Monographs by Giacomo Calorio
Negli ultimi decenni, gli studi sul Giappone in Italia si
sono sviluppati al punto da produrre ri... more Negli ultimi decenni, gli studi sul Giappone in Italia si
sono sviluppati al punto da produrre risultati eclatanti,
come dimostrano i numeri dei romanzi e dei manga
tradotti ogni anno dal giapponese, delle sedi universitarie
dove è possibile apprendere la lingua, la cultura e la
letteratura del Giappone e degli eventi e iniziative
promossi dalle tante associazioni presenti sul nostro
territorio. Nuovi Sguardi sul Giappone. Miti, incantesimi,
ambiente e drammi vuole offrire spunti di riflessione che
spaziano dalle arti performative e visive alla letteratura,
dalla storia alle religioni, dal mito alla società
contemporanea. I contributi qui raccolti sono
raggruppati per aree tematiche e di ricerca, nell’ottica
della valorizzazione della ricchezza e della pluralità, oltre
le convenzionali barriere e gerarchie tra discipline. Si è
preferito un approccio atipico che procedesse per
suggestioni e assonanze. Il volume è dedicato a
Bonaventura Ruperti, la cui prematura scomparsa lascia
un profondo vuoto all’interno dell’Aistugia (Associazione
Italiana per gli Studi Giapponesi).
Autentica leggenda del cinema giapponese, Mifune è conosciuto in tutto il mondo perlopiù come int... more Autentica leggenda del cinema giapponese, Mifune è conosciuto in tutto il mondo perlopiù come interprete di celebri pellicole di Kurosawa quali Rashomon (1950) e I sette samurai (1953), oltre che come icona del cinema in costume e di guerra.
In realtà, pur in coerenza con la propria immagine divistica, in quasi cinquant’anni di attività si dimostrò anche un interprete sorprendentemente versatile, ricoprendo un’ampia gamma di generi e sfumature attoriali nelle opere di alcuni tra i più illustri artefici di una gloriosa e irripetibile stagione cinematografica.
Il volume, analizzandone nel dettaglio la filmografia e chiamando a raccolta le voci di registi, colleghi e studiosi, approfondisce la figura di un uomo, un attore e un divo che nel suo ruvido e incontenibile dinamismo fu anche, se non soprattutto, «incarnazione dello spirito di un’epoca, quella del Giappone postbellico».
![Research paper thumbnail of To the Digital Observer - Il cinema giapponese contemporaneo attraverso il monitor (Mimesis Cinema, 2019) [To the Digital Observer - Contemporary Japanese Cinema Through the Computer Screen]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/61006424/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Nel 1979 Noël Burch pubblicava To the Distant Observer, uno dei testi più noti e discussi sul cin... more Nel 1979 Noël Burch pubblicava To the Distant Observer, uno dei testi più noti e discussi sul cinema giapponese. Cos’è cambiato quarant’anni dopo? Che ne è stato di quell’osservatore e di quella distanza? In un contesto digitale, polimorfo e convergente, il cinema giapponese è mutato nella sostanza, ma non solo: nuove pratiche discorsive e di fruizione hanno trasformato la sua ricezione all’estero, favorendo l’emergere di determinate sue espressioni a scapito di altre. Tra i nuovi osservatori digitali del cinema giapponese, rilocato su una moltitudine di schermi, troviamo non solo cinefili a caccia di cult movies, ma anche folte schiere di “cosmopoliti pop” attratti da un’immagine diversamente giapponese. Nelle loro pratiche virtuali, sia gli uni che gli altri contribuiscono a portare in superficie e a riplasmare questa immagine: diffondendola e sollecitando nuovi tipi di performance culturale, ma anche disperdendone la “fragranza” e occultando tutto ciò che vi si cela dietro.
In 1979, Noël Burch published "To the Distant Observer", one of the most well-known and discussed texts on Japanese cinema. What has changed 40 years later? What happened to that observer and that distance? In a digital, polymorphous and convergent context, Japanese cinema has changed in substance, but not only: new discursive and enjoyable practices have transformed its reception abroad, favoring the emergence of certain expressions at the expense of others. Among the new digital observers of Japanese cinema, relocated on a multitude of screens, we find not only cinephiles hunting for cult movies, but also large arrays of "pop cosmopolitans" attracted by a different Japanese image. In their virtual practices, both contribute to bringing this image to the surface and reshaping it: spreading it and soliciting new types of cultural performance, but also dispersing its "fragrance" and concealing everything hidden behind.
Toshirō Mifune (L'Epos, 2011)
Mondi che cadono - Il cinema di Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Il Castoro/Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 2007) [Falling Worlds - The Cinema of Kurosawa Kiyoshi]
Horror dal Giappone e dal resto dell'Asia (Profondo Rosso, 2005) [Horror from Japan and Eastern Asian Countries].
Papers by Giacomo Calorio
Cure di Kurosawa Kiyoshi, “Fata Morgana – Quadrimestrale di cinema e visioni”, vol. 50 “Estremo Oriente”, Anno XVI, Maggio-agosto 2023, pp.55-62.
Studi e saggi, 2020
The English title of a recent book by renowned film scholar Yomota Inuhiko reads: “What is Japane... more The English title of a recent book by renowned film scholar Yomota Inuhiko reads: “What is Japanese Cinema?”. In the preface to the English edition Yomota states that the direction we might take, should we try to provide an answer to the question, changes according to which word, “Japanese” or “Cinema” we choose to emphasize. When his survey reaches the recent past, the Japanese scholar describes the 2000s as “an era of chaos”. Starting from these questions and affirmations, and combining them with others made by scholars such as David Bordwell, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Andrew Dorman and Mori Naoyuki, the following article attempts to explore a more specific doubt: “What is contemporary Japanese cinema”? In so doing, however, other questions arise, as we need to define when contemporaneity starts and what makes it different both from previous eras, and from the contemporaneity of other national cinemas. The further we probe, the more complex our definition becomes.
Law and Humanities, 2020
This paper provides both lawyers and cinema experts with some insights about the depiction of law... more This paper provides both lawyers and cinema experts with some insights about the depiction of law and criminal justice in films in Japan. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest of the Japanese movie industry towards 'courtrooms drama', i.e., films set in tribunals and having lawyers, judges, and prosecutors as main characters: a small 'Golden Age' of law as depicted in Japanese cinema. This paper (co-written by a comparative lawyer and a film studies specialist) will address this phenomenon from two perspectives: one from a legal studies and popular culture framework, analyzing how such movies reflectand at the same time shapethe 'legal imagination' in Japan. The other, from film studies, focuses on technical, directorial aspects, to emphasize how authors intend to depict the law and its actors. KEYWORDS Japanese law; Japanese movies; law and films; law and popular culture; courtroom drama 'high' culture has only been systematized in recent years. 3 This shift led to the opening and development of many meaningful studies in law and
Lingue Culture Mediazioni - Languages Cultures Mediation (LCM Journal), Dec 1, 2016
The Golden Lion won by Kurosawa Akira's Rashomon in 1951 aroused worldwide interest towards Japan... more The Golden Lion won by Kurosawa Akira's Rashomon in 1951 aroused worldwide interest towards Japanese cinema during the 1950s and 1960s, but mainly in its guise of period films. Indeed, while geisha and samurai stories tickled Western audience with exotic settings, many masterpieces set in everyday Japan were largely overlooked. Among these, only Ozu's films have been enjoying a lasting posthumous appreciation since the 1970s, as his cinema's contemplative approach was well suited to be described with an almost stereotyped fascinating lexicon provided by the so-called 'Zen boom'. Something has changed in the last decades, though it seems to confirm the deeply rooted commonplace about Japan as a land of contrasts and paradoxes: while the few films screened in Italy share the image of Japan as a quiet place characterized by tradition, spirituality, small everyday rituals and an intimate relationship with natural cycles, media convergence and relocated cinema experience have been fostering the global circulation of a different Japan and a different Japanese cinema, though equally 'essentialised': cool, postmodern, pop, colorful, technological, kawaii, superflat and extreme.
![Research paper thumbnail of Immagine eri, immagine tornerai: pratiche di appropriazione e postproduzione nella cosplay photography [Image You Were and to Image Thou Shall Return: Appropriation and Postproduction Practices in Cosplay Photography]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/53638952/thumbnails/1.jpg)
At a general level, the cultural practice known as cosplay may be considered a form of postproduc... more At a general level, the cultural practice known as cosplay may be considered a form of postproduction as it is based on appropriation and reuse of preexisting texts; more specifically, cosplay photographs represent a further link on the long chain of reworkings of the source material. Nevertheless, while cosplayers embody and perform images extrapolated from anime series or videogames, some photographers use their portraits as part of a digital collage that conversely bring them back to the realm of images. By means of an accurate work of editing, these prosumers (coming from all over the world but sharing a common visual vocabulary) inscribe the cosplayers’ portraits into digital landscapes as close as possible to the primary source. These newly produced images express at once both the self-portrait nature of cosplaying, enhancing and visualizing otherwise invisible traits of these fans’ affection towards the source material, and professional/fan identity of the photographer himself. In some cases, however, images seem to prevail on cosplayers.
![Research paper thumbnail of Vecchi e nuovi luoghi comuni del e sul cinema giapponese contemporaneo, tra esotismo e autorappresentazioni [Old and New Commonplaces inside and around Contemporary Japanese Cinema, Between Exoticism and Self-Representations]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/51827824/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The Golden Lion won by Kurosawa Akira's Rashomon in 1951 aroused worldwide interest towards Japan... more The Golden Lion won by Kurosawa Akira's Rashomon in 1951 aroused worldwide interest towards Japanese cinema during the 1950s and 1960s, but mainly in its guise of period films. Indeed, while geisha and samurai stories tickled Western audience with exotic settings, many masterpieces set in everyday Japan were largely overlooked. Among these, only Ozu's films have been enjoying a lasting posthumous appreciation since the 1970s, as his cinema's contemplative approach was well suited to be described with an almost stereotyped fascinating lexicon provided by the so-called 'Zen boom'. Something has changed in the last decades, though it seems to confirm the deeply rooted commonplace about Japan as a land of contrasts and paradoxes: while the few films screened in Italy share the image of Japan as a quiet place characterized by tradition, spirituality, small everyday rituals and an intimate relationship with natural cycles, media convergence and relocated cinema experience have been fostering the global circulation of a different Japan and a different Japanese cinema, though equally 'essentialised'
![Research paper thumbnail of Man/Ei-GA: intermedialità fumetto-cinema nel Giappone contemporaneo [Man/Ei-GA: Comics-Cinema Intermediality in Contemporary Japan]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/35578201/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Cinergie, il cinema e le altre arti INDICE Cinergie uscita n°5 marzo | ISSN 2280-9481 Marco Teti ... more Cinergie, il cinema e le altre arti INDICE Cinergie uscita n°5 marzo | ISSN 2280-9481 Marco Teti Gli aspetti rituali della narrativa fantastica e fantascientifi ca giapponese a disegni animati nella rifl essione critico-teorica occidentale ORIENTI OCCIDENTI pag. 153 Giacomo Calorio Man/Ei-GA: intermedialità fumetto-cinema nel Giappone contemporaneo pag. 162 Alberto Beltrame Positif e il cinema italiano degli anni Cinquanta. Una politica contro gli (altri) autori CRITICA CINEFILIA E FESTIVAL STUDIES pag. 207 Giampiero Consoli Tra ironia e torpore: appunti sul cinema di Terrence Malick pag. 220 Marta Boni Mappare le reinvenzioni culturali intorno a "The Hunger Games" SOTTO ANALISI Elena Gipponi Documenti spettacolari: le immagini a colori di The Second World War in Colour Massimiliano Coviello L'universo concentrazionario della memoria in Tutta la memoria del mondo e Anche le statue muoiono Elisa Mandelli L'esposizione come "spazio aumentato": Hans RichtAR e l'exhibition design negli anni '20 ART AND MEDIA FILES pag. 130 Nikki Usher Spot.
Essays in edited volumes by Giacomo Calorio
"Tokusatsu + tarento: gattai! Trasformazioni e sinergie nel dorama di Sailor Moon"
Anna Specchio (a cura di) - "Nel nome della luna - Origini, rivoluzioni ed eredità di Sailor Moon", 2025
Al riguardo afferma Kurosawa Kiyoshi, noto come il "padrino" del J-Horror: "This was a different ... more Al riguardo afferma Kurosawa Kiyoshi, noto come il "padrino" del J-Horror: "This was a different type of horror movie, a very different expression of horror than Sweet Home [il primo horror girato da Kurosawa, qualche anno prima]. This series had a great impact on me, in how they showed a new way of creating fear in the audience... For me it was a change in the way I worked", cit. in T. Mes, V-Cinema -How Home Video Revitalized Japanese Film and Mystified Film Historians, in A. Freedman and T. Slade (a cura di), Introducing
“La bolla inesplosa: l’industria del film giapponese nel nuovo millennio”, in M. Cucco, G. Richeri (a cura di), Le industrie del cinema – Un confronto internazionale, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2022, pp. 121-142
Diego Cucinelli, Andrea Scibetta (eds), Tracing Pathways 雲路 Interdisciplinary Studies on Modern and Contemporary East Asia, FIRENZE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020
Abstract: The English title of a recent book by renowned film scholar Yomota Inuhiko
reads: What ... more Abstract: The English title of a recent book by renowned film scholar Yomota Inuhiko
reads: What is Japanese Cinema?. In the preface to the English edition Yomota states that
the direction we might take, should we try to provide an answer to the question, changes
according to which word, «Japanese» or «Cinema» we choose to emphasize. When his
survey reaches the recent past, the Japanese scholar describes the 2000s as «an era of
chaos». Starting from these questions and affirmations, and combining them with others
made by scholars such as David Bordwell, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Andrew Dorman
and Mori Naoyuki, the following article attempts to explore a more specific doubt: what is
contemporary Japanese cinema? In so doing, however, other questions arise, as we need
to define when contemporaneity starts and what makes it different both from previous
eras, and from the contemporaneity of other national cinemas. The further we probe, the
more complex our definition becomes.
Keywords: contemporary Japanese cinema; Japanese film theory; visual culture, digital culture.
要旨:『What is Japanese Cinema?』（日本映画とは何か）とは、著名な映画史研究者、四方田犬彦
の最新のエッセイの英訳版のタイトルである。四方 田はその序文で、「Japanese」という言葉に重
きを置くか、「Cinema」という言葉に重きを置くかによって、疑問に対する答えを導くであろう探究
の方向性が変わってくるのではないかと述べている。現代映画の研究に至り、四方田は、2000年
代を混沌の時代と定義している。こういった問いや断言から出発し、他の研究者たちの疑問と絡
み合わせながら、本稿では、「現代日本映画とは何か」という更に具体的な疑問に対する答えを求
めようとしている。ただし、そのための様々な疑問が生じる。まず、日本映画の現代性がいつから
始まるのか、それまでの日本映画の時代とは何が異なるのか、また、他の国の映画の現代性とは何
が異なるのかを明確にする必要がある。しかし、話題を深く掘り下げれば掘り下げるほど、その定
義は拡大し、とらえどころのない話題になっていく。
キーワード: 現代日本映画、日本映画論、ビジュアル文化、デジタル文化.
