\n\tAt age 89, Shigu\u00e9hiko Hasumi, the critic and theorist long regarded as Japan\u2019s greatest living film scholar, is finally making what amounts to his U.S. debut.<\/p>\n
\n\tLater this month, New York\u2019s Japan Society will present Shigu\u00e9hiko Hasumi: Another History of the Movie in America and Japan (Oct. 9\u201318), a hand-curated screening series timed to the publication of the long-awaited English translation of Hasumi\u2019s landmark book, Directed by Yasujiro Ozu<\/a>, from the University of California Press.<\/p>\n \n\tFor decades, Hasumi\u2019s writings have held a grail-like status among Western filmmakers and cinephiles but remained inaccessible in translation. Their sudden arrival, paired with a personal curatorial showcase in New York, marks a belated but significant introduction of Hasumi\u2019s voice to U.S. film discourse. They also offer the potential of an overdue rebalancing. The perceived canon of Japanese cinema \u2014 particularly the great postwar era \u2014 has long been dominated by the voices of Western critics, with little attention paid to how Japanese thinkers have perceived and processed their greatest screen artists. As critic Chris Fujiwara once noted, \u201cIt must be understood that the view of Ozu in the West has been shaped by three writers: Paul Schrader, Donald Richie and David Bordwell.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHasumi is credited with revolutionizing cinema scholarship in his country with a legendary series of rigorous lectures he delivered at Tokyo\u2019s Rikkyo University in the 1970s. Several of his early students went on to become some of Japan\u2019s most acclaimed indie auteurs, such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinji Aoyama, but his influence has continued through the generations, with even the country\u2019s most recent Oscar winner, Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), identifying as a Hasumi acolyte.<\/p>\n \n\tDuring the course of his long career \u2014 which also included influential literary scholarship and a tenure as president of the University of Tokyo, Japan\u2019s top academic institution \u2014 he forged connections with some of the 20th century\u2019s most influential international<\/a> auteurs, including Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Costa and Wim Wenders.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt would not be an exaggeration to say that Hasumi, in one sense, made contemporary Japanese cinema, particularly since the collapse of the studio system,\u201d Hamaguchi once observed.<\/p>\n \n\tFor his New York program, Japan Society offered Hasumi carte blanche \u2014 a rare honor previously extended to figures such as Susan Sontag and art photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The result is a lineup that collapses perceived boundaries between American and Japanese cinema, placing Michael Mann\u2019s Collateral alongside Seijun Suzuki\u2019s delirious yakuza fantasia Tokyo Drifter, or Richard Fleischer\u2019s The Boston Strangler in dialogue with Kenji Mizoguchi\u2019s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum. Rarely seen shorts from Kurosawa and Aoyama sit next to John Ford\u2019s silent Kentucky Pride, while recent Locarno Golden Leopard-winner Sho Miyake (Small, Slow but Steady), one of Hasumi\u2019s latest disciples, will appear during the closing weekend to present his breakthrough boxing drama and take part in a free discussion about Hasumi\u2019s lifelong fascination with Ford. The finale will include a screening of John Ford and Throwing \u2014 Complete Edition, a montage film Hasumi co-directed with Miyake in 2022.<\/p>\n \n\tFor New York cinephiles, the series should offer not just an overdue encounter with a legendary critic, but a living demonstration of his method.<\/p>\n