<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Thank you Aaron for sharing the news on Oh Deok-soo's passing, and Oliver for sharing your thoughts on Oh. <br><br></div>I was also saddened to hear the news. I met Oh a few times, mostly for interviews, but on one occasion, he took me on a hike on Mt. Takao with a full gear (portable cooker etc.) that seemed excessive for a day trip. He left a strong impression on me with his unique views which he articulated with surprising metaphors and aphorism. When I spoke to him on the phone in August, he told me quite frankly about his illness, but I had assumed that he would recover. <br><br>I agree with Oliver about the unique ways in which Oh used his own presence as the magnet to make his own films as well as those of many others meaningful. I wonder if there is now a large enough demand in the Anglophone world for a subtitled versions of <i>Zainichi </i>and <i>Against Fingerprinting </i>if they don't exist already.<br></div><div><br></div>I hastily wrote an obituary yesterday since I felt that I never got to reciprocate his generosity and was concerned that there might be no obituary available in English for posterity. I wonder if anyone has ideas for what the best way to publish something like this. I am going to copy-paste it below. <br><br>I would contact <i>Japan Times </i>if I had their contact. Can someone help me? Please feel free to contact me off the list if you prefer. <a href="mailto:shota.ogawa@gmail.com">shota.ogawa@gmail.com</a><br><br></div><div>Shota </div><div>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal" align="center"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Obituary: Film
Director Oh Deok-soo, known for documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Zainichi</i>,
dies at<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>74</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Film director Oh Deok-soo passed away
from lung cancer on Sunday. He was 74. Oh is known for his feature-length
documentary films on Zainichi Koreans (Resident Koreans in Japan) including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Against Fingerprinting </i>(1984) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Story of Koreans in Postwar Japan:
Zainichi </i>(1997). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Born
in 1941 in Kazuno City, Akita Prefecture, Oh first entered the film world as an
assistant to Nagisa Oshima, working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Violence
at Noon </i>(1966) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sing a Song of Sex
</i>(1967), before working for Daiei and Toei in their film divisions through
the late 1960s and the 1970s. Some of the better known television productions
he worked on include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Guardsman </i>(starring
Ken Utsui, Daiei/TBS, 1965-1971), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">A Lone
Wolf </i>(starring Shigeru Amachi, Toei/NTV, 1967-1968), and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Key Hunter </i>(starring Tetsuro Tamba and
Sonny Chiba, Toei/TBS, 1968-1973). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Oh
was a familiar presence in local film festivals and public symposia, particularly
since completing his lifework, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Story
of Koreans in Postwar Japan</i>, in 1997 which involved working closely with
grassroots groups across Japan that co-sponsored its production and realized a
nation-wide tour of the film. In addition to making his own films, he was
active in organizing screenings of others’ works that highlighted the
historical presence of Koreans within Japanese cinema. In the screenings he
organized for the History Museum of J-Koreans in Azabu, for example, he showcased
the works of Zainichi Korean directors such as Sai Yoichi, Lee Sang-il, and Kim
Su-gil alongside films made by Japanese directors that depicted Zainichi
Koreans in interesting ways. Each screening was accompanied by a guest speaker
who might be the director, a staff member, or a viewer with a special attachment
to the title, and a post-screening discussion followed by a party gave the
event a unique communal character. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In recent years,
he had branched out into exhibiting his own photographs and probing the
possibility of curating a museum exhibition of picture books and school
textbooks written for Korean children in Occupied Japan. His multifaceted activity
as a filmmaker, collector, curator, and cultural organizer stemmed from his
work on the monumental documentary, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The
Story of Koreans in Postwar Japan</i>, for which he had to condense a vast archive of music,
photographs, home movies, newsreels, and material artifacts into its running
time of four-and-a-half hours. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The unique ways
in which Oh’s professional and artistic career developed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">around</i> rather than fully <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">within
</i>cinema were also a product of circumstances. In an interview with film
scholar Takashi Monma in 2005, Oh recounts that most studios had stopped hiring
assistant directors when he graduated from Waseda’s Theater Department in 1965.
