As someone who has been in Tokyo since August (currently in Kyoto to have a bit of a break from the aftershocks), I can say a few things.<br><br>1. The nuclear power plant story is being ridiculously sensationalized in the American media. Article after article and expert after expert have declared that there is absolutely no danger to anyone outside the immediate vicinity of the plant, and yet the major news outlets ignore these stories and continue to vamp up the fear. Worse, they do this at the expense of reporting on the real crisis, which is the 400,000 + people in the northeast who have limited food, water, and shelter and are already dying as a result. <br>
<br>2. Many people have made the decision to leave--at least temporarily--for a variety of reasons. Aftershocks were constant for the first 24 hours after the quake, and they continue even now. I personally have not slept much at all for the past week--partially because of the stress of the aftershocks, and partially because I have been dealing with frantic, panicked family members who were horrified that I hadn't fled the city. I also worried about blackouts as my only heater is electric, it's getting very cold, and kerosene / space heaters are completely sold out. I've left for a few days to get some sleep and try to re-group, but I plan to return. The bottom line is that even if there is no danger from the power plant, there are plenty of other reasons why people might choose to leave. And given the changing nature of the power plant situation and the huge amount of conflicting information available, I can understand why some people would be concerned enough to leave. <br>
<br>3. Regarding film archives and screenings--for the most part it's business as usual in Tokyo. The scheduled blackouts have been avoided so far because people are doing a great job of conserving energy. Some universities have postponed classes and some smaller companies have shut down to allow their employees to spend time with their families, but most places are up and running. Very few Japanese are leaving the city (the shinkansen were crowded today as I headed for Kyoto, but Monday is a national holiday, so that's not too surprising). If regular blackouts become a necessity this will of course impact daily life considerably, but for now other than slightly reduced train service, a gasoline shortage, and shortages of items like bread, milk, and rice (really just the result of over-buying, not an actual shortage), Tokyo seems pretty normal to me. <br>
<br>I provide informal updates about the situation on the ground and links to helpful articles at <a href="http://gradland.wordpress.com">http://gradland.wordpress.com</a>.<br><br>--Lindsay Nelson<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 12:03 AM, Quentin Turnour <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Quentin.Turnour@nfsa.gov.au">Quentin.Turnour@nfsa.gov.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">William,</font>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Perhaps to shift things just to the
issue of film archives...Thanks for your great and thoughtful post, Odd
also considering I've just spent the morning doing a run through of the
NFC's 35mm print of the SHINGUN/MARCHING ON and also reading your great
on-line article about this unusual early Showa silent. </font>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Literarily a few minutes after your
post came up, Kae Ishihara at the Film Preservation Society posted an email
and link to English-speaking FPS members </font><tt><font size="2"><a href="http://www.homemovieday.jp/English/latest-news/" target="_blank">http://www.homemovieday.jp/English/latest-news/</a><br>
<br>
</font></tt><font face="sans-serif" size="2">In the last few days I've had
some contact with her, Akira Tochigi at the NFC and a few others in the
Japanese screen culture community (such as Fujioka Asako of the Yamagata
Doco festival - a cultural event which of course takes place within a prefecture
once removed but still very close to the tragedy of the tsunami). But Kae's
email is a great summary of what's happening with the NFC and regional
film archives, and even some Japanese film industry matters - Sony's HDCam
tape plant was at Sendai, for example.</font>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">As I alluded to, ironically we've been
doing a season here of 1920s Japanese silents from the NFC and Matsuda,
and the reconstruction of the Kanto area post-1923 obviously looms as a
sub-text in many of the films we were screening... Or as a text on some
of the mid-1920s Ministry of Education Tokyo reconstruction films, such
as the eccentric PUBLIC MANNERS TOKYO SIGHTSEEING (...which has led us
to making the decision to postponed a screening of these films). </font>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Our program included a visit by the
benshi Mr. Kotoaka Ichiro, who bravely went ahead with a performance of
his final session only minutes after getting the news of the earthquake
and then had some difficulties getting back to Tokyo from Australia the
following day. We are currently ben asked to hold the prints from this
series for the NFC until advised; as the FPS's site indicate it seems not
so much that their facilities have been damaged, but shipping services
are still unreliable, power is a problem and staff simply have having trouble
getting to work</font>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Finally, and noting the debate that
your email inadvertently sparked over foreign perceptions... Those who
know some of the history of what happened in the wake of Great Kanto will
remember that immediate international goodwill degenerated badly in mutual
recrimination in the weeks and months following; especially in Japanese-US
relations. Whilst some of this had to do with the coming of US legislation
restricting Japanese immigration, the beginnings of militant nationalism,
and a trickle of international press accounts of bad Japanese official
behaviour (especially of the anti-Korean pogroms), lets hope the same thing
doesn't happen again.</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Quentin Turnour, Programmer, <br>
Access, Research and Development<br>
National Film and Sound Archive, Australia<br>
McCoy Circuit, Acton, <br>
ACT, 2601 AUSTRALIA<br>
phone: +61 2 6248 2054 | fax: + 61 2 6249 8159<br>
<a href="http://www.nfsa.gov.au" target="_blank">www.nfsa.gov.au</a><br>
<br>
The National Film and Sound Archive collects, preserves and provides access
to Australia's historic and contemporary moving image and recorded sound
culture. <br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<br>
<br>
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<td width="40%"><font face="sans-serif" size="1"><b><a href="mailto:ReelDrew@aol.com" target="_blank">ReelDrew@aol.com</a></b> </font>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="1">Sent by: <a href="mailto:owner-KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" target="_blank">owner-KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</a></font>
<p><font face="sans-serif" size="1">18/03/2011 02:27 PM</font>
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<div align="center"><font face="sans-serif" size="1">Please respond to<div class="im"><br>
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<div align="right"><font face="sans-serif" size="1">To</font></div>
