<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">This is actually going to be easy, but time consuming, to research. You'll find many, many, many (!) articles on Soviet film starting in the late 1920s through the 50s. Kinejun and Eiga Hyoron have tons of articles. The proletarian film movement's publications have lots as well (there is a nice index for the Prokino publications as part of the reprint; most of the extant Prokino and non-Prokino books and journals are in the online reprint series Makino Mamoru and I curated: <a href="https://www.cjspubs.lsa.umich.edu/electronic/facultyseries/list/series/prewar.php">https://www.cjspubs.lsa.umich.edu/electronic/facultyseries/list/series/prewar.php</a>). There are also lots of translations. In the postwar, there is also a discourse in the journals and even a specialized magazine. You have a lot of work ahead of you!<div><br></div><div>Markus<br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>
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<br><div><div>On May 17, 2012, at 8:50 AM, Dolores Martinez wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">To the whole list, but Naoki Yamamoto especially,<div>I've just been reviewing this conversation and tried to get hold of Iwamoti Kenj's book in the soas library. No luck, although on film we have a lot in Japanese. Are there other references for Japanese film's possible engagement with Russian formalism? I remain, as ever, interested in any Kurosawa references. I do have copies of Yuna's and Olga's articles, but anything else would be welcomed.<span></span></div>
<div>Thanks, Lola </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br>On Friday, 14 January 2011, Naoki Yamamoto wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">One of the earliest introductions of Potemkin to Japanese film discourse was a series of short essays entitled 「最近のソウェート映画界」that the literary critic Kurahara Korehito contributed to the March and April 1927 issues of Kinema Junpo. In these essays, Kurahara gave detailed accounts of Potemkin and other "revolutionary" films he watched during his one year stay in the Soviet Union. Then major critics like Iwasaki Akira and Iijima Tadashi followed Kurahara with their translations of Timoshenko ("Filmkunst unde Filmschnitt") and Moussinac ("Le Ciéma Soviétique"). In any case, professor Iwamoti Kenji (now teaching at Nichidai) is the most reliable scholar on the Japanese reception of Soviet film theory and practice and perhaps he might have mentioned something on this topic in his books like 『ロシア・アヴァンギャルドの映画と演劇』.<br>
<br>
Naoki<br>
<br>
<br>
On Jan 14, 2011, at 9:47 AM, Dolores Martinez wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
It would be worth asking Donald Richie about this. He told me once, in passing, that Kurosawa's memoirs were more representative of how he wanted things to have been...<br>
That being said, Donald might know if any 'illegal' copies of the film had possibly circulated earlier anyway. Given the strong connections, pre-war, that liberals had with the broader world (I love Miriam Silverberg's book on this era), they might have seen the film outside Japan and circulated descriptions within Japan. Film magazines may well have published the story and stills, etc.<br>
We really need a historian here!<br>
Lola<br>
<br>
On 14 January 2011 14:34, <<a>ryan.cook@yale.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
My understanding is that Potemkin was not released in Japan until the 1950s, and<br>
then only by means of film clubs (working with the Russian embassy) who<br>
organized screenings after several attempts to distribute the film commercially<br>
had failed for various reasons. Yamada Kazuo wrote a book in 1978 about the<br>
efforts to bring Potemkin to Japan in the postwar period, called "Senkan<br>
Pochomukin" (Otsuki Shoten). It would be very interesting to know where<br>
Kurosawa might have seen the film in 1926...<br>
<br>
Ryan<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Quoting Michael Kerpan <<a>mekerpan@verizon.net</a>>:<br>
<br>
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 Fri, 1/14/11, Sybil Thornton <<a>camford1989@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
From: Sybil Thornton <<a>camford1989@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Re: "Potemkin" in Japan<br>
To: <a>KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</a><br>
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 12:28 PM<br>
<br>
Hi,<br>
People do "misremember" what they saw or did not see, or when.<br>
However, the film could have been shown at the Russian embassy. It would have come through the diplomatic "bag" and evaded customs.<br>
Cheers,<br>
Sybil Thornton<br>
Arizona State University<br>
<br>
--- On Fri, 1/14/11, <a>mccaskem@georgetown.edu</a> <<a>mccaskem@georgetown.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
From: <a>mccaskem@georgetown.edu</a> <<a>mccaskem@georgetown.edu</a>><br>
Subject: "Potemkin" in Japan<br>
To: <a>KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</a><br>
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 4:38 AM<br>
<br>
<br>
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 <a href="http://imdb.com/" target="_blank">imdb.com</a>, 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<br>
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 lat