M. Baskett

Michael Baskett

Hiding in Plain Sight - Japanese Film Culture of the Cold War

Description of Research:

My research analyzes the Japanese film industry within the context of international Cold War culture – particularly its relations with and representations of East and Southeast Asia. When completed, this will be the first comprehensive history in English or Japanese to examine the institutional history, transnational technological exchange, and popular film/media representations of Japan’s Cold War culture in Asia. I consider how continuities resulting from Japan's imperial era extend beyond 1945 into the Cold War in an attempt to rethink the historical category of the “postwar” which continues to dominate scholarship on the period both in Japan Studies generally and Japanese film studies in particular. I argue that through examining such areas as Japan's film festival diplomacy, co-productions as a form of technology exchange and modernization theory, and close readings of under examined film genres such as the spy film, the musical, and "borderless" action films - transregional relations and industrial motivations that may have previously seemed obscure or unrelated when considered in a postwar context, come into clear focus when viewed through the Cold War as a methodological framework. More than a matter of mere categorization or convenience, this is an essential paradigm shift through which - without denying the importance of the US-Japan relations – Asia emerges as a critical factor in the development of the Japanese film industry, its response to and participation in Cold War ideology, and the construction of a new international Japanese identity at this time.