BOOK PUBLICATIONS
The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge Press, 2004)
An eye-opening portrait of a vibrant film culture, The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film is the most comprehensive study of the Japanese filmmaking scene yet written. Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp explore the astounding resurgence of Japanese cinema, both live action and animated, profiling 19 contemporary Japanese filmmakers, from the well-known (Kitano, Miike, Miyazaki) to the up-and-coming (Naomi Kawase, Satoshi Kon, Shinya Tsukamoto) and reviewing 97 of their recent films. With 100+ images from behind and in front of the camera, this is a book any film lover will savor. Foreword by Hideo Nakata, director of Ring.
Order from Stone Bridge Press or Amazon UK.
“All you need to know about the cutting edge of Japanese film - animated, inventive and imaginative.”
Behind the Pink Curtain:
The Complete History of Japanese Cinema (FAB Press, 2008)
Takes the reader on a wild joy ride deep into the hinterlands of Japanese culture, society and radical politics by way of the weird and wonderful world of the country's distinctive sex film movements. Focusing on one of the most notorious secrets of Japanese filmmaking, the erotic Pink Film (or pinku eiga) genre, Behind the Pink Curtain features numerous interviews with leading figures in the field and offers an exhaustive, yet colourful, trawl through Japan's most vibrant and prolific film sector.
Order from Amazon UK.
Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (Scarecrow Press, 2011)
The cinema of Japan predates that of Russia, China, and India, and it has been able to sustain itself without outside assistance for over a century. Japanese cinema's long history of production and considerable output has seen films made in a variety of genres, including melodramas, romances, gangster movies, samurai movies, musicals, horror films, and monster films. It has also produced some of the most famous names in the history of cinema: Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Beat Takeshi, Toshiro Mifune, Godzilla, The Ring, Akira, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai. The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema is an introduction to and overview of the long history of Japanese cinema. It aims to provide an entry point for those with little or no familiarity with the subject, while it is organized so that scholars in the field will also be able to use it to find specific information. This is done through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, and appendixes of films, film studios, directors, and performers. The cross-referenced dictionary entries cover key films, genres, studios, directors, performers, and other individuals. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Japanese cinema.
The Creeping Garden (FAB Press, 2015)
This lavishly-illustrated companion to the feature documentary The Creeping Garden is a layperson's entry point into the strangely fascinating world of myxomycetes, or plasmodial slime moulds. Neither animal, plant nor fungi, these alien-looking single-celled organisms are all around us in the natural world, shifting in form throughout distinct phases in their life cycle, for the most part invisible to the naked eye, but strangely beautiful in their foraging or reproductive stages. They creep around forests and grasslands across the globe almost imperceptibly, with an agency all of their own that some have described as intelligent. Overlooked for years by natural historians and the general public at large, only recently have small groups of scientists, artists and visionaries begun to find within their intriguing behavioural patterns extraordinary metaphors that seem to belong to the world of science fiction, inspiring practical applications such as powerful computing devices, transport network designs, robot controllers and even music... The Creeping Garden takes a closer look at this mysterious life form and the diverse and curious array of research it has inspired. Providing an insight into the modus operandi of the film's makers and the perceptual world of the organism, it brings the reader into a unique and irrational encounter in which time and space are magnified and intelligence redefined.
Anthology Chapters
‘Scope and the City: Reframing a Modern Metropolis.’ In A Companion to Japanese Cinema, ed. David Desser. Wiley Blackwell Companions to National Cinemas series (forthcoming).
‘The Creeping Garden: Articulating the Science of Slime Mould on Film.’ In Advances in Physarum Machines: Sensing and Computing with Slime Mould, ed. Andrew Adamatzky. Springer International Publishing, 2016.
‘Buddha: Selling an Asian Spectacle.’ In Japanese Cinema, eds. Nikki J. Y. Lee and Julian Stringer. London: Routledge, 2014.
‘The Japanese Gothic.’ In Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film, ed. James Bell. London: BFI, 2013.
‘Futurescape: Tokyo’s Animators Present an Expansive Vision of the Metropolis that their Live-Action Counterparts Can’t Hope to Match.’ In Tokyo Life: Art and Design, ed. Ian Luna. New York: Rizzoli, 2008: 310-321.
‘Between Dimensions: 3D Computer Generated Animation in Anime.’ In Ga-Netchu: The Manga Anime Syndrome. Frankfurt: Deutsches Filmmuseum, 2008.
‘Inside Pink.’ In Film Out of Bounds: Essays and Interviews on Non-Mainstream Cinema Worldwide, ed. Edwards, Matthew. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2007: 50–60.
‘A Page of Madness’ and ‘Perfect Blue’. In The Cinema of Japan and Korea (24 Frames series), ed. Bowyer, Justin. London: Wallflower, 2004.