The Asian aesthetic

Friday, October 29th, 2004

The Asian aesthetic examines the (re)emergence of Asian cinema — and includes a few historical tidbits:

In the west, the arrival of talkies gave birth to a new genre — the musical — but in India, every one of the 5,000 films made between 1931 and the mid-1950s had musical interludes. The effects of this were far-reaching. Movie performers had to be able to dance. There were two parallel star systems — that of actors and that of playback singers.

I didn’t know this about Japanese cinema:

In Japan, the film industry had long ceased to rival India’s in size but was distinctive in two ways. Until the 1930s, commentators called benshis attended every screening, standing in front of the audience, clarifying the action and describing characters. Directors did not need to show every aspect of their tale, and tended to produce tableau-like visuals. Even more unusually, its industry was director-led. Whereas in Hollywood, the producer was the central figure — he chose the stories and hired the director and actors — in Tokyo, the director chose the stories and hired the producer and actors. The model was that of an artist and his studio of apprentices.

Leave a Reply