A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, With a Selective Guide to Dvds And Videos [Anglais] [Broché]

Widely considered the leading Western authority on Japan, Richie has a particular affinity for the nation's films, as is evident on every page of this authoritative survey. He emphasizes the collaborative nature of film, which is particularly appropriate since in Japanese culture the collective usually trumps the individual, and shows how Japanese cinema largely eschewed realism and narrative until it fell under Western influence. The section on the silent era, when live narrators, benshi, described films' stories to audiences, is particularly revelatory, since 90 percent of pre-1945 Japanese films haven't survived. Richie comments insightfully on the acknowledged masters-- Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Kurosawa--and also on other notable directors who are virtually unknown to even the most avid American cineasts. He finds less to praise about contemporary filmmakers, whose flashier, Westernized approach seems less to his liking. The impressive amount of information on films renowned and obscure and Richie's enthusiasm and critical acumen make this essential for film studies collections. Brief reviews of about 200 films, with notations on video availability, top things off nicely. Gordon Flagg
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"Donald Richie is the leading U.S. authority on Japanese film."

"Superb."

"Essential. Detailed. Invaluable. If only there was something like this in every national industry."

"Richie's sense of both future and past remains as sharp as ever." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"... so elegant is the prose, so striking are the insights, ... it holds one rapt from first page to last." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"... the perfect guide to little-known styles, directors, and studios.... All collections." --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the latest edition of this authoritative volume by Donald Richie, the foremost Western expert on Japanese film, gives us an incisive, detailed, and fully illustrated history of the country's cinema.

Called "the dean of Japan's arts critics" by Time magazine, Richie takes us from the inception of Japanese cinema at the end of the nineteenth century, through the achievements of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu, then on to the notable works of contemporary filmmakers. This revised edition includes analyses of the latest trends in Japanese cinema, such as the revival of the horror genre, and introduces today's up-and-coming directors and their works.

As Paul schrader writes in his perceptive foreword, Richie's accounting of the Japanese film "retains his sensitivity to the actual circumstances of film production (something filmmakers know very well but historians often overlook) . . . and shows the interweave of filmmaking—the contributions of directors, writers, cinematographers, actors, musicians, art directors, as well as financiers."

Of primary interest to those who would like to watch the works introduced in these pages, Richie has provided capsule reviews of the major subtitled Japanese films commercially available in DVD and VHS formats. This guide has been updated to include not only the best new movie releases, but also classic films available in these formats for the first time.

The authoritative guide to Japanese film, completely revised and updated.

Former Curator of Film at the New York Museum of Modern Art, DONALD RICHIE has written some forty books on Japan and its people, including definitive works on the Japanese film directors Kurosawa and Ozu. The film version of his travel classic, The Inland Sea, has been shown on PBS and won several prizes at international film festivals, as well as the National Geographic Earth Award. Public People, Private People, his portraits of famous and far-from-famous Japanese, received praise from many quarters. Of Richi's two collections of essays, A Lateral View and Partial Views, Susan Sontag said: "Donald Richie writes about Japan with an unrivaled range, acuity, and wit."

A well-known director (American Gigolo, Affliction) and screenwriter (Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ), PAUL SCHRADER also has a strong feeling for Japan and its films. Not only did he write and direct Mishima, considered by many to be his masterpiece, he also contributed to the very first appreciation of the Japanese yakuza film genre and wrote the seminal Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.