</td><td><div class="im"><font face="sans-serif" size="1"><a href="mailto:KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" target="_blank">KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</a></font>
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<div align="right"><font face="sans-serif" size="1">Subject</font></div>
</td><td><font face="sans-serif" size="1">the eerie silence on KineJapan is maddening!</font></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><div><div></div><div class="h5"><font face="Arial" size="2">I have been a member of KineJapan for the
last ten years. I joined originally out of a need to obtain translations
of the intertitles of Japanese silents on VHS in my collection. I am very
grateful to those members on KineJapan who aided me and made it possible
for me to, among other things, write an article on Hiroshi Shimizu that
is published on Midnight Eye.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">Since then, I have regularly received almost
daily the messages that have been posted here. In all honesty, a large
number--perhaps the majority, in fact--have been of limited interest to
me inasmuch as they tend to deal with contemporary Japanese films. Consistent
with my enthusiasm for films in other countries, including my own, produced
in earlier decades, it is my interest in the Japanese cinema of the past,
especially the films of the 1920s and 1930s, that has been of consuming
interest to me. Nevertheless, from time to time issues involving those
golden years do come up here.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">However, whether or not the topic has been
of particular interest to me, I have always valued the fact that KineJapan
has always been there, an extremely valuable resource to be consulted when
needed. Never before since I've been here did this group shut down. Certainly,
it was very active right through the events of 9/11 as were other film
discussion groups in which I participated.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">Since the tragic events that began a week
ago, though, this place has suddenly turned into a ghost town. Aside from
a very limited amount of posts specifically on the topic of the tsunami,
there has been absolutely nothing here. No one has even bothered to post
how things are going on in Tokyo, while all sorts of wild, apocalyptic
rumors circulate unchecked in the US that Tokyo is about to become irradiated,
that it may be doomed. I believe a few welcome posts here from knowledgeable
people in the Japanese capital might help to clarify the situation and
perhaps alleviate some of these fears. </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">I have had a consuming obsession with early
Japanese cinema for the last 36 years. In trying to interest people in
the West in this topic and to recognize the value of Japanese films from
those years, I have long had to confront an enormous amount of indifference
and insensitivity to these achievements by too many in America and elsewhere
in the outside world. It has taken so long to bring attention to these
films here. Indeed, it was only this January that the premier venue for
classic cinema in the United States, Turner Classic Movies, after being
on the air for 17 years, finally presented three Japanese silents--Ozu's
famous masterpieces, "Tokyo Chorus," "I Was Born, But. .
.," and "Passing Fancy." So it is only very recently that
this neglected period of Japanese film is just starting to receive some
recognition here.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">Given this obession of mine, I would very
much like to know how the archives and other collections of Japanese cinema
are coping with the current crisis in Tokyo. Are they able to function
normally in their work of preservation considering the power blackouts
etc.? If there really should be an evacuation of the capital, has there
been discussion of removing films and other cultural treasures from Tokyo
to Kyoto, a much safer city and which I personally feel should be restored
to the position of Japan's capital? </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">As to whether now is the proper time to discuss
the preservation of culture in view of the terrible loss of life and the
continuing threat, I believe that, far from being at odds or incompatible,
the preservation of human life and humanity's cultural heritage are inseparable.
The heroic people of Egypt have shown all of us the way recently in this
area. During a time of turmoil in which a corrupt, discredited dictatorship
was attempting to hang on to power by employing ruthless methods against
the protestors, demonstrators courageously appeared to form human chains
around the Library in Alexandria and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to protect
these treasures of our history. I would hope that, should it ever become
necessary, a similar sense of cultural responsibility will be demonstrated
in other countries, including Japan. The heritage of Japan, including its
film history, is the common property not just of one country but indeed,
the legacy of all the people of the earth.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">In all those non-Western countries that the
West chose to lump together as "Oriental," for much of the 20th
century the four most significant in terms of creating outstanding cinemas
in the first half of the last century were Japan, China, India, and Egypt.
This preeminence in the new art of film was emblematic of these nations'
continuing cultural leadership in the modern world. In terms of documenting
and preserving the national film heritage, however, Egypt under the Mubarak
regime was scandalous. The Egyptian film archive was by far the worst run
in the entire world, mismanaged by members of Mubarak's family. So neglected
was the state of the archive that it was a common sight to see rats crawling
out of cans of film in the vaults. The situation with the Egyptian archive
was thus symptomatic of the larger ills afflicting the society under the
corrupt regime that ruled Egypt for thirty years. Needless to say, with
the present rebirth of Egypt through revolution there is a far greater
hope that the glories of Egyptian cinema from its bright beginnings in
the silent era to the achievements of later decades will be at last properly
preserved.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">While the infrastructure of Japan including
its archives can hardly compare to its counterparts in Egypt in the Mubarak
years, there has nevertheless been a steady decline in Japan in the two
decades since the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s. Egypt is now
trying to recover from a social disaster, Japan from a natural one exacerbated,
it seems, by a variant of the same corruption and cronyism that long afflicted
Egypt. I think Japan, like Egypt, will need to transform itself anew, but
as with Egypt, that transformation must be solidly based on the preservation
and dissemination of past achievements including a glorious legacy of early
cinema. Consequently, in addition to my general concern at the eerie silence
that has suddenly taken over KineJapan, as though all its members have
been struck dumb, I would in particular like to know how the film archives
and other institutions consecrated to cinema history in Japan are faring
during the present crisis.</font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2">William M. Drew </font>
<br><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
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