A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos
by Donald Richie
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donald RichieForeword: Paul Schrader
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-08-01
ISBN: 4770029950
Number of pages: 319
Publisher: Kodansha USA
Book Reviews of A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos
Book Review: A great (but selective) reference work
Summary: 4 Stars
"A Hundred Years of Japanese Film" is an excellent introduction to the fascinating world of Japanese cinema, marred slightly by occasional signs of elitism.
Author Donald Ritchie deserves a ton of credit for promoting the appreciation of Japanese films in the U.S., and his vast knowledge of the subject is undeniably impressive. In this book, he does a great job of charting the evolution of Japanese cinema, from its early stage roots to the "golden period" of the 1950s and beyond. He provides plenty of fascinating information on - and thoughtful analysis of - Japan's most acclaimed directors, with Ozu, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi receiving particular (deserved) attention.
That said, Ritchie falters somewhat by largely dismissing anime and Japanese horror/sci-fi films. He gives a bit of grudging credit to Miyazaki, but even that comes across as condescending. And Ritchie can't summon anything at all to say about, for example, the first Godzilla film, which is generally considered a decent piece of art with a serious political message. (The BBC, for example, recently gave that film a perfect five-star review.) And yet, Ritchie is willing to praise the equally lurid yakuza/gangster pictures of Suzuki and others - so I found his attitude toward genre pictures to be inconsistent.
But I'm probably griping too much. Ritchie is mainly concerned with serious drama films, and that's a good approach in itself. Perhaps he figured that Americans already know a lot about anime and Godzilla, and need more exposure to unjustly-obscure drama directors such as Mizoguchi and Ozu. So, to sum up, this book is particularly useful if you're into classic and acclaimed Japanese cinema, and not so useful if you like Japanese genre cinema.
One particularly handy feature is the book's (now slightly dated) index of Japanese films that are available on DVD and VHS. This index is a great way to discover "new" Japanese films to watch - but beware of Ritchie's plot summaries, because he occasionally gives away the endings.
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