The meaning of the Films Act of 1939 in the film history

Abstract

  It is rather surprising to know today that Japan's Films Act of 1939 had anarticle about the film conservation. This law was not just a simple set of regurations to control the film industry, as we generally consider now, but contained many positive points for the promotion of japanese film. And there were many intellectuals who supported this law and wrote about the relation between cinema and the State. This phenomena is international at that period in the history of cinema. In this text, I would like to situate this law in the context of the film history of the world.