JAPN310: JAPANESE CINEMA
Course Description: An introductory scrutiny of major Japanese directors and genres with attention to film composition, choices of subject and character, ideas of the cinematic, and the relationship of cinema to Japanese culture and society. Students will analyze and critique films. Discussion of films will deal with the production of their historical, social, and cultural context, as well as issues dealing with popular culture and equity. Taught in English.
Meets MLO 2: Japanese Culture
Reflective Narrative:
This course contributed to my fulfillment of this MLO by using Akira Kurosawa's history-enriched films to teach about historic Japanese culture. For each film we watched, we had to write a 1-2 page reflection on what we felt about the film, and what we learned from it that particularly enhanced our learning of the Japanese culture. Thus, the two examples I have used to demonstrate my achievement in this course are my midterm essay and final essay. In my midterm essay, I discussed my opinion of how Kurosawa implemented comedy into his films in a subtle manner, and how he edited his films with determination and passion (see Evidence 1). Before taking this course, I had no idea who Kurosawa even was, so watching these films and doing this essay on him really helped me understand older Japanese films and how they depicted the Japanese lifestyle. My final essay discussed Japanese women's roles in older films as opposed to newer films, which is also something I learned from this course (see Evidence 2). It is very hard to find old Japanese film DVD's in America, so although I wish to develop my knowledge of Japanese films, I will have to wait until I go to Japan to find some of those older movies. I also wish to further develop my listening skills, because I couldn't understand anything they were saying and had to rely on the subtitles. This course related to JAPN212: Samurai Spirit a little bit because we also watched a film about warriors. So it was nice to see something I had learned again.
This course contributed to my fulfillment of this MLO by using Akira Kurosawa's history-enriched films to teach about historic Japanese culture. For each film we watched, we had to write a 1-2 page reflection on what we felt about the film, and what we learned from it that particularly enhanced our learning of the Japanese culture. Thus, the two examples I have used to demonstrate my achievement in this course are my midterm essay and final essay. In my midterm essay, I discussed my opinion of how Kurosawa implemented comedy into his films in a subtle manner, and how he edited his films with determination and passion (see Evidence 1). Before taking this course, I had no idea who Kurosawa even was, so watching these films and doing this essay on him really helped me understand older Japanese films and how they depicted the Japanese lifestyle. My final essay discussed Japanese women's roles in older films as opposed to newer films, which is also something I learned from this course (see Evidence 2). It is very hard to find old Japanese film DVD's in America, so although I wish to develop my knowledge of Japanese films, I will have to wait until I go to Japan to find some of those older movies. I also wish to further develop my listening skills, because I couldn't understand anything they were saying and had to rely on the subtitles. This course related to JAPN212: Samurai Spirit a little bit because we also watched a film about warriors. So it was nice to see something I had learned again.
Evidence 1: This is my midterm essay in which I discussed Kurosawa's background and how he became a director. It was mainly based on his autobiography, and I had never heard this director before this class so this is a great demonstration of what I learned about him.
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Evidence 2: This is my final essay where I discussed how women's roles in film changed along with society. With a strong thesis statement and lots of citations, I received a great grade and it is proof of what I have learned in this course and how I can apply it to modern situations.
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