<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Oh! What a fascinating train (or should I say bus) of thought!<div>I don't have much time to elaborate on this now but a quick search confirms that "O-koma-san",the story on which Naruse's Hideko is based,was published in 1941.</div><div>However,I was leafing through Volume 7 of Ibuse's "Collected Works" (in my possession because of Arigato-san) and I found a short story titled "Tosa Bus",in which he talks about a conductress,dating from 1939.</div><div>Moreover,in this story the narrator tells about how he has often been scolded by both driver and conductress on many occasions.On one of them,the writer asks the driver to stop along the way in a place with no bus stop (a regular practice all the same).</div><div>However,the driver gets very angry at him and says:</div><div>"You fool (the original is "Aho"),haven't you heard about the gasoline
restrictions?</div><div> If you want to get off here,wait until the next stop and then walk.</div><div>And if it is a pee you want,put up with it!".</div><div><div>The story then describes the nice conductress and how she talks to the passengers and marvelling on the landscape.</div><div>I don't have the "Okosama" story on which supposedly Hideko is based but Tosa Bus is certainly its origin.It refers as well to a rural area .</div></div><div>Another interesting aspect of having a film about buses at this time can be linked to one of Japan's most popular slogans in 1940 and relative to the "Shin Taisei Undo" (New Structure Movement) which was pushing Japan towards militarism through an intellectual base.</div><div>The slogan,listed as one of the most popular phrases of that year,was "Basu ni nori okure na!" (Do not miss the bus!") where the bus stands for Germany,demanding that "Japan seize this momentum and enact the Tripartite Act with Germany
and Italy" (Kazuo Yagami's "Konoe Fumitaro and the failure of peace in Japan").</div><div>Naruse's audience was thus very much aware of the imagery a bus could conjure up so yes,this idyllic rural comedy could have been transgressing ideas of national policy in the form of a much needed comedy with Deko-chan,the girl of the moment,at a time when Japan was getting deep into the war.At this point,we have a myriad of interpretation possibilities opening before us...</div><div>A bus going nowhere?</div><div>Ways to save a bus?</div><div>Competition between buses?</div><div>And if we compare this bus with Shimizu's,we have a topic for a dissertation.</div><div>There's loads more but no time now.</div><div>;-)</div><div><br></div><div>Maria-Jose Gonzalez</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><br>--- On <b>Mon, 28/2/11, Roger Macy <i><macyroger@yahoo.co.uk></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);
margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Roger Macy <macyroger@yahoo.co.uk><br>Subject: Hideko the Bus Conductor<br>To: "KineJapan" <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu><br>Date: Monday, 28 February, 2011, 10:19 AM<br><br><div id="yiv595168807">
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<p style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 6pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'sans-serif';">Dear Kinejapaners,
</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 6pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:12pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><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></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'sans-serif';"> </span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'sans-serif';">Any suggestions
or corrections appreciated,</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN:6pt 0cm 0pt;" class="yiv595168807MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:'sans-serif';">Roger</span></p></div>
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