Perspectives
Perspectives:
Mark Schilling:
In the course of establishing our project's scope, we found that there were surprisingly no archives that centered on Japanese horror films. This impacted our ability to locate resources (stills, interviews, reviews, etc.) that could be showcased in our archive. However, we were luckily directed to the Mark Schilling collection, which contains a surfeit of materials related to countless directors, films, and reviews. Among the genres represented, we were able to find ample horror film content. Considering that we drew fairly heavily from the Schilling collection, we found that it would be helpful to include Schilling's perspective in our archive. Schilling's perspectives on Japanese film can be seen in the form of reviews and a short interview conducted by our team.
Film Theorists and Other Film Writers:
The perspectives of academics and journalists who cover Japanese cinema can be seen in each specific director page, in which we cite academic and journalistic articles to help contextual each director and their most popular films.
What Perspectives Are Missing?
Viewers of the archive may be wondering about the absence of the perspectives of women and queer filmmakers within our site. Our archive is a reflection of the Schilling Collection, which was overwhelmingly focused on male directors. We asked Mr. Schilling about this trend during our personal interview with him, knowing that the lack of women and queer representation within the collection isn’t so much a fault of his own, but a reflection of broader gender disparities in Japanese cinema and cinema in general. He explained to us that, although the tide is shifting, Japanese cinema remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated art form, but noted that from the independent sector, there is a swarm of female directors, such as Naomi Kawase.