The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature: Polygraphic Desire [1 ed.] 0415770874, 9780415770873

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The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature Polygraphic desire

Nina Cornyetz

Routledge Contemporary Japan Series

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature is a study of the ethics of modern Japanese aesthetics from the 1930s, through the Second World War and into the postwar period. What makes this book unique is that Nina Cornyetz opens up the field in new and controversial ways by exploring the tensions and harmonies between psychoanalytic ethics of the drive and sociopolitical ethics of relation to the other. Rejecting the convention of viewing these as contradictory, Cornyetz insists that the exemplars of psychoanalytic ethics are to the contrary, simultaneously politically ethical. Cornyetz embarks on innovative and unprecedented readings of some of the most significant literary and film texts of the Japanese canon, including works by Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kdbd, and Shinoda Masahiro, all renowned for their texts’ aesthetic and philosophic brilliance. The study looks at how relations between individuals and communities in these texts either reiterate or transcend stereotypes, and how desire is or is not limited by sociocultural norms. Cornyetz argues that these authors’ and filmmakers’ concepts of beauty and relation to others were, in fact, deeply impacted by political and social factors. Ranging from a discussion of fascist aesthetics to heterosexism in modern Japan, The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature shows how certain changing political, intellectual, and artistic issues, as well as sociocultural norms, variously nuanced these texts’ depictions of desire and the “other.” Through her analysis of cultural texts such as the films Woman in the Dunes and Double Suicide, Cornyetz challenges the convention that praises the universality of their artistic, existential or intellectual achievements. Rather she seeks to reorient these within a specifically Japanese historical context to give a new and insightful interpretation to the work. This groundbreaking study is truly interdisciplinary and will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese literature, film, gender, culture, history, and even psychoanalytic theory. Nina Cornyetz is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at New York University, USA.

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The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature Polygraphic desire Nina Cornyetz

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature Polygraphic desire Nina Cornyetz

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Nina Cornyetz Typeset in Times New Roman by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cornyetz, Nina, 1955– The ethics of aesthetics in Japanese cinema and literature : polygraphic desire / by Nina Cornyetz. p. cm. — (Routledge contemporary Japan series ; 10) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-77087-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Authors, Japanese—20th century—Aesthetics. 2. Literature and morals. 3. Motion pictures—Aesthetics. 4. Motion pictures—Japan. I. Title. II. Series. PL723.C67 2006 895.6′0935520904—dc22 2006007402 ISBN10: ISBN10: ISBN13: ISBN13:

0-415-77087-4 (hbk) 0-203-96701-1 (ebk) 978-0-415-77087-3 (hbk) 978-0-203-96701-0 (ebk)

For my parents Paul and Bernice Cornyetz

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

PART I

Woman as second nature and other fascist proclivities in Kawabata Yasunari

13

1

Myth-making

16

2

Fascist aesthetics

23

3

Kawabata and fascist aesthetics

34

4

Virgins and other little objects

40

PART II

The politics of climate and community in Woman in the Dunes and “The idea of the desert” 5

59

A preface to Woman in the Dunes: space, geopolitics, and “The idea of the desert”

