Abstract
Images showing how Ainu physical traits significantly differed from their neighbors in the Far East fueled the widespread idea in the West that the Ainu had European ancestors. This triggered an exceptional interest in Ainu culture among the European as well as American audiences between the Meiji period and the outbreak of the “Chinese Incident” in 1937. It is in this period when the Ainu were featured in a number of moving images to be screened outside Hokkaido. This chapter aims to assess the standardization of Ainu iconography during this period and interrogate the role played by cinema in this process. Documentary films on the Ainu were produced in a context in which Meiji government had started to implement developmental policies in Hokkaido. The early productions of photo-mechanical images on the Ainu coincided with the modernizing project driven from the Meiji Restoration.
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