著者

岩本 裕子 イワモト ヒロコ Hiroko Iwamoto

雑誌

浦和論叢

巻号頁・発行日

no.32, pp.81-109, 2004-06

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In Hollywood movies the images of Japan, Japanese or Japanese culture have been misunderstood. There were so many stereotypes of us. The movie, "The Last Samurai" is showing Meiji-period, the epoch of Japanese history, which was the term changing our culture through Western civilization. That was not exceptionally stereotyped. The Director of "The Last Samurai," Edward Zwick, was very impressed by the movie, "Seven Samurai," by Director Akira Kurosawa. Mr. Zwick also studied Japanese history and culture from Professor Reishauer at Harvard University. The movies before "The Last Samurai" were as follows: "Glory", showing the first black troops of the Civil War, Massachusetts # 54 troop; "Legends of the Falls", showing the family in Montana at the turn of the 20th Century, whose father was the Colonel of the Custer's Seventh Cavalry; "Courage under Fire", showing the Gulf War, operation 'Desert Storm', in which there were friendly fire among the US Army. This movie was the first one in Hollywood showing the Gulf War.; "The Siege", showing the relationship between the Islamic terrorists and NYPD, FBI, CIA. This movie was like a kind of imaginary scene of 'September 11th'. Director Zwick has developed the views to see the World affair. He has studied the history of minorities all over the world. He tried to make motion pictures of minorities from a world point of view.