Benshi w yoseba, czyli śladami innych cieni
Benshi in Yoseba or Following Other Shadows

Summary/Abstract: Dawid Głownia’s book Początki kina w Japonii na tle przemian społeczno-politycznych kraju [The Beginnings of Cinema in Japan in the Context of the Country’s Socio-Political Transformations] (2020) offers a detailed and comprehensive presentation of the birth of Japanese cinematography, from the importation of the film apparatus in 1897 and the establishment of the first major film companies such as Nikkatsu to the establishment of film censorship as a result of the “Zigomar scandal” of 1912. The author also presents manifold social, political and cultural contexts of the emergence of cinema in Japan, such as the world of street performances (misemono), which initially included the cinema, or the Russo-Japanese War, which stimulated the birth of the film industry. The origin of benshi, whose narration accompanied silent film screenings, is also discussed in detail. In the review, the processes described by Dawid Głownia are juxtaposed with the birth of cinema on Polish lands at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

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