The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931-1945From the late 1920s through World War II, film became a crucial tool in the state of Japan. Detailing the way Japanese directors, scriptwriters, company officials, and bureaucrats colluded to produce films that supported the war effort, The Imperial Screen is a highly-readable account of the realities of cultural life in wartime Japan. Widely hailed as "epoch-making" by the Japanese press, it presents the most comprehensive survey yet published of "national policy" films, relating their montage and dramatic structures to the cultural currents, government policies, and propaganda goals of the era. Peter B. High's treatment of the Japanese film world as a microcosm of the entire sphere of Japanese wartime culture demonstrates what happens when conscientious artists and intellectuals become enmeshed in a totalitarian regime. |
Contents
Prologue | 3 |
Ad for a showing at the Denkikan Theater 1905 | 4 |
The Taishokan Theater in Asakusa Tokyo | 11 |
Into a Valley of Darkness | 13 |
The Asakusa movie district in the early thirties | 19 |
Scene from Yamanaka Minetarōs novel Iron | 25 |
The Manchurian Incident as Media Event | 29 |
The CrisisTime Japan Mood | 39 |
Scenes from Yamamotos Sea War from Hawaii to Malaya | 401 |
Scene from Kinoshita Keisukes Army 1944 | 403 |
Scene from Yoshimura Misaos Last Visit Home 1945 | 404 |
Scene from Toward the Decisive Battle in the Sky | 409 |
Scene from Yamamoto Satsuos Searing Wind 1943 | 417 |
Scene from Kurosawa Akiras Most Beautiful 1945 | 420 |
Trends in the Middle Phase | 422 |
Scene from Makino Masahiros Opium War 1943 | 425 |
2 | 51 |
9 | 54 |
Scenes from Malay War Record 1942 and in Momotaro | 57 |
55 | 74 |
The Kondankai System in Practice | 82 |
3 | 92 |
FeatureLength Documentaries in the First Year | 99 |
Issues Raised by Other Toho Military Documentaries | 114 |
99 | 145 |
The Film Industry in the China Incident | 149 |
II | 180 |
War Dramas in the China Incident | 190 |
17 | 199 |
The Time for Rationality Is at an End | 223 |
China Dreams | 265 |
On the Eve of a New War | 286 |
Repression and Internalization of Control | 322 |
ΙΟ The First Year of the Pacific War | 343 |
General Yamashita browbeating General Percival into surrendering Singapore | 368 |
Scene from Malay War Record | 370 |
Scene from Yamamoto Satsuos Winged Victory 1942 | 379 |
The New SpiritismA Progress of Souls | 382 |
Scene from Yamamoto Kajirōs Sea War from Hawaii to Malaya 1942 | 383 |
Scene from Tasaka Tomotakas Navy 1943 | 389 |
The stalwart Japanese spirit remains serenely unmoved by the lies poured forth by the demon Roosevelt 1943 | 391 |
Scene from Watanabe Kunios Toward the Decisive Battle in the Sky 1943 | 397 |
Scene from Tsuji Kichirōs Pirates Flag Blasted Away 1943 | 429 |
Sugiura Yukios cartoon for his essay This Is the Kind of HatetheEnemy Film We Need 1943 | 431 |
Scene from Imai Tadashis Suicide Troops of the Watchtower 1943 | 441 |
Storyboard card for the spy awareness campaign | 443 |
Scene from Yoshimura Kōzaburos On the Eve of War 1942 | 446 |
Scene from On the Spy Front 1941 | 449 |
Poster for Abe Yutakas Shoot That Flag a k a Dawn of Freedom 1943 | 455 |
The Late War Period | 458 |
Ad for Nihon Koon manufacturers of 16 mm projectors 1943 | 460 |
Nichigeki Theater closed for the duration and converted to war production 1944 | 462 |
Scene from Bomb Blasts and Shell Fragments 1944 | 467 |
Scene from Navy Hospital Ship 1944 | 469 |
Single frame cartoon of the character Momotarō 1943 | 473 |
Film critic Tsumura Hideo 190785 | 476 |
In the Shadow of Defeat | 478 |
Scene from a news film 1945 | 481 |
Enomoto Kenichi 190470 Yamamoto Kajirō 190291 | 494 |
Notes | 517 |
Characters in Tagawa Suihōs Nora Kuro comic strip emulate | 522 |
Tatebayashi Mikio surrounded by filmworld personnel 1939 | 528 |
Scene from Kameis Fighting Soldiers 1939 | 534 |
114 | 536 |
| 559 | |
| 573 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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