Book dossier

Deleuze Japanese Cinema And The Atom Bomb

by David Deamer

"David Deamer establishes the first ever sustained encounter between Gilles Deleuze's Cinema books and post-war Japanese cinema, by exploring how Japanese films responded to and were transformed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the early days of American occupation political censorship through to the social and cultural freedoms of the 1960s and beyond, the book examines how images of the event permeate post-war Japanese cinema. Each chapter begins by focusing upon one of three key themes: taxonomy, history or thought, before going on to explore a broad selection of films from 1945 to the present day, including respected masterpieces (Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, 1951); popular and cult cinema (Godzilla, 1954; world renowned anime, Akira, 1988); the new wave (Nagisa Oshima's Night and Fog in Japan, 1960); and modern classics (Hideo Nakata's Ring, 1998). The author provides a series of monochrome diagrams to clarify and illustrate the concepts and conceptual components explored within the text, establishing a unique addition to Deleuze and cinema studies."--