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A Historiography of Japanese Screenwriting

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Abstract

Why do screenwriting histories almost never get written? What is screenwriting’s place and function in general film histories? In order to address these issues, this chapter delineates a string of efforts to write a history of Japanese screenwriting since the 1950s. This involves examining both overall histories and autonomous attempts at historiography from the point of view of screenwriting, the latter culminating with the screenwriter-director Shindō Kaneto’s two-volume History of Japanese Screenwriting (1989), a groundbreaking contribution on a global scale. This chapter explores how these historiographical attempts ultimately underline both national and personal time frames. The case of Japan presents an instructive example on how to identify and employ screenwriting as an alternative focal point from which to (re)organize film history and draw attention to the work of several generations of writers.

An earlier version of this chapter was part of my PhD dissertation “Scenario Culture: Reconsidering Historiography and Readership in Japanese Cinema” (University of Cambridge, 2015).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Susukita, misspelled Susukida (and once again in the appendix as Kokuhei Susukita), is noted as responsible “for the style and structure of present-day period drama” (Anderson and Richie 1959 [1982], 59). Noda Kōgo appears twice: as the origin of a quote on the workload of Shōchiku screenwriters (Ibid., 53–54) and as a man “who has done many of [Ozu’s] scripts” (Ibid., 362). A few relatively obscure names of writers are thrown in for the charts section (Ibid., 495–500).

  2. 2.

    Shindō Kaneto, Uekusa Keinosuke, Ide Toshirō, Kikushima Ryūzō, Hashimoto Shinobu, Tanada Gorō, Funahashi Kazuo, Matsuyama Zenzō, Susaki Katsuya et al.

  3. 3.

    Mizuki Yōko, Tanaka Sumie, Kusuda Yoshiko, Wada Natto et al. For more of the contribution of female writers, see Kitsnik, Selbo, and Smith 2015 and Kitsnik 2020.

  4. 4.

    Yagi Yasutarō, Yoda Yoshikata, Oguni Hideo, Inomata Katsuhito, Ikeda Tadao, Yanai Takao, Saitō Ryōsuke et al.

  5. 5.

    See Kitsnik 2016 on writing practices of the 1950s Golden Age of the studio system.

  6. 6.

    Writers discussed in length in these subchapters include Shindō Kaneto. Uekusa Keinosuke, Hisaita Eijirō, Yagi Yasutarō, Hashimoto Shinobu, Kikushima Ryūzō, Ide Toshirō, Mizuki Yōko, Tanaka Sumie, Yasumi Toshi, Noda Kōgo (Satō 2006, vol. II, 328–35), Shirasaka Yoshio, Ishidō Toshirō, Tamura Tsutomu. Ide Masato, Matsuyama Zenzō, Wada Natto, Narusawa Masashige, Abe Kōbō, Hasebe Keiji, Suzuki Naoyuki, Yamada Nobuo, Yamanouchi Hisashi, Terayama Shūji, Yoda Yoshikata (Satō 2006, vol. III, 86–91), Nakajima Takehiro, Kasahara Kazuo, Kuramoto Sō, Baba Ataru, Saji Susumu, Tanaka Yōzō, Ido Akio, Katsura Chiho, Matsuda Shōzō and Arai Haruhiko (Ibid., 190–95).

  7. 7.

    The ideological implications of this term are discussed further in Kitsnik 2016.

  8. 8.

    The title could as well be translated as History of Japanese Scenario, as the word shinario is used both for the writing process activity and its result.

  9. 9.

    See Shindō 1989, vol. I, 52–55, 71–75, 125–32; 60–64; 64–71, 204–11; 107–25; 13–44; 175–87, respectively.

  10. 10.

    For an analysis of the script of The Village Bride, see Kitsnik 2022.

  11. 11.

    An earlier version of this passage appears in Kitsnik 2017.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP21K12900).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashihiroshima, Japan

    Lauri Kitsnik

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  1. Lauri Kitsnik
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Correspondence to Lauri Kitsnik .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Stage and Screen, University of Greenwich, London, UK

    Rosamund Davies

  2. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Paolo Russo

  3. Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Universität Wien, Wien, Austria

    Claus Tieber

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Kitsnik, L. (2023). A Historiography of Japanese Screenwriting. In: Davies, R., Russo, P., Tieber, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Screenwriting Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20769-3_17

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