of them are online*, and thoroughly linked to the online version
> of the book (click the "*Resources*
> <https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/4t64gq206#resources>" button
> to go straight into the image database). In some regards, I think it
> stretches the limits of the open access book. (Like I said, it's a work in
> progress. The captions and keywords are being updated little by little.
> This has been a huge project...)
>
> I've depended on so many people in the course of research and writing.
> Many of you are on KineJapan. I'm so grateful to you all.
>
> Hope you enjoy the book!
>
> Markus
>
> ---
>
> *Markus Nornes*
> *Professor of Asian Cinema*
> Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages
> and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
>
> *Department of Film, Television and Media*
> *6348 North Quad*
> *105 S. State Street*
> *Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 8:45 AM Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Markus Nornes’s new book Brushed in Light: Calligraphy in East Asian
>> Cinema, published by the University of Michigan Press, seems to now be
>> available! You can download it for free from Fulcrum:
>>
>> https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/4t64gq206
>>
>> Here is the blurb:
>>
>> Drawing on a millennia of calligraphy theory and history, Brushed in
>> Light examines how the brushed word appears in films and in film cultures
>> of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and PRC cinemas. This includes silent
>> era intertitles, subtitles, title frames, letters, graffiti, end titles,
>> and props. Markus Nornes also looks at the role of calligraphy in film
>> culture at large, from gifts to correspondence to advertising. The book
>> begins with a historical dimension, tracking how calligraphy is initially
>> used in early cinema and how it is continually rearticulated by
>> transforming conventions and the integration of new technologies. These
>> chapters ask how calligraphy creates new meaning in cinema and demonstrate
>> how calligraphy, cinematography, and acting work together in a single film.
>> The last part of the book moves to other regions of theory. Nornes explores
>> the cinematization of the handwritten word and explores how calligraphers
>> understand their own work.
>>
>> The online version is full of links to images, so you should check that
>> out. But the hardbound book has the best images, so please have your
>> library order it if you can.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Aaron Gerow
>> Professor
>> Film and Media Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
>> Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures
>> Yale University
>> 320 York Street, Room 108
>> PO Box 208201
>> New Haven, CT 06520-8201
>> USA
>> Phone: 1-203-432-7082
>> Fax: 1-203-432-6729
>> e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
>> website: www.aarongerow.com
>>
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