"Nothing sacred”: Translating Angela Carter’s transgressive Japanese writings to film

Crofts, Charlotte

Abstract

Angela Carter spent several years in Japan in the late 1960s early 1970s where she claims she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised". At that time, Japanese culture was undergoing a cultural explosion in response to post-war occupation, culminating in the student protests of 1969, yet gender politics remained starkly patriarchal as scrutinised extensively in her Japanese writings.

This presentation will outline my work in progress on a collaborative film adaptation of ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ one of the short stories collected in Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces and journalism published in The New Statesman and New Society. Using the central story as a portmanteau, the film interweaves these other writing and combines live action, 2D and 3D animation, analogue and digital filmmaking techniques in order to translate Carter’s radical literary form to the screen.

In the short story, the protagonist experiences a radical shift in understanding of herself, both as a woman, and in relation to Japanese culture, as other – modulating from a traditional orientalist perspective, to a more nuanced and self-aware knowledge. The presentation will explore the film’s use of generic hybridity, shifting narrative voice and taking metaphor literally, to both trouble the representation of Japan and experiment with the aesthetics of narrative film.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: British association of film, television and screen studies (BAFTSS) annual conference, 2018
• Start Date: Apr 12, 2018
• End Date: Apr 13, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Keywords: Aesthetics; Japan; Angela Carter
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10289872
• Related Public URLs: https://www.baftss.org/