If you go to film schools in Los Angeles or Europe, almost all the Asian students are from China or Korea. There are very few Japanese students. The Japanese film industry has become insular. It is qu

It is quickly turning into a Galapagos of sorts.

Does this mean Japanese film industry was not "Galapagos" before? Being unique is not bad in art world. He should look at Japanese Anime industry instead. How many Japanese are there in American cartoon schools?

There seem to be two different interpritations of "diversity". One is that the world should be composed of a lot of "Galapafoses" each of which has unique culture, and each should respect another. The other is that people of all colors should come together to melt into one big culture, and anyone outside of the melting pot should be called "insular" and local cultures should be denied. I like former interpritation of "diversity."

@CH3CHO Well you win. I find my students are not aware of anything of much outside Japan. And they have no idea there are even other way of doing things. It's not their fault at all though. It's a choice the system has made for them. Success! I'd say Japanese art hasn't much global influence anymore - not like it used to. But I know you will say they still make great cartoons and dress-up games. Plus, who needs global influence when J-pop is so very popular in Korea and Thailand. The word "culture" has permeated everything now and is mostly a defense of "same" over "different," of "us" vs. "other." My own feeling is "can you even be an artist without being an 'other' and without leaving 'home'? But again, I think you have won the day though. I asked an art student in Kyoto about her influences and they were all local names. Nothing "outside." Not Picasso or Twombly or Koons or Warhol. Just Kyoto names. But I doubt she knew who Takeshi Murakami is either (a silver lining?). Well, as you say...cartoons! Japan has great cartoons and comic books!

I came back from a business trip to Europe a few days ago, and I have to say, Like Father Like Son was one of the more enjoyable films on offer.

A film school credential won't open career doors in the biz; and paying tuition to have class projects critiqued by instructors isn't guaranteed to make you more creative or expand your consciousness about art and storytelling. Yes Japanese should be and could be producing better films with themes other than (deeper than) the angst of living in modern Japan or survival in supernatural fantasy worlds. The bottom line is that Japanese studying rudimentary audio-video production abroad won't necessarily make Japanese produced entertainment more cosmopolitan. Just because these classes are already full of Chinese and Koreans doesn't mean aspiring and hardworking Japanese artists are missing out here.

Is he suggesting that Hollywood is something to praise?

Beyond the uber visual effects their movies are basically cut and paste.

I assume there is more context to the quote that we are not being told about. I am going to assume that he was asked why more Japanese films are not exported overseas and this was his answer.

The thing is, Japan has always been a Galapagos of film making, and it has produced some of the greatest film makers of all time; granted all of their truly great directors were products of the studio system.

Maybe Japanese film schools do not cut the mustard (I really have no idea about the quality of film schools here) and going abroad to study might be an alternative for people wanting to make movies. But if he thinks Japan being a kind of a Galapagos is detrimental to the quality of films being made than the fame really has gone to his head.

@beowulf So his belief that not being aware of what's going on in the world is harmful to artistic growth means fame has gone to his head? I don't see how the latter is a result of the former. Anyway, you are wrong. Ozu, the greatest Japanese film-maker and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time was thoroughly absorbed in "western" film. @horizon360 Whatever Koreeda means I would say one of the problems of not traveling or experiencing variety is just a lack of knowledge about reality. For example, the majority of students here don't realize that the Japanese system is quite different from what students do elsewhere. Many are missing the idea of different possibilities. For example, many think all students in all countries do (Japanese style) job-hunting and take 15 classes a semester. This is not an assumption, this is what I've discovered form asking them. So, if potential artists don't have contact abroad or with "otherness" their idea of reality becomes very limited and their output very banal. This goes for people everywhere but is a particular problem in Japan because of the uniformity of some of the systems here.

Good grief - so making Japanese movies for Japanese viewers in Japan is a bad thing? Wow... what about other countries? I don't see many German films being made for an international market... or those from Russia, Canada or Central African Republic.

Besides, when Japanese films ARE popular outside of Japan Hollywood only goes and remakes them for a DOMESTIC audience. Then again, Hollywood remakes anything from around the world because US audiences either won't or can't sit through a foreign film with subtitles.

US audiences either won't or can't sit through a foreign film with subtitles.

a source for this hyperbolic nonsense, please.

a source for this hyperbolic nonsense, please.

According to data culled from boxofficemojo.com, foreign-language box office has shown a steady decline. In 2013 the top five foreign-language releases earned collectively just $15 million at the U.S. box office; in 2007, the take was $38 million. (This doesn’t count films catering specifically to immigrant or diaspora populations, whether Spanish-language films for Hispanic Americans or Bollywood films for Indian-Americans.)

Returning to the main point here, attendance at foreign film schools, it is not a binary choice, that either no one goes, or everybody has to go and forever turn out idenikit Hollywood-style movies.

The reality is that a lot of Japanese movies look quite ameteurish. It is great that they make some good anime, or rather one studio in the whole of the country produces something once every couple of years that the rest of the world might watch, but overall it is not good enough.

I do not see the next Ozu or Kurosawa coming up.

so foreign films earned $15 million from the zero americans who watched foreign films in 2013? not much of a defense for thunderturd.

I gotta say I agree. I have netflix steaming, and there's plenty of good foreign movies from pretty much anywhere. Korea, Hong Kong, Europe, Mexico, South America, etc.

The ONLY Japanese moves in Netflix are crazy horror movies and really, really low budget, low quality stuff.

More garden variety click-bait for people wishing to comment on the "Japanese don't work or study abroad that much anymore and it's going to cost them" meme. Look, if your national economy is large and prosperous it really shouldn't be a surprise if young people enjoy the comforts of that national economy and stay put. People comment on Japan in 2014 as if it's some low-to-middle income country like China or a higher income country like South Korea that is nevertheless caught in something of a "middle income trap" which thus compels its young people to go out and about. Japan is neither. Remember that South Korea is a country less than a quarter century removed from rule by military officers and less than 20 years removed from the near-evisceration of its economy during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. The impetus to learn something overseas and improve is simply stronger there compared to Japan.

No doubt Japanese entertainment professionals were pretty much caught off guard by the rise to prominence of South Korea's film and TV industries beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but it's hard to understand how this development has somehow hurt Japan. I don't see the pain.

@MASSWIPE The option for Japanese to study abroad is limited. They simply must be here for job-hunting. That's a fact. Plus, the English levels are lower than Korean and China. But I am curious if Japanese ever studied abroad in the kind of numbers that Koreans do. I would guess not though I could be wrong. I would also guess that Saudis study abroad in larger numbers or perhaps by a larger percentage of their population though they have a prosperous economy. I think the meme is "anymore" - as if they once did. I tend to think students options are rather determined for them by the system rather than their choice as you argue. But I'm interested in what data exists to confirm or disprove my assumptions.