In the Style of Ozu: Critical Making and Postwar Japanese Cinema

Interest in modern and contemporary Japanese visual culture—whether through film, art history, or literature—is growing among students who already have an exposure to and love for Japanese popular culture via visual media such as manga, anime, video, and social media. In combination with student demand for courses that engage with the visual, there is institutional demand for innovative courses that offer experiential and active learning approaches to critical inquiry. This pedagogical essay introduces the concept of “critical making” and the importance of new modes of student assessment that engage with creative acts of making. It discusses the development and application of a semester-long student filmmaking project in Postwar Japanese Cinema and concludes with a critique of the project and the broader implications for including critical making in East Asian studies courses that emphasize the study of visual culture. This student film project reflects my background and training in Japanese art, cinema, and visual culture—not in filmmaking or media production—and is just one example of how to approach the study of postwar Japanese cinema through the lens of critical making.