Occupy the Zaibatsu: Post-War Japanese Film Noir From Democracy to the (Re)Appearance of the (Old) New Order

Abstract

Of all the post-war situations in which noir flourished (the United States, Britain, Italy) Japan’s presented the clearest moment in terms of the stark alignment of class forces. What was at first an outbreak of grassroots democracy, as unions encouraged by the US Occupation burgeoned, ultimately gave way to a repression, spearheaded by the US government and Japanese business interests. This repression led, by way of a communist witch hunt justified by the Cold War that made HUAC look tame, to a restoration of the pre-war power of the now more centralized conglomerates (the zaibatsu). As in the United States, the film industry was at the center of both the labor organizing and of the repression that followed. One of the most militant unions was the Toho Studio union which, like the Confederation of Studio Unions in Hollywood, halted production at Japan’s major studio for almost a year, before US planes and tanks helped force the end of the strike.