Abstract
The reception of Japanese cinema in Western countries is late compared to historical Japonism. Very few films were shown in Europe before 1951, when Kurosawa Akira's Rashōmon won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and the following year received the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in the United States. These awards helped to draw attention to a previously largely ignored cinema, and to bring it to cinemas outside the domestic market. Next up were Tales of the Waning Moon after the Rain (Ugetsu monogatari, Mizoguchi Kenji), Silver Lion in 1953; The Steward Sanshō (Sanshū dayū, Mizoguchi Kenji), Silver Lion in 1954, tied with Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai); La Porte de l'Enfer (Jigokumon, Kinugasa Teinosuke), Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1955; The Harp of Burma (Biruma no tategoto, Ichikawa Kon), San Giorgio Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1956; The Legend of Musashi (Miyamoto Musashi, Inagaki Hiroshi), Oscar for Best Foreign Film; The Man with the Rickshaw (Muhōmatsu no isshō, Inagaki), Golden Lion in 1958; A Pure Love (Jun.ai monogatari, Imai Tadashi), Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale in 1958, etc. This onslaught provoked a lasting shock and a widespread critical infatuation with this cinema, because everything about it was different from what Western audiences were familiar with, from the staging, themes and narrative constructions to the style and direction of the actors. But is there a Japanism or "neo-Japanism" at work in this reception? Can this belated discovery be placed within both an aesthetic and epistemological framework?
