JAPANESE CINEMA is a three-part sequence of classes providing a comprehensive historical survey of Japanese cinema, tracing its evolution from the silent era to the present day. Rather than limiting our focus to celebrated “auteurs,” we will situate films within the broader historical, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts that shaped them. Questions of gender, class, and cultural identity will serve as recurring themes. Across the series, students will engage with both canonical masterpieces and overlooked gems, gaining a fuller understanding of the diversity and complexity of Japanese cinema.. This five-week course begins with the silent era, when benshi narrators shaped film reception and directors such as Teinosuke Kinugasa (A Page of Madness) and Yasujiro Ozu experimented with cinematic form. Moving through the Taishō and early Shōwa periods, we will consider works by Kenji Mizoguchi (Sisters of the Gion, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums) and examine wartime cinema and its ideological functions. The section concludes with the postwar “golden age,” highlighting Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ikiru), Ozu (Late Spring, Tokyo Story), Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff), and lesser-known figures such as Mikio Naruse and Tomu Uchida.