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 (hardcover or paperback), though I think it is cheaper ordering directly from the CJS. If you are outside the USA, you will have to order through CJS or through the American Amazon. I posted the table of contents on my blog.
Donald Richie has written a very kind review in the Japan Times.
A colleague informs me that a DVD of the film will finally be
released in 2009, so stay tuned for info on that as well.