Film availability [in SW England]

[Stephen Cremin]

There are no viewing facilities in the Japanese Embassy or Japan Foundation
in London.  Best bet is the viewing facilities of the British Film Institute
Library on Stephen Street but its expensive and largely restricted to films
on videotapes that screened in the London Film Festival.  I haven't heard
anything about it in the past year, but SOAS [University of London's School
of Oriental & African Studies] were planning to launch a Japanese film
course around now.  Has anybody heard anything about this, and the nature of
the course?  The other problem of course is finding a library with a strong
collection of Japanese film materials and SOAS is lacking here but BFI
Library has a strong collection of non-Japanese language materials on
Japanese film.  You'll have a tough job finding any collections of Kinema
Junpo that go back more than three or four years in the UK.  And of course
you also need to find at least one good tutur which kind of rules out Great
Britain as well to my knowledge unless you take - for example - a literary
angle.  If America is too far or too expensive, how about Germany where at
least one university has a great Japanese film collection.  And aren't
universities free in Germany, even for overseas students?  How's your
German?

But if you are stuck in SW England, best bet is to find a subject which can
be researched on video, VCD or DVD which although isn't the best way to view
films, may be the only option available to you.  If you can't understand
Japanese, the range is further restricted to subtitled fare.  In that case
there are enough resources for you to focus on a handful of directors
(Kurosawa A., Kitano, Suo, Tsukamoto, Iwai, recent films of Harada Masato),
actors (Asano, Yakusho) or even contemporary comedy and psycho-horror films.
 Also check out what big film seasons are planned for Japan 2001 in the UK
over the next eighteen months.  Last I heard - and again this was over a
year ago - it was Miyazaki and Zatoichi.  If your interest is broader,
there might be a thesis in looking at the image of Japan in contemporary
Hong Kong cinema which is easy to research and there is a pretty strong
generational divide emerging this year as more and more filmmakers use it as
a location.

Stephen Cremin

(Trying to fix the damn date on this machine)

----------
>From: Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow <onogerow at angel.ne.jp>
>To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
>Subject: Re: Film availability
>Date: Sat, 14 Oct 00 21:37:21 +0900
>

>Janet wrote:
>
>>Having recently completed a Masters Degree looking at the work of Yasujiro
>>Ozu I am now considering undertaking a Phd  on some aspect of Japanese
>>cinema.  I was wondering if anyone might have any ideas on how I might get
>>to view a reasonably wide spectrum of Japanese cinema as the location where
>>I live in South West England makes this really difficult.  I cannot afford
>>to travel widely to film festivals and read rather enviously the list of
>>Mitzoguchi films to be seen in Munich.  The difficulty of viewing these
>>films automatically puts them into an exclusive category which apart from
>>being very frustrating for people like myself, I think is also a great shame
>>for the cinema going population at large.
>
>I wasn't sure if you were just asking where you might see films, or, 
>where you might go to get a PhD where you can see films.  If it is just 
>the former, then I'm afraid I don't know too much about availability in 
>the UK (though you might want to try the Japan Foundation office there: 
>they might have some films available).  But one of the best places in the 
>world to view Japanese films cheaply is the US Library of Congress.  The 
>service is free and they have literally hundreds of prewar Japanese films 
>(almost all without subtitles).  If you can afford to go the States and 
>stay in Washington DC for a month, you could see over a hundred films in 
>that time.
>
>If you are interested in a PhD program, but cannot handle coming to 
>Japan, I would recommend the US, in part for the Library of Congress, but 
>also because several universities have PhD programs which support work on 
>Japanese film.  I, Michael Raine, and Mitsuyo Wada Marciano all came out 
>of the University of Iowa, which has a good library which is currently 
>actively aquiring subtitled and non-subtitled prints.  Markus Nornes 
>teaches at the University of Michigan, which is also aquiring materials.  
>Other list members may want to plug their own programs.
>
>Hope this helps.