ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the history of film and media studies in 1930s Japan, highlighting the experimental films and theoretical work of the Kyoto School aesthetician Nakai Masakazu. Although Nakai was neither a professional filmmaker nor a film scholar, he produced a body of theory and criticism that was rooted in his understanding of cinema as “a medium of daily life.” My focus is primarily on his ideas about filmic montage, which intriguingly diverge from both Russian and Classical Hollywood conceptions, making Nakai’s work an excellent example of vernacular modernism. I conclude that the longevity of his ideas in Japanese film and media history is due to his broader worldview, which was concerned with both the everyday lives of ordinary people and the mechanical and technological nature of cinema, both of which have always been considered as important elements of any larger theory.
