Osaki Midori and the Theory Complex in Japan

As many of you know, I have been working on a book about the history of film theory in Japan for quite some time. The larger project has already produced a number of articles (you can see some here, here, and here), journal reprints,��lectures, and even a film theory anthology, but the book is progressing slowly. I already have a good number of sections written for the pre-war volume (it looks like it��might end up being a two-volume work), but I am still working on how best to shape this for a more general audience. My former student, Naoki Yamamoto, has reworked his dissertation into a wonderful book, Dialectics without Synthesis: Japanese Film Theory and Realism in a Global Frame, but my book will not be a directed at an audience of specialists.��

That���s why I was thrilled when the folks at Light Industry, the venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, NY, asked me to give a talk about my research. This was an audience to speak to a more general, but still highly interested audience. Given the��pandemic, we opted for a podcast-like oral talk, and after some discussion, we opted for my discussion of Osaki Midori���s writings on film. As Tom Lamarre and Livia Monnet have already shown, Osaki���s approach to cinema is unique and fascinating, but I wanted to explore it in light of the context of film theory at the time. Since I am not an Osaki specialist,��this is more a discussion of my encounter with Osaki. I preface the talk with an introduction to the problem of studying Japanese film theory, primarily because I contend Osaki, if not recognizing such problems herself, can be fruitfully understood in that context.