64

6

Social networks and the subject

75

7

Technologies of gazing

96

PART III

Naming desire: Mishima Yukio and the politics of “sexuation” 8

Textualizing flesh, or, (in)articulate desire

109 113

viii

9 10

Contents

Narcissism and sadism: Mishima as homofascist

134

The homosocial fixing of desire

145

Epilogue

153

11

Scripting the scopic: disinterest in Double Suicide

155

Notes Works cited Index

176 205 218

Acknowledgments

Of course this study, like most intellectual projects, has deep roots. The varied support, critiques, and intellectual input of friends and colleagues have been simply indispensable to the writing of this book. The final chapter, actually, is a revised version of an essay written well in advance of the study itself, inspired by the topic of a Rutgers University Center for Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture Seminar – “The Aesthetic” – when I was a fellow there during 1997–8. I thank all the members of the seminar, but most of all Joan Copjec, Louisa Schein, and Xudong Zhang, for their incisive commentary, meaningful participation throughout the year, and for their friendship. During the same period I taught a closely related graduate seminar for the Comparative Literature Department at Rutgers, “The Aesthetic in Modern Japanese Film and Narrative,” where I began broadening my thinking beyond the one film. I was very fortunate to have the regular input of an astoundingly sophisticated group of students. I am particularly thankful for their enthusiasm and insights. Subsequent versions of my work-in-progress on Double Suicide, presented at an annual Association for Asian Studies meeting in March 1998, and at the University of Oregon in early 1999, benefited from wonderful comments by, respectively, Livia Monnet and Stephen Brown. Slowly my thoughts had begun their metamorphosis into this study. In order to write the book, however, I needed time. The gracious grant of a semester leave in spring 1999 by Rutgers University Deans Richard Foley and Barry Qualls gave me the first chunk of that time. A sudden, unexpected but very welcome invitation from Matsuura Hisaki and Hasumi Shigehiko to teach a graduate seminar at Tokyo University for the Department of Theories of Representations and Culture paved my way to a threemonth-plus stint in Tokyo from April to July 1999. There I was able to access sources on film that are hard to come by in the States. The seminar I taught, “Nihon eiga/bungaku ni okeru jendA to bigaku” (Aesthetics and gender in Japanese cinema and literature), helped me explore many of the themes that have come together in this book, refined by the (once again) regular intellectual contributions of a group of very engaged, insightful, and surprisingly vocal (for Japanese, or so I am told) graduate students. The

x

Acknowledgments

thoughtful comments from Matsuura Hisaki throughout those months are deeply appreciated, as are the excellent criticisms made by Asada Akira on the earliest incarnations of the chapters on Kawabata. Also during my stay in Japan, Anne McKnight was always sharp and provocative in our discussions of a wide range of topics – not limited to this study proper – that kept me on my intellectual toes. So was Azuma Hiroki. Nagahara Yutaka embodied for me that rare combination of true friendship and intellectual companionship, during my stay in Japan and beyond. Toyosaki Satoko and I laughed away innumerable stresses night after night in various cafés, bars and other haunts. Satoko also helped me enormously as I raced to turn English lectures into good Japanese with never enough time for the task. Shimada Masahiko was, as always, a wise, gracious and generous friend. And extra-special thanks are due my dear friend and intellectual comrade Keith Vincent, who not only read more of this book in manuscript form than anyone else, and whose comments helped me clarify the tension at the heart of this study, but in addition, whose close presence two flights down at New York University since his return from Japan has been an absolute Godsend. The book was further reshaped yet again, in response to the surprising sophistication of every one of the students in my first undergraduate seminar in fall 1999 at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study – “Aesthetics, Fascism and Culture.” It reached another level of psychoanalytic rigor thanks to the wonderfully constructive, insightful and meticulous comments by Jerry Piven. I am also thankful for the friendship and support of all the members of the New York University East Asian Studies Program who have made me feel a part of the community. And I thank former Dean Francis White, and all of my colleagues at Gallatin – too many to list by name here – who offered me a warm, honest and refreshingly ethical environment in which to pursue both of my passions: teaching and research. Finally, thank you Toshiaki Ozawa, for your love, time, and compassion, and for somehow managing your career, Nala Ai(i)nu Aurora, and the evil J. Jason all on your own during my months in Japan.

Introduction

No Japanese can die for freedom, but it is very Japanese to die for beauty and aesthetic purity. Shinoda Masahiro1 Polygraph (pol/b graf/, -gräf/), n.1. an apparatus for producing copies of a drawing or writing. 2. a prolific or versatile author. 3. an instrument for receiving and recording simultaneously tracings of variations in certain body activities. 4. a lie detector. [