Even in Toei’s TV division (Toei Tokyo Production) where he received most of
the training and rose to the rank of Chief Assistant Director, he was still on
an irregular contract with limited benefits or job security. The second half of
his time at Toei was thus spent on a prolonged strike that demanded improved
labor conditions for contract employees. It was only by taking up freelance
assignments to write screenplays for film, television, and manga, while
collectively running a franchised noodle shop that Oh and his fellow strikers
of Toei Production Company Labor Union were able to live through the 1970s. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>It
was paradoxically during the prolonged strike that Oh found the key to direct
his own films. Through befriending the editors of the Zainichi Korean magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Madan </i>and later cofounding its informal
successor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Jansori</i>, Oh became involved
in the burgeoning movement of young Japan-born Zainichi Koreans to develop a
public sphere outside the two traditional organizations that represented the
interests of Pyongyang and Seoul. When the anti-fingerprinting protest broke
out in 1980 and developed into a major social movement by 1985, he found
himself ideally situated to document the movement from within, thanks to the
significant overlap between the target audience of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Jansori </i>and the main actors of the protest movement. He founded his
independent production company Oh Kikaku for the project which was completed and
screened within a year while the protest was still ongoing. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>On
a number of occasions, Oh raised objection to the label “Zainichi Korean film
director” which he found to be constrictive. But no other director has so consistently
explored the interrelation between Zainichi and film, or to rephrase in his
preferred expressions: “what it means to be Zainichi Koreans living at a time
when we have access to these images.” If it is apt to call him a representative
Zainichi Korean film director, it is not because his interest was limited to
Zainichi Korean issues, but because he took up the challenge of weaving Zainichi
Koreans’ social concerns into the fabric of cinema. It is in this spirit that
we can appreciate the opening of his maiden film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Against Fingerprinting</i>, that shows an alien registration card set
on fire. This was, he confided in an informal conversation I had with him, a
visual homage paid to Yasuzo Masumura’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Black
Test Car </i>(1962) that opens with a similar shot although with a burning car
in place of a registration card. With Oh’s documentaries, we can learn about
Chesa (a Korean ceremony of ancestor worship) to a-ha’s “Take On Me,” or make unexpected
connections between Zainichi Korean history and Anton Chekhov’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Three Sisters </i>or with Yoshio Tabata’s
postwar hit, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Kaeribune </i>(Repatriation
Boat).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">At a time when
Directors Guild of Japan is chaired by Sai Yoichi and Eiren (Motion Picture
Producer Association of Japan) have nominated works by Sai, Lee Sang-il, and
Yang Yong-hi to compete for the Foreign Language Oscar in the Academy Awards, it
appears all but certain that Zainichi Koreans have gained citizenship in the
world of cinema. Oh’s legacy might be understood in the reverse term. Instead
of making it in the film business, he made film relevant to as many Zainichi
Koreans as he could. </span></p>
<br> <br><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 7:06 PM, Oliver Dew <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:olidew@gmail.com" target="_blank">olidew@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">I was very sad to hear this news. I met with Oh on several occasions over the past few years, and he was always so generous and forthcoming. He was a wonderful person to talk to, and to interview. I last saw him just over a year ago and he seemed to be in very good form. He was very active as a curator in recent years. I went to see him lead a series of screenings and discussions at the Korean community association meetings near where he lived in Chofu, and to an exhibition of stills from Shimon ōnatsu kyohi (Against Fingerprinting) at Gallery 1/F. He was there discussing the images with visitors and giving them souvenirs he'd brought back from a recent trip to his birthplace in Akita (he gave me some miso). KineJapaners who came to the Japanese Film Symposium at Meiji Gakuin in July 2014 will remember him as a lively and engaging discussant. I hope that his films will not become harder to access now that he is no longer here to discuss them with us. He was a vital figure, as a filmmaker, an activist, and as an archivist, as a collector and remediator of others' images. My thoughts are with his wife and sons.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Oliver</div><div><br></div></font></span><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5"><div>On 13 Dec 2015, at 18:25, Gerow Aaron <<a href="mailto:aaron.gerow@yale.edu" target="_blank">aaron.gerow@yale.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br></div></div><div><div><div class="h5"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">The film director Oh Deok-soo has died at the age of 74. Starting out as
an assistant director to Oshima Nagisa and then working in TV, Oh
eventually became an independent documentary filmmaker, making
especially works on the situation of zainichi Koreans in Japan.<div><br></div><div><a href="http://mainichi.jp/articles/20151214/k00/00m/040/026000c" target="_blank">http://mainichi.jp/articles/20151214/k00/00m/040/026000c</a><br><div><br></div><div><span>Monma Takashi interviewed Oh for the YIDFF's Documentary Box:</span></div></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span><a href="http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/26/box26-1-1-e.html" target="_blank">http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/26/box26-1-1-e.html</a></span></div><br><br><div>
<div style="letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;line-height:normal;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;border-spacing:0px"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>Aaron Gerow<br>Professor<br>Film and Media Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures</div><div>Director of Graduate Studies, EALL<br>Yale University<br>320 York Street, Room 311<br>PO Box 208324<br>New Haven, CT 06520-<span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px">8324</span><br>USA<br>Phone: <a href="tel:1-203-432-7082" value="+12034327082" target="_blank">1-203-432-7082</a><br>Fax: <a href="tel:1-203-432-6729" value="+12034326729" target="_blank">1-203-432-6729</a><br>e-mail: <a href="mailto:aaron.gerow@yale.edu" target="_blank">aaron.gerow@yale.edu</a></div><div>website: <a href="http://www.aarongerow.com/" target="_blank">www.aarongerow.com</a></div><div><br></div></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div></span><br></div><br><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>----------------------------------------<br>Shota Ogawa, Ph.D.<br></div><div>Assistant Professor<br></div>Dept. of Languages and Culture<br>461 COED <br><div><div>University of North Carolina at Charlotte<br><span>University City Blvd.</span><br>Charlotte, NC 28223<br><a href="http://humanities.lib.rochester.edu/onfilm/" target="_blank">http://humanities.lib.rochester.edu/onfilm/</a><br>----------------------------------------</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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