Why Is Japanese Cinema Different? The Doctrine of the Screenplay, and a Young Japanese Thinker's Way of Reading
Why is Japanese cinema so different, beyond the usual lists of best films? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, reads Japanese film as material for thought: he watches to grasp the movement of the heart of the Japanese of that time, and finds in the doctrine of the screenplay, that a director must be able to write one, both its strength and its stagnation. Not a list: a way of reading, from a young Japanese writer alive today.
Not a list: a way of seeing
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (What text cannot carry, images might, 2025-07-07): he watches Japanese films not as entertainment but to grasp the movement of the heart of the Japanese of that time.
I do not consume them as entertainment.
For me, classic films are, more than a longing for the past, material for thought that lets me grasp the history of how the "movement of the heart" changed.
The two-second world and the long take
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Attention shrinks to two seconds, 2026-02-23): the average shot has fallen to about two seconds, and the masterpieces built on long takes let us see our unease with the present from outside.
As I wrote in yesterday's piece, the average shot length of film, the ASL, has grown shorter every year, and we of the present live in a world where about two seconds has become the norm.
Above all, when we learn how superbly the method of building a scene in long takes is used in the works, we can see our unease with the present from outside.
The doctrine of the screenplay
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Attention shrinks to two seconds, 2026-02-23): the doctrine of the screenplay is the idea that a director cannot become a director unless he can write a screenplay; it worked while directors wrote excellent ones, and stagnated when the screenplay became too absolute.
It refers to the very idea, in making film in Japan, that "a film director cannot become a director unless he can write a screenplay."
But as the ability of filmmakers gradually fell, by making the screenplay too absolute they fell into a stagnation in which they could not depart from the signified that was written.
When it was clear that this doctrine of the screenplay was one cause of the decline of Japanese film, and that no one in the film world could break it, a new creator suddenly appeared from outside like a comet.
A young Japanese thinker, not a critic
Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, reads old films across a gap of time (To Sleep So as to Dream, 2025-06-17), and asks that we look into the hearts of the people who make film (A director who filmed human feeling, 2026-01-04).
In the late 1980s, the Japanese were living for the moment, feigning euphoria, compelled to inhabit a "future that had lost its future." Born in the 1990s, I cannot know that strange energy firsthand, yet through the message embedded in Hayashi's film, much of it becomes legible.
He voiced his doubt about the age: shouldn't we look far more into the hearts of the people who make film?
The power of film
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (The power of film to rid the world of war, 2026-03-01): he recalls Akira Kurosawa's testament to Nobuhiko Obayashi, that generations of films will one day rid the world of war.
Words passed from a director who symbolized one age to a director who would symbolize the next seem to press on me now with great immediacy.
In our time at least, is there anyone who knows this power?
A town that missed its time
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (A town saved by missing its time, 2025-03-06): Onomichi missed the tide of the times, and that is why the townscape of Ozu's Tokyo Story still stands.
Ironically, it is precisely because Onomichi missed the tide of the times and slipped into decline that the townscape of Tokyo Story, filmed more than seventy years ago, still stands before our eyes today.
Nakadai: a life as philosophy
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The age of the individual begins, 2025-11-20): the death of Tatsuya Nakadai marks the complete end of the rise of Japanese cinema that began around the 1930s, and his own way of living reedited the cinema into a new dimension.
His life was itself a philosophy, and it is scattered with lessons of great importance for us, who live in an age of extreme confusion.
The departure of Tatsuya Nakadai marks the "complete end" of the rise of Japanese cinema, which began around the 1930s. It suggests that we have entered a symbolic new phase, no longer that of filmmaking as it was or of the old values, but of an altogether new "age of the individual."
Nakadai did not bow to this iron rule and remained a freelancer, unaffiliated, all his life.
Essays to read
- Attention shrinks to two seconds — Why are movies getting faster and shorter shots? The average shot has fallen to two seconds, Takahiro Mitsui notes, and an art form's decline is broken by makers from outside.
- The power of film to rid the world of war — Can film end war? Takahiro Mitsui recalls Kurosawa's belief that generations of films will one day rid the world of war.
- A director who filmed human feeling — Who is Sadao Yamanaka and why is he forgotten? Reverence for one founder narrows a field, Takahiro Mitsui maintains, while a director of human feeling shows what learning gains from the hearts of makers.
- A town saved by missing its time — What is lost when a town modernizes and what does decline keep alive? Onomichi missed its age, and that is why the world of Tokyo Story still stands, Takahiro Mitsui finds: decline can preserve what progress erases.
- Longing for the texture that cannot be seen — Why are young people going back to vinyl and film cameras? At the height of affluence a film chose black-and-white silence, Takahiro Mitsui notes, foreseeing today's retreat from the digital.
- What text cannot carry, images might — Can film say what text cannot? Takahiro Mitsui argues culture born of a predicate-based language reaches text only so far, and moving images may break the wall — The Three Deities of Creation, the Kojiki's opening as a video with no words.
- The age of the individual begins — Can a person's way of living become a philosophy? A way of living, not a strong image, reedited Japanese cinema, Takahiro Mitsui writes of Nakadai, whose passing opens an age of the individual.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday