Overview
- A unique examination of the films of award-winning Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu through the lens of a traditional Japanese appreciation of Nature, and through the themes of liminality, trauma and recovery, and new configurations of family
- Presents Kore-eda Hirokazu’s oeuvre as a connected whole with overarching thematic concerns, despite his frequent generic experimentation
- A comprehensive analysis of Kore-eda Hirokazu’s 13 feature films and four of his documentaries
Part of the book series: East Asian Popular Culture (EAPC)
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About this book
The Films of Kore-eda Hirokazu: An Elemental Cinema draws readers into the first 13 feature films and 5 of the documentaries of award-winning Japanese film director Kore-eda Hirokazu. With his recent top prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters, Kore-eda is arguably Japan’s greatest living director with an international viewership. He approaches difficult subjects (child abandonment, suicide, marginality) with a realistic and compassionate eye.
The lyrical tone of the writing of Japanese film scholar Linda C. Ehrlich perfectly complements the understated, yet powerful, tone of the films. From An Elemental Cinema, readers will gain a special understanding of Kore-eda’s films through a novel connection to the natural elements as reflected in Japanese traditional aesthetics.
An Elemental Cinema presents Kore-eda’s oeuvre as a connected whole with overarching thematic concerns, despite frequent generic experimentation. It also offers an example of how the poetics of cinema can be practiced in writing, as well as on the screen, and helps readers understand the films of this contemporary director as works of art that relate to their own lives.
The lyrical tone of the writing of Japanese film scholar Linda C. Ehrlich perfectly complements the understated, yet powerful, tone of the films. From An Elemental Cinema, readers will gain a special understanding of Kore-eda’s films through a novel connection to the natural elements as reflected in Japanese traditional aesthetics.
An Elemental Cinema presents Kore-eda’s oeuvre as a connected whole with overarching thematic concerns, despite frequent generic experimentation. It also offers an example of how the poetics of cinema can be practiced in writing, as well as on the screen, and helps readers understand the films of this contemporary director as works of art that relate to their own lives.
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Keywords
Table of contents (18 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“In Linda Ehrlich, Kore-eda Hirokazu has found his most suitable and perfect commentator. Ehrlich possesses an eloquence and sensitivity that matches Kore-eda’s own deep and abiding humanism.”
David M. Desser, Professor Emeritus of Cinema Studies, University of Illinois, USA
David M. Desser, Professor Emeritus of Cinema Studies, University of Illinois, USA
"It’s difficult to imagine a more insightful and illuminating way of approaching Kore-eda’s films than through the series of lyrical essays that Linda Ehrlich wrote. Like a tapestry of interconnected threads, she beautifully draws out the poetry and the challenges of quotidian life as depicted in his films. Given the carefully selected, crucial still images from the films, the experience on the page is transferred back to the screen, giving new meaning to, and helping us reimagine anew, a body of work that is rich in the elements and associations that it articulates. Not since Gombrich’s The Story of Art have I seen the integration of image, experience, and content implemented so elegantly and eloquently.”
— Otávio Bueno, Professor and Chair, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, University of Miami, USA
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Linda C. Ehrlich is an independent scholar who has published extensively about world cinema and about traditional theatre.
Her books include: Cinematic Reveries (2013), The Cinema of Víctor Erice: An Open Window (2007), and the co-edited Cinematic Landscapes: Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinemas of China and Japan (reprint 2008). Her commentaries appear on the Criterion DVD of The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena, dir. Víctor Erice) and the Milestone Film and Video 25th-anniversary DVD/blu-ray of Maborosi (dir. Kore-eda Hirokau). In addition, she is an award-winning poet.
Dr. Ehrlich has taught at Duke University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, and on two Semester-at-Sea voyages. She has lived in Japan for more than five years, and has interviewed the director twice.
Her books include: Cinematic Reveries (2013), The Cinema of Víctor Erice: An Open Window (2007), and the co-edited Cinematic Landscapes: Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinemas of China and Japan (reprint 2008). Her commentaries appear on the Criterion DVD of The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena, dir. Víctor Erice) and the Milestone Film and Video 25th-anniversary DVD/blu-ray of Maborosi (dir. Kore-eda Hirokau). In addition, she is an award-winning poet.
Dr. Ehrlich has taught at Duke University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, and on two Semester-at-Sea voyages. She has lived in Japan for more than five years, and has interviewed the director twice.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Films of Kore-eda Hirokazu
Book Subtitle: An Elemental Cinema
Authors: Linda C. Ehrlich
Series Title: East Asian Popular Culture
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33051-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-33050-7Published: 30 January 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-33053-8Published: 30 January 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-33051-4Published: 30 December 2019
Series ISSN: 2634-5935
Series E-ISSN: 2634-5943
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 298
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations, 63 illustrations in colour
Topics: Asian Cinema and TV, Asian Culture, Film History, Popular Culture