Posted on 06/02/2024 5:59:18 AM PDT by Twotone
Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon wasn't a big hit when it was released in Japan, but when it won a Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival it opened the floodgates for Japanese cinema into the cinemas and film festivals of the west. No less than Ed Sullivan wrote that "the direction, the photography and the performances will jar open your eyes," and within a year films by Mizoguchi and Ozu joined Fellini, Bergman and Rossellini in the art houses.
It took barely ten years from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and VJ Day for Japan to go from vicious, possibly subhuman enemy to a culture worth studying and admiring. This shouldn't be surprising; Japan was already in the habit of rapidly transforming both itself and its relationship with the world, and with a massive US military presence occupying Japan until well after the end of the Korean War, the wives and families of servicemen stationed in the country turned out to be its first, best ambassadors.
"Military wives taught their American friends about the arts and traditions they encountered living in Japan," wrote Meghan Warner Mettler in her book How to Reach Japan by Subway: America's Fascination with Japanese Culture, 1945-1965, "while homemakers did their part as consumers to purchase and display Japan-inspired furnishings."
A new wave of Japonisme broke out in the west half a century after the first one; flower arranging and ceramics and Japan's elegant and austere art harmonized well with mid-century modernism, and haiku poetry and Zen Buddhism would take their place on the bookshelves of intellectuals, pseudo- and otherwise.
(Think of Robert Morse's Bertram Cooper in the series Mad Men, asking executives to take off their shoes when entering his tastefully decorated office with its framed Japanese woodcut prints on the walls.)
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Love Japanese moviesz- either silent or “talkies”-
Lone wolf and cub series was pretty good
Zatoichi was a good one too about a blind samurai
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xcD4evqh4TI
..the Lone-Wolf-and-Cub series was the inspiration for
THE MANDALORIAN star wars series.
Toshiro Mifuni was one of the great actors of the world. Would watch anything with him in it.
As for ‘Hidden Fortress’ Lucas even took the swipe screens!
My Marine dad was on the invasion fleet at sea headed to Japan when the bombs dropped. He then became part of the occupation force. All I know of his time there were two souvenirs he brought home: a Japanese Rising Sun flag and a silk parachute to make Mom’s wedding dress for October 1947. I sure wish he had kept a diary and that I had talked to him about his experiences in Japan. He didn’t bring home any love for Japan and we sure didn’t adopt any Japanese culture in our home.
“Toshiro Mifuni was one of the great actors of the world. Would watch anything with him in it.”
My dad was in Tokyo Bay for the surrender and was part of the initial occupation forces. He hated the Japanese until the day he died.
My father fought on Guam and Okinawa in WWII in the Sixth Marine Division. He was stationed in Japan for six months in 1953-54 and seemed to get along fine with the Japanese then.
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