Do you know the history of cinema in Japan?

With well over 100 years, cinema in Japan has been growing from a handful of short reels into hundreds of features a year. In 1899, short actuality films such as Geisha no teodori (芸者の手踊り, Geisha's Hand Dance) were screened in Tokyo, including a commercial showing at the Kabuki-za. They recorded dancers and street scenes in a few minutes of film. A larger narrative push came soon after: Shozo Makino's Chushingura, the story of the 47 ronin, reached theaters around 1910-1912 and is often treated as an early Japanese feature. For a certain period, as happened in other countries, the film industry was controlled by the military. After the 1939 Film Law, the cinemas showed educational films and militaristic propaganda in large quantities. They also began to produce films focusing on loyalty to the Emperor and personal sacrifice for the benefit of the people. Thus, during World War II, films acquired the objective of ideological propaganda.

Cinema in Japan after World War II

In the post-war period, Japan was both devastated in terms of infrastructure and psychologically. Under the Allied occupation, cinema became a tool for re-education, with scripts reviewed and wartime titles pulled from circulation. Gradually, with economic growth, space opened up for major studios like Toho, Shochiku, and Daiei to rebuild. During this period, Western influence became stronger and more evident among people, thus reflecting in cinema. It is in this scenario that the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa emerges, debuting in 1943 with Sugata Sanshiro (Sanshiro Sugata), a judo story made while the war was still on. Kurosawa began to gain popularity in Japan, creating stories where good and evil are not easily defined. In 1951, international recognition came when Akira Kurosawa was awarded in Venice for his film Rashomon (1950), which took the Golden Lion. In 1952 the Academy gave Japan an Honorary Foreign Language Film Award for the same title. The competitive Oscar category for foreign-language features started in 1956; Rashomon belongs to the honorary prizes that came first. Two years after Venice, Teinosuke Kinugasa, an actor and director of Japanese cinema, filmed Jigokumon (Gate of Hell, 1953), the first Japanese color film to have an international premiere. In 1954 this film took the Grand Prize at Cannes, then an honorary foreign-language Oscar and the Oscar for costume design. From then on, Japan's film production grew considerably. Industry figures collected by Eiren show Japanese features passing 300 titles a year by 1953 and 500 by 1956, with domestic films taking most of the box office at home in those peak years.

Diversifying cinema in Japan

The themes varied greatly, ranging from dramas to comedies, and actresses filled more of the screen as stars. Musical films reappeared, as well as action and superhero films. And in 1954, after Ishiro Honda's Godzilla (Gojira) for Toho, science fiction and fantasy films gained their space. The same monster boom later produced rivals such as Gamera. In the 60s and 70s, new central themes began to emerge. Directors like Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda, and Seijun Suzuki broke tradition, addressing modern themes in a provocative and even shocking manner, tackling issues such as crime, sex, the role of minorities, and anti-heroes, also using surrealism and unconventional narrative forms for that time. Feature animation had already started to travel. In 1984, Hayao Miyazaki adapted his manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no tani no Naushika) for cinema. In 1988, Katsuhiro Otomo directed the famous and revolutionary Akira. The film depicted a pessimistic future after a nuclear disaster, combining technology, juvenile delinquency, and political conspiracies. In 2001, Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli released Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), a film that broke box office records in Japan. It shared the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2002 and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2003. In 2016, another film called Kimi no na wa appeared to break more box office records. Today Japanese cinema still produces hundreds of features a year. Domestic films again take most of the local box office, and anime carries a large share of what travels abroad. The studio names from the 1950s sit beside that later animation boom. Article written by Marcelo do Carmo.