Cinema of Gosho Heinosuke

Laughter Through Tears

Add to my list

by Arthur Nolletti Jr.

Type: Studies
Subject: Director > Heinosuke Gosho
Keywords: Heinosuke Gosho, director, Japan
Publishing date: 2005
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 352 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN-10 ISBN-13

0-253-21725-3
978-0-253-21725-7

User Ratings

(0 vote)

Average rating:

0	rating	= We can do without
0	rating	= Good book
0	rating	= Excellent book
0	rating	= Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Report incorrect or incomplete information

Book Presentation:
"The elegant, graceful, and deeply humanistic cinema of Gosho Heinosuke has found its perfect English-language explication in this equally elegant, graceful, and humanistic study by Arthur Nolletti. A director of wide-ranging interests, Gosho was at his strongest in stories of ordinary Japanese life. Like Mizoguchi he had a particular strength and sensitivity to women's issues; like Ozu he was a delicate yet piercing commentator on middle-class life. But he had a voice and style of his own, and Nolletti is careful to define and describe this sensibility in telling detail." —David Desser

Through close readings of the most significant films of Gosho Heinosuke and descriptions of their historical, social, and industrial contexts, Arthur Nolletti illuminates the work of this important director. The careful attention Gosho gave to even the smallest gestures and nuances of character and emotion is matched by the breadth of Nolletti's research and the depth of his understanding. His analysis illustrates the important influence of Gosho's unique style and sensibility on cinematic form in Japan and beyond.

About the Author:
Arthur Nolletti, Jr. is Professor of English at Framingham State College. He is editor of The Films of Fred Zinnemann, co-editor of Reframing Japanese Cinema (Indiana University Press, 1992), and author of numerous articles on film.

Press Reviews:
"With this work Nolletti (English, Framingham State College) closes a gap in the anglophone literature on the history of Asian cinema. Although Gosho (1902—81) won the Japanese award for Best Film of the Year 11 times and was recognized at the 1953 Berlin Film Festival, he has received sparse attention in the West, in large part due to the paucity of English—language materials. Gosho's 40—year—plus career began in 1925 with his debut as writer and director, and he became legendary during what Nolletti refers to as the first Golden Age of Japanese Cinema in the 1930s. Selecting from Gosho's 44 extant films (Gosho made more than a hundred films during his career), the author provides close analysis of films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and he discusses contemporaneous social and historical circumstances surrounding their production. Nolletti looks at the genres Gosho worked in, from drama (family stories and human—interest stories of common people), to slapstick comedy, to period films. He explores films that reveal Gosho's love for humanity and his talent for portraying human foibles through, as the book's subtitle says, laughter and tears. Nolletti's intention is that this book, which includes a useful filmography, will inspire further research on this great filmmaker, and it is certain to do so. Summing Up: Essential. Readers at all levels. —B. M. McNeal, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania"
-Choice

"With this work Nolletti (English, Framingham State College) closes a gap in the anglophone literature on the history of Asian cinema. . . . Nolletti's intention is that this book, which includes a useful filmography, will inspire further research on this great filmmaker, and it is certain to do so. Summing Up: Essential. Readers at all levels. December 2005"
-Choice

See the publisher website: Indiana University Press

See the complete filmography of Heinosuke Gosho on the website: IMDB ...

> From the same author: