ThePure Film Movement (純映画劇運動,Jun'eigageki undō) was a trend infilm criticism andfilmmaking in 1910s and early 1920s Japan that advocated what were considered more modern and cinematic modes of filmmaking.[1]
As the background of the movement, the foreign movie which raised the level under thefirst World War was imported, and the social situation such as Taisho Democracy was mentioned, and the voice to criticize the old style Japanese movie was raised by these influences.[2]
Critics in such magazines asKinema Record andKinema Junpo complained that existingJapanese cinema was overly theatrical.[3] They said it presented scenes fromkabuki andshinpa theater as is, with little cinematic manipulation and without a screenplay written with cinema in mind. Women were even played byonnagata. Filmmakers were charged with shooting films with long takes and leaving the storytelling to thebenshi in the theater instead of using devices such as close-ups and analytical editing to visually narrate a scene. The novelistJun'ichiro Tanizaki was an important supporter of the movement.[4] Critics such asNorimasa Kaeriyama eventually became filmmakers to put their ideas of what cinema is into practice, with Kaeriyama directingThe Glow of Life at theTenkatsu Studio in 1918. This is often considered the first "pure film," but filmmakers such asEizō Tanaka, influenced byshingeki theater, also made their own innovations in the late 1910s at studios likeNikkatsu.[5]
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The move towards "pure film" was aided by the appearance of new reformist studios such asShochiku andTaikatsu around 1920. By the mid-1920s, Japanese cinema exhibited more of thecinematic techniques pure film advocates called for, andonnagata were replaced by actresses. The movement profoundly influenced the way films would be made and thought about for decades to come, but it was not a complete success: benshi would remain an integral part of the Japanese film experience into the 1930s.
