<div dir="ltr"><div>I am intrigued that Kore-eda had to go to France to explore the theme of "memoir." <br></div><div>In AFTERLIFE, the setting is more reminiscent of a Japanese kaisha.<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 11:56 AM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <<a href="mailto:kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu">kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">It's so interesting that you share your thoughts on the autobiography just as I am reading, with great admiration, Obama's new book. Anne, you're raising such provocative questions. They really got me thinking. It makes me want to pull out the autobiographies on my shelves, but they are all out of reach at my office. I did find a few scattered examples here at home, they inspired some scattered thoughts. <div><br></div><div>The first thing I notice is that they are all by men, and I think plenty of male filmmakers, producers, actors and even subtitlers have written memoirs. I can think of memoirs by screenwriters and other kinds of staff members, and many of these might fit a subgenre of "My work with _[<u>fill in the director]</u>___" books. </div><div><br></div><div>Two of the memoirs here at hand are proper accountings of one's life: <i>My Life as a Filmmaker</i> by Yamamoto Satsuo (recently translated into English by Chia-ning Chang) and Mochinaga Tadahiito's <i>Animeshon Nitchu Koryuki.</i> I'm struck by the nuance with which they narrate their lives against the drama of modern Japanese history. And in retrospect, I have the sense that if there is one thing that really marks off a generation of memoirists it's the spectacular disruption of WWII. And even within that, it's hardly one generation. Some writers were adults and established professionals; others tell the story of the war from the child's perspective. </div><div><br></div><div>One thought: perhaps you're noticing the new wave era as a break simply because one starts contemplating a memoir while facing the end of life. It's a time in life when there's more to look back on, and looking forward is becoming increasingly disconcerting. What's more, society positions you less as a "productive member" than a keeper of wisdom and keys to the past. I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where the kids from Springfield and Shelbyville go to war when Grandpa sits down next to a tree saying, "Ah, some things never change...", and Milhouse points, "Hey everybody, an old man talking!" and the kids gather 'round for his story. These autobiographies tug at our curiosity about the past in similar ways.</div><div><br></div><div>But isn't one reason why we don't have many autobiographies from post-60s filmmakers that it's a bit presumptuous to write one before a certain age? Filmmakers in their 20s, 30s and 40s probably haven't lived enough. If they were born in the 60s, they're beginning to consider it. </div><div><br></div><div>Another thought: there seems to be a unique structure to some number of film autobios. Because of the gargantuan effort a film requires, it's as though their lives are clocked film by film. Two of the autobiographies I found today take this as their structure: Shinoda Masahiro's <i>Watakushi ga Ikita Futatsu no "Nihon" </i>and Kore-eda's <i>Eiga o Torinagara Kangaeta Koto. </i>I think there are quite a few of these and they strike me as cheating. Writing a proper memoire looks like hard work. At the same time, I wonder if the gender issues Anne points us to aren't at the heart of this. </div><div><br></div><div>And one last thought: there are strong substitutes to the autobiography in the film world. Anne points to <i>zadankai</i> and even the <i>hyoron-shu</i>, but there's also the book-length interview. I'm working on a biography of Adachi Masao now, and am thoroughly impressed by Hirasawa Go's <i>Eiga/Kakumei. </i>Here you have a brilliant interlocutor who knows his political, social and film history back and forth, so the subject doesn't need to simply or talk down and the book becomes something of an autobiography—at least so close that writing a "proper" autobiography would be a waste of time. </div><div><br></div><div>And as I wrote that, one other thing comes to mind. Since the 90s, it seems to me another kind of substitute appeared. Many independent filmmakers—narrative, but especially documentary—publish books in conjunction with their new films. It's not simply because it's possible, but hawking books in the lobby is one way to supplement the meager revenue of indie filmmaking. A foot of one of my bookshelves is lined with such books by Funahashi Atsushi and Soda Kazuhiro. I wonder if these books will interfere with the writing of "proper" memoirs when they reach that certain age. </div><div><br></div><div>This is all very fascinating. Anne, I hope you write something up about this. I'm very curious, as always, about your perspective!</div><div><br></div><div>Markus<br><div><div><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(136,136,136)">--- </span></div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small"><font face="courier new, monospace" color="#274e13"><b><img src="https://drive.google.com/a/umich.edu/uc?id=1i0izwlsrcSvQgU4nMCzTLiOhmdDMm-xZ&export=download" width="56" height="96"><br></b></font></div><div style="font-size:small"><font face="courier new, monospace" color="#274e13"><b>Markus Nornes</b></font></div><div style="font-size:small"><span style="font-family:"courier new",monospace"><font color="#38761d"><b>Professor of Asian Cinema</b></font></span></div><div><font size="1" color="#38761d"><font face="courier new, monospace">Department of Film, Television and Media</font><span style="font-family:"courier new",monospace">, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps </span><span style="font-family:"courier new",monospace">School of Art & Design</span></font></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:small"><font face="courier new, monospace" color="#6aa84f"><br></font></div><div><font size="1" face="courier new, monospace" color="#93c47d"><b>Department of Film, Television and Media</b></font></div><div><font size="1" face="courier new, monospace" color="#93c47d"><b>6348 North Quad</b></font></div><div><font size="1" face="courier new, monospace" color="#93c47d"><b>105 S. State Street</b></font></div><div><font size="1" face="courier new, monospace" color="#93c47d"><b>Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285</b></font></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136)"><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 11:33 AM Zahlten, Alexander via KineJapan <<a href="mailto:kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Anne,<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">What a great topic! My immediate thought on the “obsolescence” of this genre/subgenre is along the lines of what you mention – it really comes down to what one bills as a memoir (though it is probably exactly relevant if the ones producing
it understand the work in that way).<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Can you say a bit more about your focus on nouvelle vague? Since it is arguably is a tiny part of the mainstream film industry, looking beyond it (and the immediate definition of memoir)will show up more (as you’re already doing with Haneda,
Atsugi, etc.); there are the industry figures like Okura Mitsugi (apparently full of fabrications) or Toei’s Okawa Hiroshi, or even Uchida Masaru (of Shonen Magajin, important for the early manga-animation tie-ups); later on pink film’s Hamano Sachi or Nishihara
Giichi (see Kim Icreverzi’s excellent thesis for more on the former; the latter is a kind of interview/memoir mashup) are some examples. Scriptwriters are quite active as well (e.g. Katsura Chiho, in a kind of memoir/essay hybrid, similar to Yamagiwa Eizo).
