Figure 0.1. Calligraphic writing is ubiquitous in the daily life and built spaces of East Asia and has been for millennia. In contemporary cities, most of this carved calligraphy was replaced by photographic enlargements, neon, and lettering mimicking the calligraphic. Wallace Chan’s Fonting the City (Zi li chengjian, 2015) is a lovely documentary about the gradual displacement of hand-brushed signs by digital fonts in Macao.

Page 4 →Figure 0.2. The famous grave of Ozu Yasujiro has only the single calligraphic character 無, or “nothing.” It is surrounded by calligraphy one encounters in daily life, as in films, from the prayers on wooden strips to the labels on the offerings of sake.

Figure 0.3. Itomi Keinan’s famous calligraphy for People Whose Work Is Necessary Murder (Hissatsu shigotonin, 1972) and the scroll painting a friend gave me, evidencing the iterability built into calligraphy. A wedding present, Itomi left out the characters for “necessary murder”; however, the vigorous movement of Itomi’s body during the act of inscription is viscerally palpable and points to the show’s violence.

Figure 0.4. Titles by Akamatsu Hikozo include (starting from upper left): Fireworks (Hanabi, 1997), Face (Kao, 2000), Dolls (2002), Water Boys (Wata boizu, 2001), Hikari (2017), The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (Kiku to girochin, 2018), This Road (Kono michi, 2018), One More Time, One More Chance (Tsuki to kabetsu, 1996), The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yuki yukite shingun, 1986), Zen (2009), Sekigahara (2017), International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo saiban, 1983), The Eel (Unagi, 1997), Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (Seiei o mamoribito, 2016), and Kids Return (1996), and An Artist of the Floating World (Ukiyo no gaka, 2019).

Figure 0.5. A disposable chopstick, one of Akamatsu Hikozo’s beloved writing instruments, sits on the original calligraphy for Brother (2000). Its tips are bulbous from layer upon layer of dried ink.

Figure 0.5. A disposable chopstick, one of Akamatsu Hikozo’s beloved writing instruments, sits on the original calligraphy for Brother (2000). Its tips are bulbous from layer upon layer of dried ink.

Figure 0.6. These examples capitalize on the pictographic qualities of the Chinese character. The intertitle writer for Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Minato no Nihon musume, 1933) uses lettering to turn the character for mountain (山) into a pictograph of three peaks. On the left, calligrapher Tong Yang-tze uses calligraphic techniques to bring out the pictographic character for “face” 臉 for Tsai Ming-liang’s 2009 film.

Figure 0.7. Many Korean films use the hangul for “end” (끝) rather than the Chinese character. This is from Genealogy (Jokbo, 1979) by Im Kwon-taek, one of the directors in Asia that deeply cared about the calligraphy in his films.

Figure 0.8. The end title for Mizoguchi Kenji’s The Water Magician (Taki no shiraito, 1933) uses cursive calligraphy and is ornamented with ioriten, the squiggly lines framing text which indicate period and invoke the narratives of traditional theater and song.

Figure 0.9. With delicious irony, the vanquished character in the yakuza film Afraid to Die (Karakkaze yaro, 1960) played by Mishima Yukio stares at “the end” title.

Figure 0.10. The main character in Face of Another (Tanin no kao, 1966) spent much of the film with bandages wrapping his face. At the end, his face is still covered, this time by calligraphy—his eyes peeping out of two holes in the character.

Figure 0.11. The contrast between the calligraphy and the English typeface is striking at the end of Sammo Hung’s Warriors 2 (Zan xian sheng yu zhao qian hua, 1978).

Figure 0.12. Cang Jie is the mythical creator of Chinese characters. His monstrous appearance hints at the unique visuality of the Chinese character—its wonderful multidimensionality. The first input method for Chinese computing was named for him.

Figure 1.1. Blackletter calligraphy in the silent films Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Faust (1926).

Figure 1.2. Intolerance (1916) and Christopher Columbus (1949) use variations of a humanistic hand, the latter with illuminated letters and the appearance of vellum.

Page 20 →Figure 1.3. Native speakers clearly wrote the calligraphy for The Wrath of the Gods (1914). The medallion on the right says “Ince” in katakana, and the left has the characters for “company.” In contrast, most Western films use faux calligraphy for East Asian writing.

Figure 1.4. America’s two enemies are othered through a calligraphic strategy in the propaganda classic Why We Fight: Prelude to War (1942), using blackletter for the Nazis and faux calligraphy for the Japanese.