The following are books that I authored or edited that have come out or are in press. I have other books in the works on 1990s Japanese cinema, Japanese film theory and other topics, so stay tuned for those.
Books
Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies
Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies (Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2009)
Co-authored with Abé Mark Nornes
ISBN 978192928053X (cloth)
ISBN 9781929280544 (paper)
"In its field I cannot imagine a research guide more needed. For whole decades scholars have struggled simply to locate sources, even to find out what there were. Now, however, the skill and stamina of Nornes and Gerow have resulted in a reference work which both illuminates and defines this field, clearing a formerly obscured terrain for future scholarship." —Donald Richie
"Every national cinema should be graced with such a resource as the one Nornes and Gerow have so generously and painstakingly assembled. This is a welcome and welcoming gateway through which will pass the next generation of scholars, able at last to swiftly draw on all that is available, as they make more become available in turn. Let’s hope that generation will exhibit the drive, clarity, comprehensiveness, and vision that these authors display. Their ‘frequently asked questions’ are ones I have been asked for decades; at last I have the answers." —Dudley Andrew, Yale University
The Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies provides a snapshot of all the archival and bibliographic resources available to students and scholars of Japanese cinema. Among the nations of the world, Japan has enjoyed an impressively lively print culture related to cinema. The first film books and periodicals appeared shortly after the birth of cinema, proliferating wildly in the 1910s with only the slightest pause in the dark days of World War II. The numbers of publications match the enormous scale of film production, but with the lack of support for film studies in Japan, much of it remains as uncharted territory, with few maps to negotiate the maze of material.
This book is the first all-embracing guide ever published for approaching the complex archive for Japanese cinema. It lists all the libraries and film archives in the world with significant collections of film prints, still photographs, archival records, books, and periodicals. It provides a comprehensive, annotated bibliography of the core books and magazines for the field. And it supplies hints for how to find and access materials for any research project. Above and beyond that, Nornes and Gerow’s Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies constitutes a comprehensive overview of the impressive dimensions and depth of the print culture surrounding Japanese film, and a guideline for future research in the field. This is an essential book for anyone seriously thinking about Japan and its cinema.
CJS books have limited distribution, so look to purchase it either directly from the CJS or through Amazon
Donald Richie has added to his blurb by publishing a nice review in the Japan Times.
David Bordwell said some kind words on his fine blog.
A Page of Madness
A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan (Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2008)
ISBN 9781929280513 (cloth), ISBN 9781929280520 (paper)
It's finally out! And here's the blurb:
"Kinugasa Teinosuke’s 1926 film, A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeiji), is celebrated as one of the masterpieces of silent cinema. It was an independently produced, experimental, avant-garde work from Japan whose brilliant use of cinematic technique was equal to if not superior to that of contemporary European cinema. Those studying Japan, focusing on the central involvement of such writers as Yokomitsu Riichi and the Nobel Prize winner Kawabata Yasunari, have seen it as a pillar of the close relationship in the Taisho era between film and artistic modernism, as well as a marker of the uniqueness of prewar Japanese film culture.
"But is this film really what it seems to
be? Using meticulous research on the film’s production, distribution,
exhibition, and reception, as well as close analysis of the film’s shooting
script (which is not the script currently attributed to Kawabata) and shooting notes
recently made available, Aaron Gerow draws a new picture of this complex work,
one revealing a film divided between experiment and convention, modernism and
melodrama, the image and the word, cinema and literature, conflicts that play
out in the story and structure of the film and its context. These different
versions of A Page of Madness were developed at the time in varying
interpretations of a film fundamentally about differing perceptions and
conflicting worlds, and ironically realized in the fact that the film that
exists today is not the one originally released. Including a detailed analysis
of the film and translations of contemporary reviews and shooting notes for
scenes missing from the current print, Gerow’s book offers provocative insight
into the fascinating film A Page of Madness was - and still is - and into the
struggles over this work that tried to articulate the place of cinema in
Japanese society and modernity."
CJS books have limited distribution, so look to purchase it either directly from the CJS or through Amazon
Donald Richie has written a very kind review in the Japan Times.
Frieda Friedberg also praised it in Screening the Past.
There was talk about releasing a DVD in Japan in 2009, but the recent news I have heard will push back any release into late 2010 at the earliest. Let's cross our fingers!
