ABSTRACT
The use of theatrical practices and conventions drawn from kabuki led to a slower transition from silent to sound films in the 1930s than was experienced in the West, since the former was already much more interactive than its Western counterpart. The period of silent film lasted longer than the equivalent in Western practices but leads to the second stage: the juxtaposition and intermixing of traditional Japanese music and Western musical styles in sound films. Thus, music's place as one of the narrative tools in cinema was prefigured in much of Japan's artistic practice and accounts for both the slower transition to sound films the ready acceptance of its presence within the early cinematic text. Japanese cinema distinguishes itself not only in its breadth of interest and subject, but also in the ways that it, first, embeds broader Japanese cultural practices into the medium of production; and second, appropriates and mobilizes Western musical genres within Japanese cultural contexts.
