"Picturing Japaneseness"

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how in Chapter 7 of Darrell William Davis' "Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film", Davis analyzes the film "The Abe Clan" (1938) in terms of its complex portrayal of ritual suicide.

From the Paper:

"The film can be read to show how historical appropriation can be used as a tool of propaganda of the state. The film is not primarily interesting for its accuracy in its depiction of feudal Japan. Rather, the potency of the film for viewers of the 1930s was its ability to move the audience believe in a myth, what Davis calls a canonized view of feudal Japanese ethics. The surface reading of the film is a romanticized, simplistic and beautiful vision that celebrates the virtues of the hierarchical family system and the worship of a daimyo that functions as a stand-in for the Japanese figure of the Emperor, for whom ordinary Japanese soldiers and civilians would later, in wartime propaganda, be encouraged to die for. "

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• Descriptive Essay # 97287 : "Japanese Art"

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