Kitano Takeshi
Kitano Takeshi (BFI, 2007)
ISBN 9781844571659 (cloth)
ISBN 9781844571666 (paper)
From the blurb:
“The award-winning art film Hana-Bi, the stoic gangster elegy Sonatine, the surfer romance A Scene at the Sea, the absurdist comedy Getting Any?, the entertainment samurai spectacle Zatoichi—very different films made under one name, Kitano Takeshi. Who is Kitano Takeshi?—an artistic auteur in the traditional sense or a new kind of star who manages multiple identities, strategically changing them from film to film and situation to situation? This book explores issues of auteurship and stardom in the films of Kitano Takeshi, especially as they relate to problems of personal and national identity in a Japan confronting an age of globalization. Aaron Gerow combines a detailed account of Japanese film and criticism with unique close analyses of Kitano's films from Violent Cop to Takeshis'.”
Donald Richie has written a very kind review in the Japan Times.
Tom Mes, author of Agitator
Darrell Davis published a review in the Winter 2009-2010 issue of Film Quarterly, calling the book a "reliable, scrupulous, and illuminating account" that "made a major contribution in detailing Kitano’s public persona." He thankfully also liked my jokes: "That Gerow’s handling of his subject would fulfill expectations is no surprise, but wait, there’s more . . . a spark of humor, occasioned perhaps by the acid tongue of Kitano himself."
Purchase at Amazon
In Praise of Film Studies
In Praise of Film Studies: Essays in Honor of Makino Mamoru. Edited by Aaron Gerow and Abé Mark Nornes. (Kinema Club, 2001)
ISBN 9781552126400
A unique and somewhat peculiar book collecting essays written in either English or Japanese in honor of Makino Mamoru, a Japanese film scholar and collector whose research and mentorship has helped so many of us movie researchers. It also contains translations of some of his representative articles on such topics as film censorship and left-wing film movements and a bibliography of his work.
More information, including the full text of the introduction, is available on the Trafford Publishing website.
You can also access the full text of the entire book on Google Books.
Visions of Japanese Modernity
Visions of
Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship,
1895-1925 (University of California Press, forthcoming in May 2010).UC Press already has this listed on their website. Here's the main blurb:
"Japan has done marvelous things with cinema, giving the world the likes of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu. But cinema did not arrive in Japan fully formed at the end of the nineteenth century, nor was it simply adopted into an ages-old culture. Aaron Gerow explores the processes by which film was defined, transformed, and adapted during its first three decades in Japan. He focuses in particular on how one trend in criticism, the Pure Film Movement, changed not only the way films were made, but also how they were conceived. Looking closely at the work of critics, theorists, intellectuals, benshi artists, educators, police, and censors, Gerow finds that this trend established a way of thinking about cinema that would reign in Japan for much of the twentieth century."
I was very fortunate that some people whom I really respect wrote some kind recommendations for the book:
"Visions of Japanese Modernity is the single best account of the
formation of Japanese cinema. Deftly drawing on film discourses,
regulations, and exhibition practices, it brilliantly brings into focus
one of the most exuberant and contested moments in the history of
cinema. It not only sets new standards for film history but also plants
the seeds for a counterhistory to cinema as such."--Thomas LaMarre,
author of The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation
"In this landmark study, Aaron Gerow richly demonstrates the vibrancy of Japanese film culture as no book has done before. Visions of Japanese Modernity
is centered on the contentious Pure Film Movement, and the
transformations it helped provoke in performance, screenwriting,
censorship, film style, and benshi oratory. With virtually no extant
films to work with, Gerow strategically turns to a multitude of other
sources, including fanzines, popular movie magazines, sociological
studies, government regulations, and impressive works of early film
theory. Rich in detail and lucidly argued, Visions of Modernity
provides a model for writing about filmmaking in its social, political
and aesthetic contexts."--Abé Mark Nornes, author of Cinema Babel: Translating Global Cinema
"Gerow
offers not only a benchmark in the study of Japanese cinema, but a
major contribution to world film history; a thoroughly researched and
complexly argued 'discursive' history of early Japanese cinema, that
avoids approaching it simply as an alternative to western cinema and
reveals the unique role cinema played in the formulation of modern
Japanese culture. Gerow makes clear the foundations of Japanese film
history in the silent era--and how it shaped the complex and exciting
national cinema that followed."--Tom Gunning, author of D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: THE EARLY YEARS AT BIOGRAPH
You can pre-order the book at Amazon
A Japanese version will be published by the University of Tokyo Press