BUNGEI EIGA

The term bungei eiga (literary films) denotes a genre that includes both strict and liberal film adaptations of literary works. Adaptation has long been popular in Japanese culture, and soon after the advent of the cinema in Japan film studios began to adapt popular foreign films for Japanese audiences. Literary works soon followed, and these literary films were particularly popular during the 1930s since, as adaptations of established, well-known works, they could avoid censorship because they need not claim the attitudes of the original author. Early bungei eiga include Kawabata Yasunari’s Izu no odoriko (1926; tr. The Izu Dancer, 1964), which appeared as a silent film in 1933, and Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s Shunkinsho (1932; tr. A Portrait of Shunkin, 1963) that appeared as a “talkie” in 1935. During the 1950s, as Japanese cinema matured and began to capture world notice, many of the most renowned films, such as Kurosawa Akira’s (1910–98) Rashomon, Mizoguchi Kenji’s (1898–1956) Sansho dayu (Sansho the Bailiff), and Ichikawa Kon’s (1915–2008) Nobi (Fires on the Plains), were adaptations of stories by modern Japanese writers. In the 1960s, director Hiroshi Teshigahara made award-winning films from Abe Kobo’s novels Suna no onna (1962; tr. Woman in the Dunes, 1964) and Tanin no kao (1959; tr. The Face of Another, 1966). Literary films also include adaptations of non-Japanese literary works; several films by Kurosawa, for example, are adaptations of Shakespeare plays.

See also BENSHI.