Aaron Gerow's Blog, page 8

Ogino Shigeji, Ofuji Noburo, and Classic Japanese Animation

Even the BBC has reported on this, so the news has spread that the National Film Center in Japan, in collaboration with the Agency for Cultural Affairs and other institutions, has opened the website Japanese Animated Film Classics to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Japanese animation. The site features 64 pre-WWII animated films that can be viewed in full, some with English subtitles. (Right now, the site itself is only in Japanese, though an English site is supposed to be opened soon.)��

Naturally, the site offers a number of important works, starting with Kouchi Jun���ichi���s The Dull Sword (Namakura-gatana), which is counted as one of the first three Japanese-made animated films released in 1917. Kitayama Seitaro, who directed one of the other two (which are not extant), is partially��represented through one of his 1918 works, Urashima Taro. Other animators featured include such greats as Masaoka Kenzo, Yamamoto Sanae, and Murata Yasuji. I was particularly happy to see Seo Mitsuyo���s Arichan the Ant (1941) included, since that is not only another example of the work of the director of the two, greatly celebrated wartime Momotaro films, but��also reportedly the first use of the multiplanar camera in Japan.��

Globalism, New Media, and Cinematically Imagining the Inescapable Japan

For a long time I have been wondering about a recurring theme in Japanese cinema: the seeming inability of Japanese to escape Japan. Characters contemplate or even actively try to leave Japan but are stopped at the border, sometimes even dying on the beach.��This is not necessarily new���one of Yoshida��Kiju���s films was even called Escape from Japan (Nihon dasshutsu, 1964)���but I especially noticed it in films from the 1990s. Kitano Takeshi or Miike Takashi often had characters dying at limits of national territory. Aoyama Shinji���s Helpless featured a character mentioning an episode of The Prisoner, in which Number 6 flees the Village only to be returned there���as if implying that Japan itself is the Village. And Kurosawa Kiyoshi���s Barren Illusion (Oinaru gen'ei, 1999) even had a character travel all the way to the airport so as to leave the country, go to the check-in counter, and end up being ignored, forcing her to return.

This, however, is the age of globalism, when national borders are breaking down, goods and people constantly cross boundaries, and the nation itself is under question. How can there be so many representations of Japanese unable to leave Japan when Japanese are traveling to other nations all the time?

Cinema and Kawabata Yasunari Studies

When I wrote my book on Kinugasa Teinosuke���s A Page of Madness, I devoted a number of pages to the Nobel Prize��winner Kawabata Yasunari���s involvement in the project. Even though I in the end concluded that his involvement was not as great as some had seen, that did not mean that I thought his relation with that film or with cinema in general was insignificant. I had actually published an article in Iris some years before, entitled�����Celluloid Masks,��� that contrasted Kawabata���s connections to cinema to those of Tanizaki��Junichiro, especially in their literature (you can read the full article here). But there was a lot more I could have written about.

I was thus quite pleased to get an invitation in 2014 to participate in a conference in Paris on Kawabata, hosted by��C��cile Sakai. It was a great��opportunity to revisit Kawabata and complicate the notion prevalent in the scholarship that particularly his early works were�����cinematic.�����But it was also an excellent chance to connect him to my larger project on the history of Japanese film theory, and explore the possibility of a film theory evoked in his writings, both fictional and non-fictional.

Obayashi Nobuhiko���s Once Seen Movie Theater

It was a great thrill welcoming the illustrious film director Obayashi Nobuhiko to Yale last fall and helping the Japan Society do a long-awaited retrospective of his work. Not only was it wonderful re-encountering his films, but it was an honor getting to know him and his family during his visit to the States. They are truly warm and generous people. When we were back in Japan this summer, they even treated me and my family to some very fine tempura near Futako Tamagawa.

His foreign fans might not know this, but Obayashi is a prolific writer, one who has published over two dozen books. His most recent tome has just been published, and it is huge: a two-volume work��totaling 1368 pages! Entitled Itsuka mita eigakan (roughly translated as�����Once Seen Movie Theater��� or�����Theater of Movies I Once Saw���), it is basically a collection of Obayashi���s thoughts on 121 films ranging from Preston Sturges' Sullivan���s Travels to Ozu Yasujiro���s Equinox Flower. The majority of films are foreign, but range in genre from Westerns to films featuring music. A few other essays are included, particularly about war and cinema, and an extra bonus is a DVD entitled�����The Truth and Lies of John Wayne.���

Aaron Gerow���s old papers

I don���t like titles with my own name in them, but this is both accurate and more conducive to web searches.��

For a while I���ve been wondering about what to do with my old papers and articles. Having published for over 25 years, I have a large number of them, some of which are in now out-of-print books, obscure journals, or film festival catalogs that were never intended for wide distribution. I was not always particular about where I published���for instance only thinking about�����tenure-able��� venues���and always believed that academics should be instructive where they can in multiple platforms. But in trying to reach out to many audiences, some of my writing has been caught in the ephemerality of much publishing. While I don���t intend to assert my scholarship deserves world-wide attention, I still hope some of it can be of help to both film fans and scholars, which it can���t if it is unavailable or not readily available.

That���s why I���ve decided to start making available some of my old papers and articles on a couple of internet platforms. The first is the Yale section of Bepress, an open access platform. The second is Academia.edu. I am more comfortable with the former, since Academia.edu, despite its educational name, is a for-profit company, but I thought using multiple platforms means more��availability.��

Yale University Welcomes Nakadai Tatsuya

Our big Japanese film event at Yale this fall is a visit by the illustrious actor, Nakadai Tatsuya, on October 27-28, 2016. One of my favorites since high school, I am thrilled with the opportunity to welcome him to Yale and talk to him about his work. We���ll show two of his films, with Q&A���Harakiri��(Kobayashi Masaki, 1962) and Age of Assassins (Okamoto Kihachi, 1967). He will also do two talk sessions with a smaller audience that are by registration only. He���ll also be catching some theater while he���s here.

This year is the centennial of the birth of Kobayashi Masaki, with whom Nakadai made some of his best films. He thus insisted on doing at least one Kobayashi film. We talked at first about doing two, but he was intrigued about doing an Okamoto film, so that���s the second one.

Nakadai will also do some events in New York, but we hope people can make the trek to New Haven to catch Nakadai in a more relaxed and intimate atmosphere.

I���ve met him a couple of times in preparation for the event���which itself was a thrill!���and I was so impressed with what a charming and wonderful human being he is. At 84 years old, he still works��full-time and runs his own acting school/troupe called Mumeijuku. He���s acted in so many media and had a career spanning seven decades, so there is so much he can share with us.

Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Dis/continuity, and the Ghostly Ethics of Meaning and Auteurship

Kurosawa Kiyoshi has long been one of my favorite filmmakers, but one I���ve found very hard to talk about. Perhaps that difficulty is one reason I like him so much: his films resist our ability to comfortably confine them in words, and��challenge our systems of knowledge and perception. That���s one reason they are so attractive but also so frightening.

That���s also why I have always been at somewhat of a loss when I encounter articles on Kurosawa that profess to know him or his works through some allegorical, postmodern, or ecocritical methodology. There���s a lot we can learn about Kurosawa from such articles, but it still stikes me that many of them were less watching his films in their complexity than imposing their interpretations. And given that Kurosawa���s films are populated with detectives and detective-like figures whose interpretations are problematic,��that approach can be self-defeating, if not blind to what���s going on in the films. They effectively offer comfort against a set of films that are fundamentally disturbing.

Early Science Fiction and Fantasy Film in Japan

The Far East Asian Film Festival in Udine, Italy, has established itself as the premier forum for introducing popular East Asian film to Europe. As any good festival should do, it also runs retrospective programs in addition to its programs showcasing new films. Mark Schilling, the longtime critic for the Japan Times and author of such books as Yakuza Movie Book, has programmed a number of Japanese film retros at Udine, including the one that led to the book��No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema.��

His task in 2016 was to do a series on Japanese sci-fi and fantasy films that went beyond the kaiju films people are used to. Entitled�����Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures and Fantasies in Japanese Cinema,��� it��featured ten films and a special visit by Obayashi Nobuhiko, whom we hosted at Yale in 2015. Mark also edited the catalog and asked me to pen a history of Japanese sci-fi and fantasy films before WWII.��

That was quite a task because most of what was made no longer exists. For instance, only pictures of the infamous��King Kong Appears in Edo��(Edo ni arawareta Kingu Kongu, 1938) survive. A few films are still available for viewing, such as Makino Masahiro���s��Shimizu Harbor, Part II (Zoku Shimizuko, 1940) or Yamamoto Kajiro���s Son Goku (1940), starring Enomoto��Ken'ichi, but that���s not enough for an article.��

The Toy Film Museum in Kyoto ������������������������������������

The other week I had to travel to the Kansai area on business and research. I used the opportunity to visit the newly opened Toy Film Museum in the Mibu area of Kyoto.��

What are toy films? They have usually been referred to in Japanese as ���omocha eiga��� (������������������) or�����gangu eiga��� (������������), and have denoted modes of watching cinema in the home in the early years of the medium. While we are familiar with small��gauge films (kogata eiga ������������) like 8mm���or the 9.5mm Path�� Baby format popular in the prewar���that came to be defined as the mode for home movies, the motion pictures did not necessarily enter the home in such formats. Much larger gauges���including 35mm film���were actually common as a home movie system confined to projection.��You might be surprised at that if you know of the huge projectors��that exist (or existed) in theaters for 35mm projection, but in fact from the 1910s,��there��were small tin 35mm projectors produced in Europe and North America, the first working off of oil lamps, the later ones off of��electric light, that could be used at home. With small spools of film and cranked by hand, they could present films a few minutes long. The picture on the left is of a foreign-made projector with the film loaded that is on display at the Museum.

The Japanese Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies ������������������������������������������

The Japanese version of the Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies that Markus Nornes and I produced back in 2009 has just been published by Yumani Shobo. This is not just a translation of our guide to archives, reference books, and websites important to the study of Japanese film, but a major update of the Guide. Not only have a few errors been corrected or addresses or URLs updated, but we���ve added or revised��quite a number of��entries, taking into account new archives and books as well as changing circumstances since 2009. Those of you who have used the English version and can read Japanese should get this version in order to have the most up-to-date information. Markus and I are thinking about putting out a revised English version���a plan we���ve had since the original book���but it may take some time before that is out.

I have not always had good luck with translations. The Japanese translation of Visions of Japanese Modernity has been in process for nearly fifteen years (starting even��before California published it), and the��translation of Kitano Takeshi has been in the works for about seven years. But I was fortunate this time. Not only did the translation not take too long, but we were fortunate that Dogase Masato supervised the translation, working with��Otake Mizuho, Murakami Satoru, and Sawa Shigehito. They did a splendid job. The staff at Yumani also worked hard, checking all the phone numbers and addresses, and even allowing additions up until the last moment. It was a pleasure working with everyone.