News and Opinion Archive March 2011

Reconsidering the History of Japanese Film Theory

I am pleased to announce the publication of Issue 22 of the Review of Japanese Culture and Society dedicated to the theme, "Decentering Theory: Reconsidering the History of Japanese Film Theory." This is the first publication in a non-Japanese language to consider the rich and varied history of Japanese film theory. It presents both translations of some of the major works and scholarly analyses of those theorists and their historical contributions to film thought. A major theme throughout the issue is the unique problem of how to approach and define film theory in Japan.

Thinkers represented include Nakai Masakazu, Hasumi Shigehiko, Yoshida Kiju, Imamura Taihei, Gonda Yasunosuke, Sato Tadao, Kitada Akihiro, and Nakamura Hideyuki, with works ranging in era from 1914 to 2011. They all focus on questions of the status of cinema and how to approach it, but other topics broached include animation, early cinema, mediation, spectatorship, documentary, meaning, and Ozu Yasujiro. A translation of one of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's "film scripts" is also included (Akutagawa wrote the stories on which Rashomon is based). 

A list of the issue contents is available on my Books site.

This publication is part of an ongoing project of resurrecting the fascinating history of Japanese film theory that I and some of my students and colleagues are pursuing. I am currently writing a history of Japanese film theory, and working with Abé Mark Nornes to create an anthology of Japanese film theory in English. This issue of the RJCS is a king of test run for that. I am also talking with Iwamoto Kenji in Japan about an anthology in Japanese.

I am quite proud of the translations. We put a lot of effort into them and I think they do justice to the splendid ideas of the original authors.

The Review of Japanese Culture and Society is published by Josai University in Japan. Single issues can be purchased for $20.00 (US). Click here for details.

Reference Works for Researching Japanese Cinema

With the wonderful cooperation of the East Asian Library at Yale University, I've prepared a research guide for Japanese film studies entitled "Japanese Reference Materials for Studying Japanese Cinema at Yale University" that has just been uploaded to the Library website.

It offers a concise introduction to the print and online reference materials in Japanese available at Yale that are essential for studying cinema. If you or any of your colleagues or students need to find out something about a film or director, this guide will help you know where to look, even if you are not using the Yale Library. It covers dictionaries, encyclopedias, filmographies, books, journals, and online databases. I believe the guide is the first of its kind on the net.

It does not substitute for the book I co-authored with Abé Mark Nornes, Research Guide to Japanese Film Studies, which not only explains reference materials in multiple languages, but introduces archives and other institutions important for researching Japanese film. It, however, is not available online.

If your library or website is able to do this, feel free to set up links to this online guide.

Since it is on the net, it is a fluid text and thus open to comments and additions. Feel free to contact me if you have any suggestions.

The Tohoku Earthquake in Japan

Last week I went to Japan as I often do at the beginning of the spring break at Yale. I pay my taxes, do some research, consult with people about projects at Yale, etc. I was actually meeting Tsuchimoto Motoko, the wife of the great documentarist Tsuchimoto Noriaki, for lunch on Friday, 11 March 2011, at a sobaya on the eighth floor of the Takashimaya department store at Yokohama Station. My wife is putting out DVDs of some of Tsuchimoto's work. 

It was at 2:46 pm when the quake hit. One gets used to earthquakes in Japan, so at first we just felt it was just another minor trembler. But the shaking got worse and worse and went on and on. I was in Kyoto when the Kobe earthquake occurred in 1995, and that quake started violently, suddenly, and lasted only about 20 seconds. This started slowly and seemed to go on forever, giving you plenty of time to wonder when the building is finally going to fail. Afterwards I found out that Yokohama experienced shaking of Shindo 5- or 5+, which is pretty serious. Motoko-san and I hid under the table. The department store immediately announced the quake on the PA system and provided warnings. It took too long, but finally the shaking died down and Motoko-san and I left the building via the stairs. There was a huge crowd in front of Yokohama Station as many people had fled the nearby structures.

It was quite clear this was a huge quake, one probably not centered in Yokohama. There was a big aftershock within about 20 minutes and people fled to the bus circle in front of the station. The trains had stopped, but with people in the roads, the traffic had stopped too. I couldn't make a call on my cell phone, but I could use the internet to see that this was a historic quake that struck off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture. 

Motoko-san and I sat by the department store for about an hour waiting for the trains to resume. We were happy to be alive and we shared the experience with others - it is at these times that you can easily talk to strangers. But it was soon clear the trains were not going to start soon, so we parted. I figured the Yokohama Municipal Subway would begin sooner than JR, so I sat down at that part of the station. There soon was an announcement, however, that Yokohama City had told everyone to walk home. 

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I knew that walking home could always be a possibility if a big quake hit, but I was not expecting to have to do it from Yokohama Station. While most people were still milling around, I decided to do it and quickly went to a station kiosk and bought a map, some water, and some candy to eat along the way. I then started out on a trek that eventually took about four hours.

First walking through the area near the station, I could see there was structural damage even here. There was a small crevice formed in front of a building near Tokyu Hands. 

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I kept walking, going up the hill towards Mitsuzawa Park. I wondered whether I shouldn't pick a route that went near a train line so that I could check at stations along the way whether the trains were running, but that would have involved a longer, more circuitous route, so I picked one that was shorter (I later checked on Google and saw I did pick the shortest route). But that involved going up and down a number of big hills for the first few kilometers. Lugging a heavy computer, I began to worry whether I could do this. And at first, there were not that many people walking, so I sometimes wondered whether I was not just the only one in the entire city who was foolishly walking home. I still couldn't make any calls on my phone, though I could use it to send short e-mails to my family and check some short internet articles.

The sun set and it got dark. The area I was walking in still had lights, but just before I reached Kamoi Station, I encountered an area that was suffering from a power outage. The street in front of the station had power, but the station house did not. It was closed and there were a lot of people milling around waiting for a bus or taxi. I decided to keep on walking, but from that point on, the entire area was pitch black except for the lights from passing cars. By this time there were a lot of people walking along with me. It was quite surreal, all of us walking through major urban areas with no lights. I couldn't even check my map at first because there wasn't enough illumination.

But everyone was calm and took the experience in stride. You could see local volunteers directing traffic at intersections using flashlights. There were a few factories along the way with their own generators that had lights I could use to check my map.

I finally reached Nakayama Station and it was pitch black. I used a public toilet in the dark and wondered whether I shouldn't wait for the bus that goes from Nakayama to Aobadai Station. But there were no buses in sight and a long line had formed of people waiting. So I decided to walk. I was lucky, however. After a few hundred meters, I ran into a taxi and quickly flagged it. Up until that point, I had walked about 12 kilometers, but was able to go the last 4 by taxi. The traffic was dense, and the going was slow, but I finally made it to Aobadai after 8 pm. Luckily, the area around the station had power. I ate a bit, got on my bike, and went home. Fortunately there was not much damage there.

I felt lucky. The images I finally saw on TV were horrifying. This was terrible catastrophe that made anything I experienced miniscule in comparison.

Yet I had a plane to catch the next day. And the news about the reactors in Fukushima got worse and worse. The transportation to the airport was a mess on Saturday: some of the trains had started, but at first none were going to the airport. It was clear there was no way I was going to make my plane, so I quickly decided to change flights. I was lucky to get one the next day and then just set out, determined to get to the airport whatever way I could and stay the night at a hotel. What usually takes about 2 hours took about 5 1/2, as there were few trains and you had to switch trains quite a lot because there was no real schedule and some trains only went part of the way. I also had to wait a long time for a taxi at Narita Station. 

At the hotel, I quickly learned of the first explosion at the Fukushima reactor. There was no official information from the government, so for a few hours, there was nothing but speculation on TV and one could easily begin fearing for one's life. False rumors were also being spread by internet. I could only relax a bit when Edano finally got on TV to explain what was going on. (My impression has been that Japanese news coverage has been pretty calm and rational, whereas the foreign news, especially CNN, has been overly alarmist.) 

Narita was very crowded, but I boarded my plane with no problem and arrived back home in Connecticut on Sunday. It's good to be back in the bosom of my family. 

But my heart goes out to my friends and family in Japan. Motoko-san had to walk nearly 12 hours to get back to Fujisawa. All my immediate friends and family are safe, but the grandmother of a friend is missing. I worry every moment about the potential consequences of the nuclear accident and am not getting much sleep. My wife and I watch Japanese TV on Ustream, and pray for the quick rescue and recovery of people in the other areas hit by the quake. 

I urge everyone to donate to the earthquake relief. The Japan Society in New York is helping organize donations. Please donate here

I was interviewed by the Waterbury Republican-American about my experiences. I don't subscribe, so I cannot check to see if they got it right. 

Japan is the place I love, study, and make one of my homes. I ask all of you to join me in prayer for its safety and quick recovery.

Koreeda Hirokazu at Yale, Day 1

The Japanese filmmaker, Koreeda Hirokazu, director of such award-winning works as Maborosi and Nobody Knows, came to Yale at the end of February 2011 to show two of his films and conduct workshops with our students. It was a greatly successful event and I want to convey my thanks to him and everyone else who helped make it possible. This is the first of two reports on what he did and said during his stay at Yale.

Although Koreeda arrived on Thursday the 24th (I look him to the famous Louis' Lunch for lunch after he got into town), we put him to work at noon on Friday with a workshop for students who couldn't speak Japanese (one for those who could was held on Saturday). I asked him to prepare a talk and he and I made up a clip reel in the morning. The result was a truly enlightening session.

He showed four clips. The first was from Hitchcock's The Birds: the famous scene of the birds assembling in the playground. Koreeda used this to emphasize that cinema should not be about "why" - for we never learn why the birds attack - but about "how." The second clip was from the end of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, where Giulietta Masina turns to the camera and faintly smiles. Koreeda said this was the first time that he really became conscious of the palpable gaze of the director, and of the relationship between the one filming and the one filmed. Next he showed the cafe scene from Kurosawa's Ikiru, where the young woman shows Watanabe the toy bunny and he finally decides what he must do with the remaining portion of his life, a scene that signifies his metaphorical rebirth. As a young man, Koreeda was as impressed with this film as any other would be, but he began to doubt its humanistic optimism and belief in heros like Watanabe. The result of this doubt can be found in After Life, which was the fourth clip he showed: the scene where the dead begin introducing themselves, up until an old man is seen being unable to think of a single memory he feels exemplifies his life.  That man's name is also Watanabe, and he is Koreeda's answer to Kurosawa: a much more realistic figure of a man who did nothing special in his life and has little to say for it. A non-hero who interested Koreeda much more. The four clips worked together quite well.

To end the workshop, two of my students showed Koreeda their film, a quite ambitious work with some connections with Japan, and he commented on it. The comments were not only precise and helpful - he certainly has a great eye - but they revealed much about his view of cinema. He really stressed that every shot should have a reason, and complained of contemporary films in both Japan and Hollywood which seemed to just multiply shots in order to prevent the audience from getting bored. This could sound like Koreeda is a classical director, but in the next day's workshop, he stressed the "reason" need not be narrative, but can be aesthetic or ethical (this brings Koreeda closer to the realm of art cinema). Establishing such reasons should prompt the filmmaker to create a more economical style centered on "key shots" that reduce the number of shots in a scene (he thus pointed to specific shots or cuts which he felt were unnecessary). I felt I had experienced a very concrete lesson in filmmaking.

After a nice reception, we showed Koreeda's 1996 television documentary Without Memory, which is about a man named Hiroshi who has largely lost the ability to accumulate new memories (called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome) because he was denied vitamins during a long hospital stay, the result of unreasonable rules regarding insurance at the time. The theme of memory is obviously central to Koreeda's oeuvre, and in the Q & A after the screening, Koreeda stressed how Without Memory relates to After Life. In both works, the centrality of memory to personal identity is amended with the proviso that the memories that define oneself need not be one's own; "one's memories" can include the memories others have of you. He said that at the time he made Without Memory - when he was still just a director at TV Man Union - he was wondering what it meant to be a "shuzaisha" or reporter/director/investigator. He saw Hiroshi as a kind of shuzaisha - someone who must get information from others - and took encouragement in the possibility that he himself (Koreeda) could also live on in the memories of others. (This, of course, could connect with the use of film in After Life.) 

Koreeda talked a lot about the importance of documentary in his work. In some ways, it defines the basic stance in all of his filmmaking. He in particular emphasized that he considered the fundamental ethical standpoint of documentary to be filming from the standpoint that one does not - or cannot - know the person one is filming. Not only much fiction filmmaking, but also much documentary, begins from the presumption that it knows the people in the event or the drama. That, to Koreeda, is unethical, and therefore even in his fiction films he avoids subjective cinematic structures that offer easy access to the internal states of his characters. This is again the focus on the "how," not the "why."

This aligns him with the major trend in Japanese film of the 1990s, as I argue in my book on Kitano Takeshi, but Koreeda repeatedly throughout the visit tried to distance himself from many of those filmmakers. If many of them, from Kurosawa Kiyoshi to Aoyama Shinji, were educated under Hasumi Shigehiko and took up a somewhat cinephilic approach to film, Koreeda stressed that while others may make films on the basis of what they see in other films, he makes films on the basis of what he sees apart from films. I think this is crucial to how he defines himself (as well as defends himself, since some of the Hasumi-influenced film critics have been very critical of Koreeda in Japan). That said, he was quick to stress the importance of film viewing in his education and particularly cited Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Ken Loach, Victor Erice, John Cassavetes, and Lee Chang-dong as directors whom he sees as important, if not necessarily influences. Among Japanese filmmakers, he likes Naruse Mikio the best. 

Stay tuned for the report on Day 2.

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