The Black Ships

Created with imagery taken from the 19th-Century Japanese woodcuts on display in the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibition “The Japanese Expedition 1852-1866 of Commodore Matthew Perry,” the film records the opening of the country to Western trade from a Japanese perspective. In Charles’ words, the film “shows something of the special and rare situations that existed when these two cultures came together…one very sophisticated, one with a highly developed technology.” The soundtrack juxtaposes th...