Tampopo: Food and the Postmodern in the Work of Itami Jûzô

Timothy Iles

Contemporary Japan, 2001, vol. 12, issue 1, 283-297

Abstract: Itami Jûzô's film Tampopo possesses a structure and thematic richness that make it a prime example of postmodern film-making. Its use of food as visual metaphor and narrative device works together with its structure to privilege a decentred approach to plot, character, and story-telling. At the same time, the film's subject matter and the series of vignettes which interfere with—while equally creating—its narrative flow reflect a cultural cosmopolitanism common in Japan by the time of the film's production. This paper will argue that Tampopo can be read as a rebuttal of certain political attitudes that seek to present Japan as culturally homogeneous, socially stable, and ethnically unified. The film achieves this objective by offering a theoretically aware vision of Japan as composed of infinite and equal fragments held together only by convention, a vision of Japan as postmodern.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09386491.2001.11827251 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcojxx:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:283-297

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcoj20

DOI: 10.1080/09386491.2001.11827251

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Japan is currently edited by Isaac Gagni

More articles in Contemporary Japan from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().