Prologue.
Romanticism despaired over the destructive and dark aspects of reason that became evident after the French Revolution of 1789. When radical and cruel reason shattered and collapsed all principles and orders, it bred a deep distrust and skepticism toward reason. Amid the ruins of the mind, Romanticism turned inward, seeking individuality and emotion based on self-confirmation and human instinctive desires.
While Romanticism clearly emerged as a reaction against Enlightenment and Neoclassicism, it neither ignored nor rejected reason. Instead, it viewed absolute and universal reason as something that evolves with historical flow, perceiving society as an organism undergoing birth, growth, decline, and extinction. Just as Romanticism rebelled against the norms of the Age of Reason, scientific rationalism, and the Industrial Revolution, Realism opposed the exaggerated emotionalism and subjectivism of Romanticism.
Focusing on the unpleasant and ugly realities revealed by the February Revolution of 1848, Realism aimed to objectify the lives of the middle and lower classes. It posited that uncomfortable truths are inherent in human conceptual systems and linguistic practices. Realism concerned itself with how things appear in order to view unidealized subjects and events. Thus, it attempted to depict and faithfully express facts existing in third-person objective reality according to secular and empirical rules, without embellishment or interpretation.
This book approaches 15 films from the UK, Japan, and France through the intersection of emotion and thought. It contemplates the universal human emotions and experiences contained within the precarious spectacles of these three nations' histories. By breaking free from prescribed emotional lines and the uncomfortable framework of fixed thought, this book reads the UK, Japan, and France through their cinematic narratives. Even when the film ends, it remains an unsettling stimulus with an unknown

Prologue.
Author 'NomadSirius' Introduction.
Publication Right.
1. Wuthering Heights_1939, directed by William Wyler.
Reading Britain through the Lens of Cinema.
2. Rashomon_1950, directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Reading Japan through the Lens of Cinema.
3. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer_2007, directed by Tom Tykwer.
Reading France through the Lens of Cinema.
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray_2009, directed by Oliver Parker.
Reading Britain through the Lens of Cinema.
5. A Thousand Years of Love: The Tale of Genji_2001, Director Hori-kawa Donko.
Reading Japan through the Lens of Cinema.
6. Les Miserables_2012, Directed by Tom Hooper.
Reading France through the Lens of Cinema.
7. The Field_1990, directed by Jim Sheridan.
Reading Britain through the Lens of Cinema.
8. The Castle of Owls_1999, directed by Masahiro Shinoda.
Reading Japan through the Lens of Cinema.
9. Vincent van Gogh_1991, directed by Maurice Pialat.
Reading France through the Lens of Cinema.
10. Pride and Prejudice_2005, directed by Joe Wright.
Reading Britain through the Lens of Cinema.
11. Onmyoji 2_2003, directed by Yoichi Takahashi.
Reading Japan through the Lens of Cinema.
12. Madame Bovary_2014, directed by Sophie Barthes.
Reading France through the Lens of Cinema.
13. Great Expectations_1998, directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
Reading Britain through the Lens of Cinema.
14. The Sword of the Wind: Shinsengumi_2003, directed by Takita Yojiro.
Reading Japan through the Lens of Cinema.
15. Jeanne d'Arc_1999, directed by Luc Besson.
Reading France through the Lens of Cinema.
Into the United Kingdom.
Into France. .
Into France.