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Monographs by Giacomo Calorio
sono sviluppati al punto da produrre risultati eclatanti,
come dimostrano i numeri dei romanzi e dei manga
tradotti ogni anno dal giapponese, delle sedi universitarie
dove è possibile apprendere la lingua, la cultura e la
letteratura del Giappone e degli eventi e iniziative
promossi dalle tante associazioni presenti sul nostro
territorio. Nuovi Sguardi sul Giappone. Miti, incantesimi,
ambiente e drammi vuole offrire spunti di riflessione che
spaziano dalle arti performative e visive alla letteratura,
dalla storia alle religioni, dal mito alla società
contemporanea. I contributi qui raccolti sono
raggruppati per aree tematiche e di ricerca, nell’ottica
della valorizzazione della ricchezza e della pluralità, oltre
le convenzionali barriere e gerarchie tra discipline. Si è
preferito un approccio atipico che procedesse per
suggestioni e assonanze. Il volume è dedicato a
Bonaventura Ruperti, la cui prematura scomparsa lascia
un profondo vuoto all’interno dell’Aistugia (Associazione
Italiana per gli Studi Giapponesi).
In realtà, pur in coerenza con la propria immagine divistica, in quasi cinquant’anni di attività si dimostrò anche un interprete sorprendentemente versatile, ricoprendo un’ampia gamma di generi e sfumature attoriali nelle opere di alcuni tra i più illustri artefici di una gloriosa e irripetibile stagione cinematografica.
Il volume, analizzandone nel dettaglio la filmografia e chiamando a raccolta le voci di registi, colleghi e studiosi, approfondisce la figura di un uomo, un attore e un divo che nel suo ruvido e incontenibile dinamismo fu anche, se non soprattutto, «incarnazione dello spirito di un’epoca, quella del Giappone postbellico».
In 1979, Noël Burch published "To the Distant Observer", one of the most well-known and discussed texts on Japanese cinema. What has changed 40 years later? What happened to that observer and that distance? In a digital, polymorphous and convergent context, Japanese cinema has changed in substance, but not only: new discursive and enjoyable practices have transformed its reception abroad, favoring the emergence of certain expressions at the expense of others. Among the new digital observers of Japanese cinema, relocated on a multitude of screens, we find not only cinephiles hunting for cult movies, but also large arrays of "pop cosmopolitans" attracted by a different Japanese image. In their virtual practices, both contribute to bringing this image to the surface and reshaping it: spreading it and soliciting new types of cultural performance, but also dispersing its "fragrance" and concealing everything hidden behind.
Papers by Giacomo Calorio
Essays in edited volumes by Giacomo Calorio
reads: What is Japanese Cinema?. In the preface to the English edition Yomota states that
the direction we might take, should we try to provide an answer to the question, changes
according to which word, «Japanese» or «Cinema» we choose to emphasize. When his
survey reaches the recent past, the Japanese scholar describes the 2000s as «an era of
chaos». Starting from these questions and affirmations, and combining them with others
made by scholars such as David Bordwell, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Andrew Dorman
and Mori Naoyuki, the following article attempts to explore a more specific doubt: what is
contemporary Japanese cinema? In so doing, however, other questions arise, as we need
to define when contemporaneity starts and what makes it different both from previous
eras, and from the contemporaneity of other national cinemas. The further we probe, the
more complex our definition becomes.
Keywords: contemporary Japanese cinema; Japanese film theory; visual culture, digital culture.
要旨:『What is Japanese Cinema?』（日本映画とは何か）とは、著名な映画史研究者、四方田犬彦
の最新のエッセイの英訳版のタイトルである。四方 田はその序文で、「Japanese」という言葉に重
きを置くか、「Cinema」という言葉に重きを置くかによって、疑問に対する答えを導くであろう探究
の方向性が変わってくるのではないかと述べている。現代映画の研究に至り、四方田は、2000年
代を混沌の時代と定義している。こういった問いや断言から出発し、他の研究者たちの疑問と絡
み合わせながら、本稿では、「現代日本映画とは何か」という更に具体的な疑問に対する答えを求
めようとしている。ただし、そのための様々な疑問が生じる。まず、日本映画の現代性がいつから
始まるのか、それまでの日本映画の時代とは何が異なるのか、また、他の国の映画の現代性とは何
が異なるのかを明確にする必要がある。しかし、話題を深く掘り下げれば掘り下げるほど、その定
義は拡大し、とらえどころのない話題になっていく。
キーワード: 現代日本映画、日本映画論、ビジュアル文化、デジタル文化.