Film is usually considered an entertainment medium, rather than material for serious study, but I want to change that in this course. The films we'll see will, first and foremost, present issues for discussion; they are also aesthetic creations, expressions of both the specific directors' and actors' skills, and of the societies (and specific times) which produced them.

The issue is not whether or not one likes a particular film, but whether the exercise of decoding its messages helps to broaden understanding (or maybe provokes questions). The language and conventions of non-American films are sometimes difficult for audiences accustomed to Hollywood narrative style: subtitled films are not everybody's favorite thing, and sometimes the action seems a little bit slow. You'll have ample opportunity to broaden your palette of cinematic appreciation.

Film is a very complex medium. Each one is an exercise in decoding, being

Thus, it's reasonable to ask what it takes for a non-Japanese to understand Kurosawa's films, or for a non-Korean to grasp the significance and message of the art of pansori tales, or for a non-Chinese to penetrate Chinese opera. This is very much what anthropology is all about: the work of understanding cultural difference.

I'll try to provide explanatory material before each film, so that you'll have some idea of what you're watching and why it was chosen. You'll respond in writing to each of the films, generally to specific questions, and I'll grade your submissions (I'll use a check, checkplus, checkminus scheme, with zero for missed assignments and some lesser sanction for lateness).

Some resources that might be useful:

Senses of Cinema ("an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema"):
A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to Videos and DVDs by Donald Richie Book review by Darrell William Davis

Throw Away Your Books: Japanese Cinema by Bill Mousoulis

Translating Kurosawa by Patrick Crogan

Akira Kurosawa b. March 23, 1910, Omori, Tokyo, Japan. d. September 6, 1998, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. by Dan Harper

Kurosawa on Rashomon