Orson Welles, Dorothy Comingore, and Ruth Warrick in Citizen Kane (1941)

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunset (2004)

Early Japanese films in full color from before 1960 are limited in number and provide a spectacular window into the time and place. While the first color film in Japan was released in 1951, it wasn't until about 1957 that color film production started to really ramp up, and by 1960, a substantial portion of films were in color. Films with really great cinematography set in Japan at that time contain a historical treasure of visual information, not to mention pure aesthetic delight. The good stuff from this output shows the physical manifestations of a Japan that was going through rapid change, of which very little now remains; Japanese society is very quick to literally tear down (or throw away) old infrastructure and consumer goods, the physical artifacts of daily life. Much of what we see on the screen is now in a landfill somewhere.

This list contains some films that show Japan in its full 1950s-1960s glory of motorbikes, apartment blocks, horn-rimmed glasses, wallpaper, rotary telephones, short-sleeve dress shirts, transistor radios, and summer dresses. In this list, I mostly exclude costume dramas and historical and samurai films - of which there are hundreds - the point is more the color imagery of Japan contemporary to the Showa era. Also excluded are some Godzilla, sci-fi, monster movies - some of which do contain lots of wonderful imagery of this kind. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that this body of film would be of interest to the "archeologists" of the future, if we had a future. 

If you want to go on a sightseeing tour of late 50s Japan, start loading up this playlist and enjoy your trip. Will be posting more as I see them.

Japanese cinema in glorious color ~1951-1969 (but mostly 1955-1960)

Toshiko Kobayashi and Hideko Takamine in Carmen Comes Home (1951)

Annual looks at The Best Films from around the world.

Toshirô Mifune and Machiko Kyô in Rashomon (1950)

Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Yoshio Inaba, Daisuke Katô, Isao Kimura, Seiji Miyaguchi, Takashi Shimura, and Keiko Tsushima in Seven Samurai (1954)

 Classic & contemporary Japanese Cinema... Films with eng. subs. in MY DVD Collection

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