I assume there are quite a few written by actors/actresses.<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">It’s difficult to say without actually doing a systematic count, but my sense would also, as you already say, be that generally there is a generational cut-off point after which these publications become less common – I’m less certain it
has to do with specific discourses circulating in the “high-culture” end of the film industry, maybe that is also symptomatic of broader shifts? I don’t have a good explanation though.<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Apologies for the haphazard reply – again, a terrific topic, I hope you decide to write on this!<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alex<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">KineJapan <<a href="mailto:kinejapan-bounces@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">kinejapan-bounces@mailman.yale.edu</a>> on behalf of Anne McKnight via KineJapan <<a href="mailto:kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu</a>><br>
<b>Reply-To: </b>Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <<a href="mailto:kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, December 25, 2020 at 22:28<br>
<b>To: </b>Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <<a href="mailto:kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu" target="_blank">kinejapan@mailman.yale.edu</a>><br>
<b>Cc: </b>Anne McKnight <<a href="mailto:annekmcknight@gmail.com" target="_blank">annekmcknight@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>[KineJapan] Use of memoir in film histories<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Greetings all, and happiest of holidays~</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I am reading a handful of memoirs of female documentarists at the moment—by women who all debuted in the early 1950s, and wrote memoirs late in life. I think this mode of
writing (memoir) used to be common, but I can’t remember many male directors doing so once you get into the nouvelle vague era (Ōshima Nagisa would be an exception here, with his multiple volumes of memoir; also, Wakamatsu Kōji). </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">This just struck me as interesting, given the awareness of this generation of historical meta-narratives and one’s place in it—war, the Shōwa era, etc. And memoirs are common
in literary figures of the time, seen pegged to “large” histories. ( <u>My Shōwa</u> by Yasuoka Shōtarō is one such highly crafted memoir, discussed by Kendall Heitzman in his recent book). </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In the case of the female directors—Nakamura Rinko, Okano Kaoruko, Haneda Sumiko, and Atsugi Taka—all of them did write and publish, and all stressed the micro-politics
of labor relation on the set and in the companies they worked for. (Basically all the postwar doc directors employed at studios except for Tokieda Toshie, and not Tanaka Kinuyo or Sakane Takuzo). The science film directors’ memoirs is the niche I am especially
interested in. Though Haneda branched out and Okano ultimately quit, and Nakamura went freelance after a number of years, the science film is extensively covered in each memoir as a privileged stage or pivot.</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">So, I am wondering what elements to take into consideration if they might be called a small cluster, a sub-genre, when reading them as they articulate the relation between
life and work —time of debut, position in the industry, wartime experience (related to debut and corporate role), gender, other media and genres of self-expression available overall and to each person. (Literary critic Hibi Yoshitaka has a nice phrase “the
distributed self” [or “I", I can’t remember, but you get the point]). Basically, why they all waited to write and publish memoirs, when the male nouvelle directors seemed to opt out of the genre and to take up a different array of “I”-media in real time. </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Beginning with the nouvelle vague people (and slightly earlier, in at least one interesting account I can think of), the concepts of humanism were challenged, and the debates
on subjectivity and filmmaking put forth a number of ways of thinking about the role of critique, complicating “naive” readings of individual action and relation with institutions. They had many critiques of “expression.” TV, of course, would made put first-person
critiques accessible in the 1950s. On top of that, all kinds of essays and <u>zadankai</u> and <u>taidans </u>contain elements one could consider memoir-<u>like</u> (with all of the performativities specific to these venues, which are probably different in
a memoir). The emphasis on life experience how it is narrated, figured, vis-a-vis one’s relation to various histories (labor, production, etc.) is what I guess I am trying to frame. </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I would be very curious for any thoughts about this genre of memoir and its obsolescence, or major ones I might have forgotten, whether independent or in the studio system
(like Kurosawa Akira). </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thanks!</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Anne</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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