Japanese Cinema - A Personal Journey

Peter Cowie is a bona fide expert on international film and has published 30+ books on the subject

His account of Japanese film includes personal encounters with the directors themselves and others icons such as Donald Richie.

A comprehensive guide to Japanese film: from prewar films to 21st-century Japanese animation.

Has the breadth of an introduction for the uninitiated along with perceptive analysis to impress film buffs.

Includes individual chapters dedicated to revered directors Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Hayao Miyazaki, among others.

Peter Cowie is a frequent collaborator with the Criterion Collection where one can view many of the films mentioned in the book.

Japan is considered to have one of the world's premier national cinemas: for reference, the Criterion Collection hosts 221 Japanese films, surpassed only by the United States and France in quantity.

The British Film Institute ranks Ozu's Tokyo Story and Late Spring as the 3rd and 15th greatest film of all time respectively. Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Rashomon rank 17th and 26th respectively. Distinguished film critic Roger Ebert has sited Ozu's Floating Weeds and Kurosawa's Ikiru on his 10 greatest films of all time. All 6 of which feature in this book.

Japanese film auteurs such as Ozu and Kurosawa receive individual chapters dedicated to their oeuvre, so too does the international face of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki.

According to UNESCO, Japan has consistently ranked as the 4th largest film-producing country, in terms of number of films produced, and 3rd, in terms of gross box office, coming in at 2.4 billion.

List of contents

CONTENTS

Introduction
1. Akira Kurosawa and the Samurai World
2. Kenji Mizoguchi: The Need for Compassion
3. Women in the Floating World: Hiroshi Shimizu, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita 4. Harmony and Disharmony in Yasujiro Ozu
5. Kon Ichikawa: The Art of Appearances
6. The Shadow of War
7 Nagisa Oshima and the Shock of the 1960s
8. Period of Transition: Juzo Itami, Naomi Kawase, Hirokazu Kore-eda
9. Hayao Miyazaki: The Animator as Auteur
Conclusion

About the author

PETER COWIE has spent his life in writing about cinema, and in particular about the prodigious talents that emerged during the 1950s and 1960s such as Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa. His more than thirty books include studies of the work of John Ford, Francis Ford Coppola, and the iconic actress Louise Brooks. He was international publisher of the trade paper, Variety, for more than twelve years, and he is also known for his numerous commentaries and video essays for the Criterion Collection in New York. Cowie has traveled throughout Japan on several occasions, and is an avid fan of its history, its literature, and its cinema.

Summary

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.

Foreword

Co-op available


National print campaign – Galleys/e-galleys sent to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Japan Times, Kyoto Journal, Japan Forward, Nippon, Nikkei Asian Review, LA Times, National Book Review, Book Forum, Book Riot, Booklist, BookPage, Foreword, Kirkus, Library Journal, NPR, Pop Matters, Portland Book Review, City Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Rain Taxi, SF Chronicle, Shelf Awareness, The Guardian, Washington Post, Seattle Times, JQ Magazine, Asian Review of Books, Books on Asia.

General eBook marketing plans --Book will be available at the same time as print publication to maximize sales eBook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed publisher and author will be promoting both e and p through social media Vendor promotions with RightStuf

Tour-Virtual book talks with Japan Societies in USA

Special outreach for reviews and interviews with the author to English-language Japanese media including NHK, The Japan Times, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan Today and more.

Edelweiss and Netgalley digital review copies to the trade and blogs.

Podcast interviews with book related podcasts such as Books on Asia, Asian Review of Books.

Additional text

"Peter Cowie’s erudition is stupendous. His critical acumen is unequaled. But it’s his humanity that makes his writing as special as it is. These short accounts of great Japanese filmmakers, and of Cowie’s relationship to their work, create a portrait of Japanese cinema that is both enjoyable and indispensable."

—Glenn Kenny, film critic and author of Made Men: The Story of ‘Goodfellas’

"Peter Cowie has introduced more people to the glories of foreign cinema than any living writer. Japanese Cinema: A Personal Journey is both a warm labor of love and an indispensable work of scholarship, suitable for novices and aficionados alike. It's the only book you need to read on the subject."

—Mick LaSalle, author of The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses

"Peter Cowie invites us to travel along with him through decades of exceptional Japanese films.  Along the way we meet many of Japan’s beloved directors and a host of others who have been influential in producing and promoting Japanese films (Madame Kawakita, Donald Richie, cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, to name a few). This “personal journey” extends from the frozen north of Hokkaidō to the warmer port cities of Hiroshima and Onomichi, and beyond. Along with Cowie, we explore Japan’s “alternating currents of violence and reflection” through his intimate, but also expansive, point of view."

—Dr. Linda Ehrlich, Author of Cinematic Reveries: Gestures, Stillness, Water

Praise for Peter
Cowie's Akira
Kurosawa: Master of
Cinema 


"This is the kind of book that elicits a
"whoa", before reading a single
word."
—Oliver
Ho, Pop Matters


"Flipping through the pages of Peter
Cowie's lavishly illustrated and
large-sized tribute to Kurosawa, one is left wondering why it took so
long"

—Chris
Gosling, Sense of Cinema


"A book of
value both to Kurosawa novices and to aficionados in
search of deeper insight."

—Mick
LaSalle, SF Gate


"A highly
perceptive and elegant text
by critic Peter Cowie"

—John Patterson, Directors
Guild of America Quartlerly

"A
veritable treasure for newcomers and longtime devotees
alike, Akira Kurosawa: Master of
Cinema is an ideal companion piece to any Kurosawa
retrospective."

—Marc
Saint-Cyr, Row Three

Product details

• Authors: Peter Cowie
• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 10.05.2022, delayed
• EAN: 9781611720754
• ISBN: 978-1-61172-075-4
• No. of pages: 216
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Memoirs, HISTORY / Asia / Japan, Biography: arts & entertainment