Description
Book SynopsisIn the ongoing aftermath of the nuclear accident in 2011, filmmakers have continued to issue warnings about the state of Japanese society and politics, which remain mired in refusal to change. Nearly a decade in the making, Japanese Filmmakers in the Wake of Fukushima is based on in-person interviews with countless filmmakers, as well as continuous dialogue with them and their work. Author Wada-Marciano has expanded these dialogues to include students, audiences at screenings, critics, and researchers, and her observations are based on down-to-earth-exchange of ideas engaged in over a long period of time.
Filmmakers and artists are in the vanguard of those who grapple with what should be done regarding the struggle against fear of the invisible blight—radiation exposure. Rather than blindly following the mass media and public opinion, they have chosen to think and act independently. While repeatedly viewing and reviewing the film works from the post-Fukushima period, Wada-Marciano felt the unwavering message that emanates from them: “There must be no more nuclear weapons.” “There must be no more nuclear power generation.” The book is dedicated to convincing readers of the clarity of their message.
Trade Review"Wada-Marciano’s passion makes for compelling reading— detailing Japan’s antinuclear cinema, she joins its refusal of the one-party democratic state’s culture of enforced forgetting and simultaneously challenges privileging the arty and obscure in Japanese Film Studies."
. Professor Chris Berry, Dept. of Film Studies, King’s College London
"Wada-Marciano’s insightful on-the-ground interviews and astute analysis of cinematic content and techniques —in front of and behind the camera— introduce hard-to-find postdisaster films and argue persuasively for the urgency of the anti-nuclear as a theme in Japanese documentary film."
. Rachel DiNitto, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Literatures, University of Oregon
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
List of Figures: Captions for the Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1: No Nukes before Fukushima: Postwar Atomic Cinema and the History of the “Safety Myth”
Chapter 2: Striding over 3.11: The Political Power of
Ashes to Honey Chapter 3: Resistance against the Nuclear Village
Chapter 4: The Power of Interviews
Chapter 5: Learning about Fukushima from the Margins
Chapter 6: The Power of Art after 3.11
Appendix: Interview from “Film Workshop with Director Hamaguchi Ryusuke”
Bibliography
