In the ongoing aftermath of the nuclear accident in 2011, filmmakers have continued to issue warnings about the state of Japanese society and politics, which remain mired in refusal to change. Nearly a decade in the making, Japanese Filmmakers in the Wake of Fukushima is based on in-person interviews with countless filmmakers, as well as continuous dialogue with them and their work. Author Wada-Marciano has expanded these dialogues to include students, audiences at screenings, critics, and researchers, and her observations are based on down-to-earth-exchange of ideas engaged in over a long period of time.
Filmmakers and artists are in the vanguard of those who grapple with what should be done regarding the struggle against fear of the invisible blight—radiation exposure. Rather than blindly following the mass media and public opinion, they have chosen to think and act independently. While repeatedly viewing and reviewing the film works from the post-Fukushima period, Wada-Marciano felt the unwavering message that emanates from them: “There must be no more nuclear weapons.” “There must be no more nuclear power generation.” The book is dedicated to convincing readers of the clarity of their message.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. No Nukes before Fukushima: Postwar Atomic Cinema and the History of the “Safety Myth”
- 2. Straddling 3/11: The Political Power of Ashes to Honey
- 3. Resistance against the Nuclear Village
- 4. The Power of Interviews
- 5. Learning about Fukushima from the Margins
- 6. The Power of Art in the Post-3/11 World
- Appendix: Interview from “Film Workshop with Director Hamaguchi Ryusuke”
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Illustrations
- Figure 0.1: The VIP seats left empty (Film still from Nuclear Nation)
- Figure 0.2: Mayor of Futabamachi (Film still from Nuclear Nation)
- Figure 1.1: Film still from Lucky Dragon No. 5
- Figure 2.1: Japanese DVD cover image of Nuclear Nation
- Figure 2.2: DVD cover image of Nuclear Nation for overseas distribution
- Figure 3.1: “Interrelationships in the Nuclear Village” produced as a CG image (Film still from Nuclear Japan)
- Figure 3.2: “Stand-Alone Renewable Energy Systems” illustrated as a hand-drawn chart in the Kawai lecture method (Film still from Nuclear Japan)
- Figure 4.1: Camera positions in the “Z method”
- Figure 4.2: Setup for the “Z method”
- Figure 4.3: What the interviewee sees
- Figure 5.1: Cows that starved to death in their barn
- Figure 5.2: DVD cover for Fukushima: A Record of Living Things No. 1: “Exposure”
- Figure 5.3: Film still from A2-B-C
- Figure 6.1: The statue of Sun Child by Yanobe Kenji
- Figure 6.2: Chim↑Pom’s “Additional Art” to Myth of Tomorrow
- Figure 6.3: Myth of Tomorrow by Okamoto Taro
- Figure 6.4: Sun Child displayed in front of Tower of the Sun
- Figure 6.5: Fukuda Miran’s Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
- Figure 6.6–6.7: Two Smiles of Mona Lisa
- Figure 6.8: The 500 Arhats: Blue Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, Black Tortoise by Murakami Takashi
- Figure 6.9: Five Hundred Arhats by Kano Kazunobu
- Figure 6.10: A viewer looking at a work of art with a VR headset
- Figure 6.11: Children playing next to bags of contaminated soil (Photo from Fukushima Traces, 2011–2013 by Akagi Shuji)
- Figure 6.12: Mushubutsu: Ownerless Substances by Tsuboi Akira
- Figure 6.13: The front cover of Supplementary Reader for Elementary School Students on Energy: The Exciting Land of Nuclear Energy
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