Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Relation: Film, Capital, Transformation
II. Historiography: Nation, Narrative, Capital

III. Adaptation: Origin, Nation, Aesthetic

IV. Acting: Structure, Agent, Amateur

V. Pornography: Totality, Reality Culture, Films of History

VI. Re-reading: Canon, Body, Geopolitics

Epilogue
Notes
References
Index

Promotional Information

Relates the history of Japanese film to the history of the capitalist transformation of Japan.

About the Author

Eric Cazdyn is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, Film, and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto.

Reviews

"[I]nteresting... Cazdyn ... explores some thought-provoking points..."--Terry Hong, Push> (NAATA newsletter) "[T]hose who can find it in themselves to give a project as daring as Cazdyn's a chance will be pleasantly surprised. In prose more lucid than the antitheory grumps might have led one to expect, Cazdyn, rubbing Japanese film up against Japanese geopolitics, produces many fascinating--to borrow his term--'flashes' ... [S]o bright is this book with insight and intelligence that it just might serve to win over a diehard theory-phobe or two."--David Cozy, The Japan Times "[E]ven readers unsympathetic with theory will find much of interest in this book. The author is extremely knowledgeable about Japanese history, culture, and literature, and he writes with attention to particulars. Every page contains illuminating observations on the relation between Japanese filmmakers within a deep cultural context. Those familiar with Japan's masters of narrative film will find here intelligent criticism. What even aficionados of things Japanese will find illuminating is the information Cazdyn offers on documentary filmmakers in Japan, especially since WWII."--R. Ducharme, Choice "Let me go out on a critical limb early in 2003: The Flash of Capital--engaging, challenging, maddening--will be one of the year's best studies of modern Japan... The Flash of Capital itself is such 'luxurious reading,' one that will push you where you never intended."--Ralph Cassell, Asahi Shimbun/International Herald Tribune "Eric Cadzyn's new book brings together global economics and aesthetics to write a new history of Japanese film. The result is a stimulating and challenging attempt to produce a new foundation for the field."--Chris Berry, Screening the Past "[A] breathtakingly ambitious work... The Flash of Capital is an important contribution to the literature on Japanese film. It raises the stakes and changes the frames for discussion of Japanese film and visual studies and participates in displacing the boundary between academic professionalism and political intervention in area studies."--Mark Anderson, Journal of Asian Studies "[A] welcome contribution to the field... One can only look forward to what Cazdyn decides to do next."--Scott Nygren, Journal of Japanese Studies "[P]rovocative... The Flash of Capital is a valuable contribution to the field of film studies by a scholar well versed in historical and theoretical discussions in the field of Japanese studies in North America... [Cazdyn's] lively observations of contemporary Japanese media culture may suggest one of the possible ways in which film scholars can engage in politics as public intellectuals in the age of globalization."--Chika Kinoshita, Film Quarterly Listed in Journal of Asian History, Asian Cinema Weekly, Critical Inquiry, Journal of East Asian Studies, TLS email book alert, and boundary 2.