Tanaka Kinuyo
Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity
Edited by Irene González-López, Michael Smith
The first book in English dedicated to the actor and director Tanaka Kinuyo
Praised as amongst the greatest actors in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka’s career spanned the industrial development of cinema – from silent to sound, monochrome to colour. Alongside featuring in films by Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and Kurosawa, Tanaka was also the only Japanese woman filmmaker between 1953 and 1962, and her films tackled distinctly feminine topics such as prostitution and breast cancer. Her career overlapped with a transformative period in Japanese history, and this close analysis of her fascinating life and work offers new perspectives, subjectivities and modes of analysis for the classical era of Japanese cinema.
Key Features- A unique look at the life and career of Tanaka Kinuyo, as both an actor and director
- Offers a new perspective on the history of women and film in Japan
- Brings together a range of Japanese and western scholars
Preface
Furukawa KaoruIntroduction: Onna Monogatari
Irene González-López and Michael Smith 1. Dancer, Doctor, Virgin, Wife: Tanaka Kinuyo’s Early Star Image
Lauri Kitsnik 2. Meetings and Partings: How Tanaka's Films End
Alexander Jacoby 3. Tanaka and Mizoguchi: Politics and Rebellion in the Early Postwar Era
Michael Smith 4. The First Female Gaze at Postwar Japanese Women: Tanaka Kinuyo Film Director
Irene González-López and Ashida Mayu 5. Kinuyo and Sumie: When Women Write and Direct
Ayako Saito6. Female Authorship, Subjectiviy and Colonial Memory in Tanaka Kinuyo’s The Wandering Princess (1960)
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández 7. Panpan Girls, Lesbians and Postwar Women’s Communitites: Girls of Dark (1961) as Women’s Cinema
Yuka Kanno
Furukawa KaoruIntroduction: Onna Monogatari
Irene González-López and Michael Smith 1. Dancer, Doctor, Virgin, Wife: Tanaka Kinuyo’s Early Star Image
Lauri Kitsnik 2. Meetings and Partings: How Tanaka's Films End
Alexander Jacoby 3. Tanaka and Mizoguchi: Politics and Rebellion in the Early Postwar Era
Michael Smith 4. The First Female Gaze at Postwar Japanese Women: Tanaka Kinuyo Film Director
Irene González-López and Ashida Mayu 5. Kinuyo and Sumie: When Women Write and Direct
Ayako Saito6. Female Authorship, Subjectiviy and Colonial Memory in Tanaka Kinuyo’s The Wandering Princess (1960)
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández 7. Panpan Girls, Lesbians and Postwar Women’s Communitites: Girls of Dark (1961) as Women’s Cinema
Yuka Kanno
It would appear that English language scholarship on Kinuyo Tanaka is just beginning. In addition, this volume is helpful in better understanding some of the outside forces that also played a part in the history of Japanese cinema.
This collection offers long-overdue attention to Japanese actress/director Tanaka Kinuyo (1909–77)...Taken together, these essays offer praise for a woman—already highly successful as an actress—who claimed her own authorship as a director and continued to grow as an actress as she aged...As someone who refused to be pigeonholed, and who took considerable chances, she blazed a strong trail for others to follow.
This collection provides a valuable overview of Tanaka Kinuyo’s long and prolific career as an actress and director. While Tanaka took on the roles of some of the most iconic figures in Japanese cinema, she also embodied many of the deep contradictions around women’s status in a rapidly changing society. These authors brilliantly demonstrate how Tanaka overcame multiple challenges to direct her own powerful films about men and women in the unfixed landscape of postwar Japan.
