Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968: An Ethnographic Study

Dr Jennifer Coates is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. She is the author of Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (2016) and co-editor of Politicizing the Screen: Japanese Visual Media (2021) and Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (2019).

• List of IllustrationsNote on the Romanization of Japanese WordsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Feelings Without Words1. What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Cinema?2. The Cinema as a Place to Be3. Times Past and Passing Time at the Cinema4. Stars, Occupiers, Parents, and Role Models: Cinema as a Way of Being (Japanese)5. Gender Trouble at the Cinema6. Organized Audiences and Committed Fans: Cinema, Viewership, Activism7. Crafting the Self Through Cinema CultureConclusion: Giving an Account of Oneself through Talking About CinemaBibliography

It is no longer be possible to talk about ethnographies of film without putting Jennifer Coates’ work at the top of the list. This riveting work makes us feel what the movies of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema meant and how important they were to the people who saw them.