Webcast «Tanaka Kinuyo: a star behind the camera» as part of the AFFBCN
On the occasion of the retrospective dedicated to the directing side of one of the biggest female stars in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka Kinuyo (1909-1977), we organize this webcast to talk about Tanaka’s figure and work, a fundamental pillar of Japanese cinema, and the value of her work as a producer. In charge of this event is Dr. Irene González-López, postdoctorate investigator at the University of Kingston (London) and co-editor of the first book in English on the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo (Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity; Edinburgh University Press).
«Tanaka Kinuyo is probably the most emblematic actress in Japanese cinema, and the first woman director producing a substantial filmography. As an actress, she gave life to a lot of unforgettable characters of the renowned “great masters of Japanese cinema”, such as the working wife betrayed by her husband in Tales of the pale moon (Mizoguchi, 1953), the woman that has to prostitute herself in order to save her son in A Hen in the Wind (Ozu, 1948), and the tireless matriarch in Mother (Naruse, 1952). As a producer, she directed six features between 1953 and 1962, where she experimented with different subgenres of melodrama and addressed issues such as maternity, women’s sexual desire, city’s attraction for young women, familial and social pressures, self-determination, violence and sex between women.
This conference tries to establish Tanaka’s figure and work as a fundamental pillar of Japanese cinema and prove the value of her work as a producer. In contextualizing her life experiences, her characters and her image as a star beside the historical, artistic and industrial situation, we will examine how Tanaka contributed to the construction of certain images of women and the nation. These images, full of ideological value, tell us a lot about how Japan saw itself, but also about how it was imagined and understood in the West through the circuit of the biggest festivals of European cinema.
Because Tanaka’s career expands since the twenties until the seventies, exploring her movies takes us into a fascinating journey through the history of Japanese cinema, and along its national history. Besides, while talking about Tanaka and her characters, the ones she played and the ones she directed, we can talk about the history of women, inside and out of cinema, in front and behind the camera.» Irene González-López
Conducted by:
Irene González-López is a postdoctorate researcher at University of Kingston (London). She lived in Japan for eight years in which she did Japanese Studies and a Masters’ in Cinema Studies (University of Kyoto). Coming back to Europe, Irene completed her doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), where she researched the representation of sex work in post-war Japanese cinema. Her publications explore themes of sexuality and gender, stardom and female authorship. In 2018, she coedited the first book in English about actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo (Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity; Edinburgh University Press). Her passion for Japanese culture has also taken her to develop projects about Japanese contemporary art and manga, and to collaborate with the British Film Institute, the Japan Foundaton and the Barbican Centre in London.
