Rea Amit (FILM/EALL)

Rea Amit (FILM/EALL) received a CEAS Field Research Grant to help support six weeks of research in Japan for his project, “The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema, the Nation and the Everyday.”

To begin, could you please provide a brief summary of your research?

My research examined broad discourses on popular cinema in Japan during the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Since popular cinema was not often discussed by critics (they widely dismissed it as kitsch), my attention was given primarily to publications by non-professional writers, random accounts by frequent filmgoers, and to individual fans. 

How did you first get interested in your topic of research?

I realized that there is a gap between the image of Japanese cinema and what Japanese were actually watching; particularly during the third decade of the Showa era (1955-1965).  Given that this was a time when more films were produced in Japan than anywhere else in the world, I felt that there is a pending need to expose this lesser studied phenomenon, and to elaborate on issues with regard to the discrepancy between the aesthetic of an image of a national cinema and the reality of everyday filmgoers at a given time and place.

What did you do for your summer project?

Since information on non-artistic, popular film culture is very difficult to obtain, I had to comb general popular magazines, hoping to find published letters by readers, advertisements, and rare articles, or even partial references to popular cinema.  Among the many publications I carefully studied are weekly magazines (shūkanshi) such as: Heibon, Asahi, Taishū, News tokuhō, Josei seben, Shin shūkan, Jitsuwa yomimono, Terebi jidai, fūfu, Jitsuwa to hiroku, Jiji, Modan Nihon, Gendai, Kōron, Shōnen magajin, and Bunshun.  These are available for researchers mainly at the National Diet Library, and the Oya Sōichi archive.  In addition, at Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum library, I looked at newsletters and publication by the some of the big film studios at the time such as: Shōchiku gurafu, Daiei gurafu, and Tōhō, but most of my attention was given to Tōei’s fan club magazine, Tōei no tomo. Finally, I also sent out questionnaires to about 350 former film fans.

What would you say were the most interesting findings of your summer research?  Were there any surprises?

I was surprised to find out (although this cannot be statistically proven) that so many fans of Toei, a studio chiefly known for its jidaigeki (period drama), were actually young women.  Also, unlike what is normally thought about film stars, I was surprised to find out how relatively approachable they were for fans.

What was the most challenging part of your summer research?  Were you able to overcome these challenges?

With the exception of the scarcity of publications from the time period that deal directly with popular cinema, as well as the long hours I had to spend at gloomy archives, I cannot really single out any particular challenge that I had to overcome.

Now that you are back on campus, what is the next step for your research? 

Making sense of all the stuff I have collected over the summer! I have literally hundreds of different pieces of information, some statistical data, and dozens of fan letters, from which I need to extrapolate a larger statement about what cinema culture at the time really was, as well as to come up with a theoretical framework in which to put this as a broader statement about an aesthetic of Japanese cinema.

Do you have any words of advice for graduate students who plan to do research abroad next summer?

Arrive at archives first thing in the morning, and try to gather as many documents as possible while there. Before you go, however, make sure these are not available at Yale or through borrow direct.