<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff, font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Roger --</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>I think your memory is correct. While Hideko and the driver have won a personal victory -- it is all for naught -- as the bus has been sold out from under them (so to speak) while they were engaged in their final triumphant ride.</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>I cannot recall whether the story was included in the translated collection Lieutenant Lookeast or not. I suspect the story is set in the very early 1930s.<br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span></span><br></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Roger Macy <macyroger@yahoo.co.uk><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> KineJapan
<KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday, February 27, 2011 8:19 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Hideko the Bus Conductor<br></font><br>
<div id="yiv1005470110">
<style></style>
<div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">Dear Kinejapaners,
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">I wonder if some of you could help me
understand a few things about Naruse's 1941 film, <i style="">Hideko<span style="">
</span>no sashÅ-san</i> .<span style=""> </span>Actually,
the reason I had ferreted out a copy of this film was something I came across in
<i style="">Asia</i> magazine ('the journal of the
American Asiatic Society') for August 1940 by Stafford Cripps (p399-401). [He
was a Labour ex-minister, would soon be appointed by Churchill as ambassador to
Moscow and was later Chancellor of the Exchequer.<span style=""> </span>He had just visited China and Japan]
:-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';" lang="EN-US">"The lack of gasoline supplies was obvious in the buses converted to
use water-gas and the almost complete absence of private cars on the
streets.<span style=""> </span>While I was in Tokyo a
committee of the Diet was discussing the breakdown of rural bus transport and
the appropriate Minister solemnly explained to them that this was really a
blessing in disguise, since the Japanese were tending to become lazy and it
would do them good to walk instead of travelling in buses
!"</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">It made me
wonder whether the Takamine/ Naruse film, made immediately after this, was quite
the innocent rural idyll that I had read about.<span style=""> </span>It certainly didn't matter for my
Takamine obit. for <i style="">The Independent</i>,
which was long filed - it appeared this week, tinkered, and all eleven words
about her war-time filmography were cut. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hideko-takamine-japanese-actress-whose-film-career-spanned-half-a-century-2221668.html"><font color="#800080">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hideko-takamine-japanese-actress-whose-film-career-spanned-half-a-century-2221668.html</font></a>
<span style=""> </span>So this is just for anyone who's
interested.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">In this deeply
rural location, there's a shortage of passengers but not of fuel.<span style=""> </span>Neither bus that we see, has been
converted, and one bus overtakes its rival to get to the customers first.<span style=""> </span>No-one, except the industrious Deko-chan
has to walk anywhere.<span style=""> </span>But is this
supposed to be in the now?<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Unless Cripps and the Transport Minister
made it all up, isn't this referring to a 'then'?<span style=""> </span>I think the script carefully hedges its
bets here - although if anyone could unpack this sentence of Audie Bock (undated
Film Center 'Naruse' Catalog), I'd appreciate it: "The story is of course
largely autobiographical on the part of Ibuse" [Ibuse Masuji].<span style=""> </span>I presume she means the part of the
writer, Ikawa, in the story.<span style=""> </span>But
had Ibuse already published this story ?</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">Catherine
Russell is helpful and insightful as ever, particularly about Takamine's persona
in the closing shots.<span style=""> </span>But Catherine
reads the film's end, as others do, as "Okoma and Sonoda have triumphed over
their indolent, corrupt boss to save the company".<span style=""> </span>I thought - but the disc I obtained is
<u>terrible</u>, so I would be happy to be corrected - that we had just
previously cut back to the office and learnt that the boss had sold the bus,
sacked the staff and was closing the office tomorrow.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>We could hope that the new owner might
judge that Deko-chan had more mileage in her than that bone-shaker of a bus and
include her in the deal, but we shouldn't count on it.<span style=""> </span>Which would make the pure optimism of
the closing shot not only poignant<span style="">
</span>but religious, a point that Catherine observes about these wartime films
a little earlier.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">And my final
question - In the scene just before this, Deko-chan is teasing her
driver-colleague, that the departed writer, Ikawa, had likened him to a 'ninjin'
in a French film.<span style=""> </span>One could argue
that reference to a French film in late 1941 was also referring back to a
previous period.<span style=""> </span>But what French
film is this with a carrot - oriental or occidental ?</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';"> </span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">Any suggestions
or corrections appreciated,</span></div>
<div style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv1005470110MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'sans-serif';">Roger</span></div></div></div><br><br></div></div></div></body></html>