Japanese Horror and the Transnational Cinema of Sensations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Introduction

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 1-25

3. Ambient Horror: From Sonic Palimpsests to Haptic Sonority in the Cinema of Kurosawa Kiyoshi

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 27-84

4. Double Trouble: Doppelgängers in Japanese Horror

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 85-147

5. Cinema Fou: Surrealist Horror from Face of Another to Gozu

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 149-205

6. In the Wake of Artaud: Cinema of Cruelty in Audition and Oldboy

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 207-286

7. Conclusion: Envelopes of Fear—The Temporality of Japanese Horror

   • Steven T. Brown

   Pages 287-295

8. Back Matter

   Pages 297-330

   PDF

Japanese Horror and the Transnational Cinema of Sensations undertakes a critical reassessment of Japanese horror cinema by attending to its intermediality and transnational hybridity in relation to world horror cinema. Neither a conventional film history nor a thematic survey of Japanese horror cinema, this study offers a transnational analysis of selected films from new angles that shed light on previously ignored aspects of the genre, including sound design, framing techniques, and lighting, as well as the slow attack and long release times of J-horror’s slow-burn style, which have contributed significantly to the development of its dread-filled cinema of sensations.

• Japanese Horror Cinema
• Resonance and Japanese Horror
• Transnational Cinema
• Film Theory and Global Cinema
• Intermediality

“In Japanese Horror and the Transnational Cinema of Sensations, Steven T. Brown provides an invaluable reflection on the subterranean cult phenomenon of Japanese horror film, or ‘J-horror.’ Unafraid to enter the underground passages that define the J-horror genre, Brown shows the complexity of this cinema, its brilliance as well as the dark auteurism it has engendered. Brown links this J-horror to phenomenologies and paraphenomenologies of perception, to the uncanny, to Surrealism and cruelty, and ultimately to an epistemology of fear. This book opens a genuine dialogue with the other side of cinema.” (Akira Lippit, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Southern California, USA, and author of Atomic Light, Shadow Optics)

“Treating Japanese horror cinema squarely as a transnational phenomenon and as an issue for cinema studies, Brown’s approach to filmic works as ‘assemblages’ takes apart, like in a sequence of exploded views, the films under his discussion. By placing J-Horror in its transnational and transdisciplinary context, Brown creates a vivid, pulsating interconnectedness with works of literature, fine art, and music, with concepts of philosophy, and with phenomena of folklore and mythology. In so doing, Brown sets new standards and guidelines for other scholars to follow—or to ignore at their own peril.” (Tom Mes, Lecturer in Japanese Film, Leiden University, The Netherlands, and author of Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike)

• Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

  Steven T. Brown

Steven T. Brown is Professor of Japanese Film, Transnational Cinema, and Sound Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Oregon, USA. He is author of Tokyo Cyberpunk (2010) and Theatricalities of Power (2001), editor of Cinema Anime (2006), and co-editor of Performing Japanese Women (2002).

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