Hibakusha cinema
Subtitle: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the nuclear image in Japanese film
By: edited by Mick Broderick.
Contributors: Broderick, Mick.
Series: Japanese studies
Publisher: Kegan Paul International; Distributed by Columbia University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: London; New York; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 255
Subjects: Motion pictures -- Japan; Atomic bomb victims in motion pictures; Nuclear warfare in motion pictures
Description: Hiroshima and Nagasaki evoke powerful and sombre associations of holocaust and apocalypse, a vision that gives rise to Japanese hibakusha cinema, which attempts to come to terms with the bombings in a number of ways.

Including contributions from such renowned theorists as Donald Richie and Susan Sontag, Hibakusha Cinema focuses critical attention upon this little-studied yet vitally important trend in Japanese film. Assembled chronologically, the anthology begins with rare, early commentary and closes with new criticism specially prepared for this volume.

The essays explore the metatextuality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki via film and television renderings of hibakusha experiences as well as Japanese projections of future nuclear wars.

Hibakusha Cinema assesses a broad range of Japanese film to locate this significant theme: the essays cover documentary and dramatic films made under strict, Occupation-era censorship; the historical docudramas of the 1950s and 1980s; the widespread though critically neglected nuclear monster subgenre; and apocalyptic manga films and videos.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.