著者

島岡 哉

出版者

社会学研究会

雑誌

ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.1, pp.39-56,172, 2003

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The purpose of this study is to analyze the experience of accepting the motion picture films in modern Japan by investigating screenings in a rural village of Nara Prefecture. The analysis presented here is mainly based on oral history collected from members of Nosegawa village in Nara Prefecure. A comparison is made between screening experiences as they appear in oral history and screenings as depicted in the medium of the time. As cinema and theater are usually regarded as modern, urban culture, they have often been examined in cultural studies and media studies, but have rarely been mentioned in rural sociology. By focusing on the screenings practiced by ordinary rural villagers in their everyday life, this study provides alternative viewpoints to previous studies that have ignored such everyday practice (such as the "employment" of traveling theaters for their own purposes). The following four findings were obtained as a result of my case study. (1) Rural sociologists have not paid proper attention to screenings in rural areas, having dismissed them as trivial. (2) Historical approaches to film in modern Japan show that the traveling theater formed the national subject through its education and propaganda. But such studies are based on two tacit premises: that cinema is a medium promoting identification with the nation-state, and that cinema audiences, particularly in rural areas, are male. (3) When elderly villagers talk about cinema, they differentiate between their own screenings and educational screenings. From this, it can be said that people continuously redefine educational and propaganda films in the context of their everyday lives. This shows that their adherence to the nation is subject to negotiation. (4)In rural areas, cinema was accepted as early as the 1910s as a new medium and a symbol of modern technology. Cinema was a strategy for the modernization of the community, used for such purposes as raising funds for new elementary schools. By examining the screenings of villagers in Nosegawa, this study offers a new discussion of modern culture in Japanese rural society.

著者

島岡 哉

出版者

京都大学

雑誌

京都社会学年報 : KJS

巻号頁・発行日

vol.12, pp.199-217, 2004-12-25

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The purpose of this study is to analyze how people experienced so-called "traveling theatres (idou-eiga)" in contemporary Japan. For this purpose. I have interviewed members of a cinema promotion company, "Cinema You" in Nagoya city in Aichi prefecture. Also, I worked as a staff at one of the screenings of the traveling theatres. Based on these ethnographic data, the screenings of this company will be investigated. Since traveling theatres are usually regarded as a relic of a bygone age, they have rarely been examined in former cultural studies or media studies. In this study, other important aspects of traveling theatres will be discussed. By focusing on the time and space in which ordinary people watched films, the multiplicity of the meanings of the traveling theatres will be presented.

著者

島岡 哉

出版者

京都大学文学部社会学研究室

雑誌

京都社会学年報 : KJS = Kyoto journal of sociology

巻号頁・発行日

vol.10, pp.145-166, 2002-12-25