Brushed in Light: Calligraphy in East Asian Cinema

Abé Markus Nornes

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.11373292

Markus Nornes

Open Access

Drawing on a millennia of calligraphy theory and history, Brushed in Light examines how the brushed word appears in films and in film cultures of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and PRC cinemas. This includes silent era intertitles, subtitles, title frames, letters, graffiti, end titles, and props. Markus Nornes also looks at the role of calligraphy in film culture at large, from gifts to correspondence to advertising. The book begins with a historical dimension, tracking how calligraphy is initially used in early cinema and how it is continually rearticulated by transforming conventions and the integration of new technologies. These chapters ask how calligraphy creates new meaning in cinema and demonstrate how calligraphy, cinematography, and acting work together in a single film. The last part of the book moves to other regions of theory. Nornes explores the cinematization of the handwritten word and explores how calligraphers understand their own work.

Resources

A film still with calligraphic white text on a background of ornamental black and white.

Chushingura (1941)

From Chapter 3

Figure 3.7. Chushingura (1941) uses an ornamented background, which Thomas Lamarre calls a “paperscape.”

A film still of a paper with thin calligraphic text on it, with a red seal in the bottom left corner.

Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (Aru eiga kantoku no shogai, 1975)

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.2. The last writing of Mizoguchi, from the documentary Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (Aru eiga kantoku no shogai, 1975). In the tradition of Buddhist disciples capturing the moment of death of their master through calligraphy, his screenwriter gave him pen and paper the day before he died. The director wrote, “The chill autumn air has already arrived. I want the pleasure of working with all of you at the studio.” On the lower left above the seal, it says, “Mizoguchi Kenji’s last writing (zeppitsu); recorded by Yoda Yoshikata.” The seal has the crushed character for 義, the third character in Yoda’s name.