Was Yasunari Kawabata a 'Film Director'? The Magic of the 'Neo-Sensationalist' School That Recreated Camera Work Through Text [Adult Education]

Have you ever had the feeling that a novel you were reading was 'playing out like a movie'?

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Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Yasunari Kawabata and his sworn friend Riichi Yokomitsu. The group of young writers centered around them is known in Japanese literary history as the
'Neo-Sensationalist School' (Shin-kankaku-ha).

They did not consider the prose of a novel to be merely a 'tool for conveying meaning.' Just as a film director rolls a camera, they sought to create vivid 'cinematic works' that appealed directly to the reader's sense of sight and hearing through the use of text.

In this article, I will introduce the Neo-Sensationalist School, which broke through the common sense of old literature and brought camera work into the novel.

1. Boredom with the 'as-is' without embellishment

Shortly before the emergence of the Neo-Sensationalist School, the Japanese literary world was dominated by a style called 'Naturalism'. As seen in Katai Tayama's 'Futon' (The Quilt), which I introduced in a previous article, it was considered proper literature to 'write things as they are, exactly as the facts are,' without beautifully embellishing the pathetic parts of humans or the dark realities of society.

Certainly, writing the truth in a stark manner gave readers a shock. However, as the Taisho era neared its end, the younger generation of writers began to grow a little bored with that style.

'Is literature just about writing facts like a report?'
'I want to write prose that has more rhythm, more speed, and is artistically beautiful.'

At the time, modernist culture was flowing in from the West, cafes were opening in the streets, and people were obsessed with a new form of entertainment called moving pictures (cinema). Living in such a new era, they abandoned dull and flat prose and began to search for a completely new form of expression.

2. Treating a fountain pen like a 'camera'

The biggest revolution attempted by the Neo-Sensationalist writers was bringing 'camera work (switching perspectives)' into the prose of a novel.

Novels until then usually explained events smoothly and in order, such as, 'He looked up at the sky looking sad. Clouds were floating in the sky.' However, the Neo-Sensationalists were different.

They switched perspectives quickly, like cutting scenes in a movie.

They experimented with techniques in their writing such as closing in on a character's face (close-up), suddenly jumping the perspective to a distant landscape in the next line (long shot), and forcibly connecting multiple separate scenes (montage).

Instead of being given careful explanations or psychological descriptions, readers were required to connect the 'fragments of images' presented one after another in their minds and feel the atmosphere of the story for themselves.

3. The magic of bold personification

Another major weapon they possessed was 'personification' and the 'crosstalk of senses.'

For example, when conveying the fact that 'spring has arrived,' they did not just write, 'The season has become spring.'

In his novel 'Spring Rode in a Carriage,' Riichi Yokomitsu wrote, 'Spring came from over there riding in a carriage between the pine trees on the coast.' He visualized the invisible season of 'spring' as a visitor riding in a carriage.

Or, when depicting the scene of 'a train running at high speed.' Instead of explaining that 'the train was running fast,' they expressed it as 'the train is running while carrying the luggage of full speed.'

Giving form to invisible 'speed' and 'seasons,' and directly stimulating the reader's five senses. Rather than explaining, they let the reader experience it through sensation. This is precisely why they were called the 'Neo-Sensationalist' school.

4. This is a supplement... Yasunari Kawabata, who made a real 'avant-garde film'

As a supplement, Yasunari Kawabata, a leading figure of the Neo-Sensationalist school, did not just write prose like film; he actually worked on the screenplay for an 'avant-garde film'.

Are you familiar with the silent film 'A Page of Madness,' released in 1926 (Taisho 15)? Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa and scripted by Yasunari Kawabata, this work was set in a mental hospital and was an extremely avant-garde and experimental film for its time.

It was a work that attempted to express human madness and sorrow not by explaining the plot through dialogue, but through overlapping images, flashbacks, and the sequence of the actors' expressions.

The writers of the Neo-Sensationalist school were not merely confined within the small framework of literature. They were seriously attempting to incorporate and fuse the expressive power of 'film'—the latest technology of the time—into the world of text. The reason they brought camera work into their novels was not just a metaphor; it was because they themselves were deeply fascinated by the new art form of film.

5. Reaching beyond meaning to deliver sensation

Their movement itself came to an end within a short period of a few years. Because they placed too much emphasis on sensation, they also faced criticism that 'the meaning of the story is hard to understand' or that they were 'too focused on technique'.

However, the stimulus they gave to Japanese literature never faded away.

That 'how to express' is just as important as 'what to tell.'
That with just the arrangement of characters, one can deliver vivid colors, the sensation of a cold wind, or the roar of a train into the reader's mind.

The writers of the Neo-Sensationalist school significantly evolved Japanese novels from 'reports of facts' into 'art that lets you experience sensation'.

Conclusion: The lens behind the text

Every day, we skim through countless characters on our smartphones and computers. Most of what is there are characters acting as 'tools of meaning' to convey information as quickly as possible.

However, if you open a novel, you will find the challenges of past writers who struggled to convey something more than just information. Next time you have the opportunity to read the works of Yasunari Kawabata or Riichi Yokomitsu, try slowing down your reading speed a little and be conscious of the 'camera lens' they positioned behind the text.

Today's Summary

• What is the Neo-Sensationalist school: A literary group from the end of the Taisho era, including Yasunari Kawabata and Riichi Yokomitsu.

• Rebellion against old realism: They grew tired of naturalism, which wrote facts as they were, and sought artistic expression.

• Characteristics of expressive techniques: They used camera work (switching perspectives) and bold personification to appeal directly to the reader's senses.

• Involvement with film (supplement): Yasunari Kawabata actually wrote the screenplay for an avant-garde film called 'A Page of Madness' and tried to incorporate cinematic expression into literature.

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This week's passage

This is the famous opening line by Riichi Yokomitsu that is almost always cited when discussing the expressive techniques of the Neo-Sensationalist school. It describes not only the train carrying passengers, but also the invisible concept of 'full speed' as if it were a visible piece of cargo being loaded and transported along with them. This vivid sentence, which visualizes speed itself as a physical object, nimbly leaps over the rules of traditional literature and perfectly represents the Neo-Sensationalist movement.