Women in Postwar Franco-Japanese Films
A Talk by Hannah Holtzman, PhD
Date: Friday, October 30thTime: 12-1 pm
Location: Online/Zoom
As part of a larger project on Franco-Japanese exchange in cinema, Hannah Holtzman will discuss the roles of women in the first two Franco-Japanese cinematic co-productions, Typhoon over Nagasaki (1957) and Hiroshima mon amour (1959). Hiroshima mon amour, a collaboration by Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais, is perhaps best known for its formal innovation, but it also introduced a new configuration of gender roles, responding to both the fading tradition of Japonisme and the stereotypical race and gender roles in its immediate precursor Typhoon over Nagasaki. Typhoon over Nagasaki, a commercial if not critical success at its release, has been more or less forgotten by scholars today. This talk will compare gender in these films and analyze how both played a pivotal role in restarting Franco-Japanese cultural exchange in the postwar era.
Hannah Holtzman is a Research Affiliate at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of San Diego’s Humanities Center. Her
research in global film studies and the environmental humanities focuses on Franco-
Japanese cultural exchange and nuclear cinema. Her work has been published in French Studies and Contemporary French Civilization.
