Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964

TitleMaking Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964
Publication TypeBook
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsCoates, Jennifer
Number of Pages234
PublisherHong Kong University Press
CityHong Kong
Abstract

A distinctive feature of post-war Japanese cinema is the frequent recurrence of imagistic and narrative tropes and formulaic characterizations in female representations. These repetitions are important, the author of this volume asserts, because sentiments and behaviours forbidden during the war and post-war social and political changes were often articulated by or through the female image. Moving across major character types, from mothers to daughters, and schoolteachers to streetwalkers, this volume studies the role of the media in shaping the attitudes of the general public. Japanese cinema after defeat in the Asia Pacific War and World War II is shown to be an important ground where social experiences were explored, reworked, and eventually accepted or rejected by audiences emotionally invested in these repetitive materials. An examination of 600 films produced and distributed between 1945 and 1964, as well as numerous Japanese-language sources, forms the basis of this study. This volume draws on an art-historical iconographic analysis to explain how viewers derive meanings from images during this peak period of film production and attendance in Japan.

Entry by GWC Assistants / Work by GWC Assistants : 
AK

Type of Literature:

Time Period:

Regions:

Countries:

Library Location: 
Call Number: 
965604067

Library: