<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Colleagues,<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I am gratified at your quick response to my colleagues question, and I thank you on his behalf. However, he confessed to me that he hadn't worded his question properly to get the response he wanted, though he had gotten leads about where to go and about further avenues for exploration, but I thought there was some utility in coming to you all again.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Here is his more nuanced question:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>"What I had meant to inquire about was movies that depict major battle actions and that deal with them in a strategic sense. So even 1959's "Nobi" wouldn't suit, as it (it seems to me typically) deals with the _aftermath_ of the war (as with 1956's Burma Harp). When does a Japanese studio try to tell the story of a major action from a point of view that is at least partly strategic or and not purely retrospective? I have the feeling that it takes a while (though I'm guessing sometime in the 60s for "ownership" of the more successful engagements, at least, like Pearl Harbor). "</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So the issue for my friend Steve is the retelling of battles not as if in hindsight, but as if from the perspective of actual engagement. Of course, it is going to be hard to portray some battles because no one is going to be that excited about having to revisit losing, but as Steve suggests, there may be some early battles when the war was going well that a studio would want to portray, or there may have been left-leaning directors that would want to portray a lost battle in the postwar climate of partial repudiation of militarism.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Best,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Bruce</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Bruce Baird</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Assistant Professor</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Asian Languages and Literatures</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">University of Massachusetts Amherst</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">But</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">ô</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">, Japanese Theater, Intellectual History</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; ; font-family: Helvetica; "><BR style="; font-family: Helvetica; "></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">7</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">17 Herter Hall</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">161 Presidents Drive</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">University of Massachusetts Amherst</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Amherst, MA 01003-9312</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Phone: 413-577-4992</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px">Fax: 413-545-4975<FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; "><A href="mailto:baird@asianlan.umass.edu">baird@asianlan.umass.edu</A></SPAN></FONT></P><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>