Pure Film Movement
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The was a trend in
film criticism Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Journalism, journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-m ...
and
filmmaking Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
in 1910s and early 1920s Japan that advocated what were considered more modern and cinematic modes of filmmaking. Critics in such magazines as ''
Kinema Record was a Japanese film magazine published during the 1910s that played an important role in the Pure Film Movement. In 1914, with no serious film magazines being published in Japan at the time, Norimasa Kaeriyama, Yoshiyuki Shigeno and other stud ...
'' and ''
Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...
'' complained that existing
Japanese cinema The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that ea ...
was overly theatrical. They said it presented scenes from
kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...
and
shinpa (also rendered ''shimpa'') is a form of theater in Japan, usually featuring melodramatic stories, contrasted with the more traditional ''kabuki'' style. It later spread to cinema. Art form The roots of ''Shinpa'' can be traced to a form of agi ...
theater as is, with little cinematic manipulation and without a screenplay written with cinema in mind. Women were even played by
onnagata (also ) are male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre. History The modern all-male kabuki was originally known as ("male kabuki") to distinguish it from earlier forms. In the early 17th century, shortly after the emergence of the g ...
. Filmmakers were charged with shooting films with long takes and leaving the storytelling to the
benshi were Japanese performers who provided live narration for silent films (both Japanese films and Western films). ''Benshi'' are sometimes called or . Role The earliest films available for public display were produced by Western studios, portraying ...
in the theater instead of using devices such as close-ups and analytical editing to visually narrate a scene. The novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki was an important supporter of the movement. Critics such as
Norimasa Kaeriyama (1 March 1893 – 6 November 1964) was a pioneering Japanese film director and film theorist. Biography Beginning with articles he submitted to Yoshizawa Shōten's magazine ''Katsudō shashinkai'' while still a student, Kaeriyama developed ...
eventually became filmmakers to put their ideas of what cinema is into practice, with Kaeriyama directing ''
The Glow of Life is a Japanese film directed by Norimasa Kaeriyama made in 1918 and released in 1919 by Tenkatsu. It is considered the first in a series of films aimed at reforming and modernizing Japanese cinema. Plot A country girl Teruko falls in love with ...
'' at the Tenkatsu Studio in 1918. This is often considered the first "pure film," but filmmakers such as
Eizō Tanaka was an early Japanese film director, screenwriter, and actor. Life and career Tanaka initially trained as a stage actor in the shingeki movement under Kaoru Osanai, but eventually joined the Nikkatsu film studio in 1917. He debuted as a directo ...
, influenced by
shingeki was a leading form of theatre in Japan that was based on modern realism. Born in the early years of the 20th century, it sought to be similar to modern Western theatre, putting on the works of the ancient Greek classics, William Shakespeare, Moli ...
theater, also made their own innovations in the late 1910s at studios like
Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...
.Richie, p. 8. The move towards "pure film" was aided by the appearance of new reformist studios such as
Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not all ...
and Taikatsu around 1920. By the mid-1920s, Japanese cinema exhibited more of the
cinematic techniques This article contains a list of cinematic techniques that are divided into categories and briefly described. Basic definitions of terms ;180-degree rule :A continuity editorial technique in which sequential shots of two or more actors within ...
pure film advocates called for, and ''onnagata'' were replaced by actresses. The movement profoundly influenced the way films would be made and thought about for decades to come, but it was not a complete success: benshi would remain an integral part of the Japanese film experience into the 1930s.


References


Bibliography

* * * * Available online at th
Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan
Movements in cinema History of film of Japan {{filmmaking-stub