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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Thank you, Jonathan, for your generous response, and for
giving me points to ponder.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Your experiences as an interpreter/interviewer are
enlightening, but I cannot see that Wenders needed to credit an interpreter, as
there is no evidence that he used one. To me, his whole subjectivity is
based not having an interpreter. As for the valuable interviews, when he
came to make his voice-over in 1984, a couple of years after the filmed
interviews, he must have used a translation at this point.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The Herzog remarks are presented by Wenders as a chance
encounter. Whether a few tactless remarks reveal racism or not, I do claim
that foregrounding - and top-crediting - of these few words by Herzog
(lo-behold, in a western language) over the real work of the interviewer is much
more revealing of attitudes in which racial-stereotyping and language-chauvinism
are intertwined.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>And, to try and answer your question as to the root of my
dislike; beyond the pontification which you have described, it would be the lack
of tact. I was struck by some remarks by Mamoun Hassan at the recent
BFI <EM>Masterclass</EM> on <EM>Tokyo Story</EM>, as to Ozu's tact, as
a film-maker. Hassan's point was highly finessed, and I couldn't reproduce
it adequately, but it came as a refreshing antidote to Wenders' filming of the
difficult child on the subway, where the camera follows the child round and
seems intent on looking down his ear. I have seen such behaviour - and
poor parenting - frequently in the UK, the US and Germany, but never in
Japan. Even though the narration pulls back at this point from
generalisation, the montage does not. Tactlessness, in a social context
means being unaware of the effect of one's own actions and that encapsulated the
camerawork here. And tactlessness so often extends to generalisations
about others, drawn from the unintended effects of one's own
borishness.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>But enough of this wretchedness. I'd still like to
know who did the interviewing, but there's a feast of Ozu still only
half-consumed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Roger</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>----- Original Message ----- </FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>From: "Jonathan M. Hall" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:jmhall@pomona.edu"><FONT
face=Arial>jmhall@pomona.edu</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>To: <</FONT><A
href="mailto:KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu"><FONT
face=Arial>KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 1:52 AM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Subject: RE: Interviews on Tokyo-Ga</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><BR></FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial>> Dear Roger and
all,<BR>> <BR>> It would be great to hear why Rayns thinks the film is
wretched--and why it's far worse than that for you! I can imagine some
reasons. Certainly, the film is maudlin, sanctifying, and self-important,
the interview with Herzog disturbing in its exposition of that director's
racism, and the image of Japan a montage of 1980s stereotypes.
Theoretically, it seems to borrow very much from Schrader's Transcendental Film,
by which I am not much persuaded. I can see there are ample reasons
to dislike it. That said, I do believe it is one of the most
successful documentaries about Japanese film in its ability to put a Japanese
film into both local and international contexts, to address not only the
director but the 'auteur,' and to use Ozu's own work to make its points. Even if
I disagree with its vision or dated--even hackneyed--observations about Japan--,
I thought Wenders was very successful in getting his viewers to care about the
details of Ozu's camerawork. And the interviews you cite really make me
choke up every time I see them--to feel such love and passion. In its
diaristic recounting of his failure to encounter a Japan long gone, I think the
film was quite prescient. If you compare it to other major documentaries
about Japan made in the 1980s then it's actually quite refreshing. In
fact, it's not really until the 1990s that we see less stereotyped visions with
broader palettes. <BR>> <BR>> As for the interpreter, it would be very
interesting to hear if someone on the list knows who conducted or interpreted
for the interviews. But I would not think there's any reason to assume
that Hasumi conducted the interviews. As a film scholar at the height of his
powers, I can imagine him providing introductions, but why would he conduct the
interviews? But maybe not. It really would be interesting.
Perhaps you could contact Wim Wenders office?<BR>> <BR>> The lack of
credit for an interpreter is hardly surprising--and in fact is the norm.
Interpreting is understood as artless piecework, noticeable usually only for its
failures. I recently did a set of interviews with the major figures (Fuji
Tatsuya, Sai Yoichi, Tomiyama Katsue, and Koyama Akiko) involved in Oshima's In
The Realm of the Senses for a European documentary. As anyone who's
interpreted for on-camera interviews knows, you often have to go through great
gymnastics to simulate an eyeline that hides the interpreter--to create
the semblance of communication with the so-called interviewer. My request
for credit was, I think, surprising to those making the doc.<BR>>
<BR>> Jonathan M Hall<BR>> <BR>> <BR>>
________________________________________<BR>> 差出人: </FONT><A
href="mailto:owner-KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu"><FONT
face=Arial>owner-KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>
[owner-KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu] は Roger Macy [macyroger@yahoo.co.uk]
の代理<BR>> 送信日時: 2010年2月6日 8:50<BR>> 宛先: KineJapan<BR>> 件名: Interviews on
Tokyo-Ga<BR>> <BR>> Dear Kinejapaners,<BR>> Thank you all for your
responses a while back on the term 'tendency film'. May I ask questions on
another item of Ozu apocrypha ?<BR>> Last month, at the NFT, I saw, as
part of the side-bar series 'Ozu and his influence', the film by Wim Wenders,
Tokyo-Ga, released in 1985. I hadn't, at the time, noticed Tony Rayns'
remark in January Sight and Sound, describing the film as "frequently wretched"
(p26). I'd say he was being excessively polite and I only want to remark
on the last bit where there are interviews of RYŪ Chishū and ATSUTA Yūharu,
Ozu's cameraman.<BR>> My point concerns the lack of credit. Patently,
the filmed interviews are not conducted by Wenders, but by a native Japanese
speaker who can occasionally be heard. There is no credit on the film, or
on the Criterion DVD coupling with Late Spring, to any interviewer, or to
a translator (which Wenders must have used specifically for his voiceover of
this section). The literature all talks of Wenders doing the
interviewing.<BR>> The only clue is on IMDb, where there are 'thanks' to
'Shigehiko Hasumi'.<BR>> <BR>> David Bordwell, on pp74-75 seems to cite
the interview in Tokyo-Ga and the French translation of an interview of
Atsuta by Hasumi, almost in the same breath.<BR>> <BR>> 1) Was Hasumi
indeed the interviewer on Tokyo-Ga ?<BR>> 2) Since Hasumi's interview cited
by Bordwell comes from Hasumi's 1982 book, Kantoku Ozu Yasujirō (which I have
not seen), I presume the footage on Tokyo-Ga, are not the same event ?<BR>>
3) Who is doing the thanking on IMDb ? and~<BR>> 4) If someone has made a
fuss about this before to get the IMDb credit, why can I find no trace of it, or
of Hasumi's work, - at least in any western language ?<BR>> Roger<BR>>
<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>>
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