Film Exhibition Culture in Osaka, 1896-1926: The Cultural Geography of Movie Theaters

Film Exhibition Culture in Osaka, 1896-1926: The Cultural Geography of Movie Theaters

Keiko Sasagawa - Associate Professor, Humanities Department of Film & Media Studies, Kansai University; Visiting Scholar, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University

Monday, November 18, 2013 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Room 203, Henry R. Luce Hall See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511

When and in what ways did film culture take shape in Osaka? In what ways did it change over time? In the Meiji and Taisho Periods, Tokyo prospered as a site of both film production and film consumption; Kyoto was active as a site of production, but had less success in terms of film consumption; and most regional cities showed little success in terms of either film production or consumption. Where does Osaka fit in? How did the geographic and historical factors of the city of Osaka shape and develop its film culture? How is a history of film depicted from the perspective of Osaka different from the traditional history of Japanese film, centered as it is on Tokyo’s film culture? Using Meiji- and Taisho-Period film theaters as an example, I will trace the relationship between Osaka’s urban change and film culture, and explore the process in which overlapping older and newer cultural paradigms gave birth to a new cultural diversity.

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Japan