Tokyo, the movie

Abstract

This article traces the representation of Tokyo in Japanese cinema from the 1930s to the 1990s. It argues that there is no recognizable image of Tokyo, but the centrality of the city to the Japanese cinema has transformed the metropolis into a system of representation.The apocalypticism of Tokyo is traced back to the pre-cinematic, pre-modern combustible city of Edo, through its twice-over destruction in the twentieth century, and linked to the dominant genre of science-fiction anime film of the present. I argue that the ritualized destruction of Tokyo has become the ground for the discursive city that has no referent. Between these two outer historical limits of the pre-modern and the technologically out-of-control city we find the classicism of the studio period of Japanese cinema, followed by the 'New Wave' depiction of urban space. If the former transformed the city into a network of discrete villages separated by liminal transportation links, suburban wastelands and dangerous nightlife, the latter addressed the loss of identity and disorientation produced within urban space. While Japanese filmmakers have always been drawn to Tokyo as a production site and as a narrative site, they have also transformed it into a virtual city that is constantly reproducing itself as a discursive system.