<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">I seem to recall reading that someone who saw Potemkin in Europe did a very detailed analysis of the film -- so that film makers in Japan who could not see the film could know (at second hand) what Eisenstein was up to.<br><br>--- On <b>Fri, 1/14/11, Sybil Thornton <i><camford1989@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Sybil Thornton <camford1989@yahoo.com><br>Subject: Re: "Potemkin" in Japan<br>To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 12:28 PM<br><br><div id="yiv1650027446"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font: inherit;" valign="top"><div>Hi,</div>
<div>People do "misremember" what they saw or did not see, or when.</div>
<div>However, the film could have been shown at the Russian embassy. It would have come through the diplomatic "bag" and evaded customs.</div>
<div>Cheers,</div>
<div>Sybil Thornton</div>
<div>Arizona State University<br><br>--- On <b>Fri, 1/14/11, mccaskem@georgetown.edu <i><mccaskem@georgetown.edu></i></b> wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px;"><br>From: mccaskem@georgetown.edu <mccaskem@georgetown.edu><br>Subject: "Potemkin" in Japan<br>To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 4:38 AM<br><br>
<div class="yiv1650027446plainMail">It seems to be a fact that the 1925 Eisenstein film "Battleship Potemkin," <br>presumably in the form of reels in cans brought off a ship, was denied clearance <br>by the Yokohama Customs in the later 1920s, apparently because it was <br>(obviously) a "revolutionary" film.<br><br>But Kurosawa says in his autobiography that he saw it in Japan ca. 1926.<br><br>I know that foreign goods and people also had to go through Japanese Customs <br>in Kobe, and likely in other major Japanese port cities as well, and the record <br>only says that the film was barred in Yokohama.<br><br>The 1928 V.I. Pudovkin film "Storm Over Asia," according to imdb.com, was <br>released in Japan in 1930. One would think it would be more "sensitive" than <br>"Potemkin," since it's about revolution in East Asia, while "Potemkin" is set during <br>the Russo-Japanese War, and in one intertitle near the start of the film a Russian <br>sailor
says that Russian
POWs are fed better by the Japanese than Russian sailors <br>are on the Battleship Potemkin.<br><br>Kurosawa says that he saw "storm over Asia" in Tokyo ca. 1930.<br><br>There were multiple ports of entry at the time, and Kurosawa was a member of <br>"Proletarian" groups that would have had an interest in seeing Soviet films in any <br>case, by one means or another.<br><br>I also once read an essay by or about Uchida Hyakken, indicating that back then <br>some Japanese in literary and artistic circles were interested in the concept and <br>technique of "montage," as developed by Eisenstein in "Potemkin." I'd have to go <br>find the physical book to track this essay down, but it does seem as if <br>"Potemkin" was somehow available for viewing in Japan in the later 1920s.<br><br>Textbook-type Japanese histories say that "Potemkin" was not seen in Japan <br>until decades later, but is this really correct?<br><br>One would think that Kurosawa, of all
people, would have known whether or not <br>he actually saw the film "Potemkin" in Japan as a young man, and he definitely <br>said and wrote that he did.<br><br>Best Regards,<br><br>Michael McC<br>Georgetown Univ.<br></div></blockquote></td></tr></tbody></table><br>
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