Shall We Dance - Prologue

[Joseph Murphy]

>Did Suou say what the alterations were? I saw the film in the U.S. in
>August and the opening scene in the Japanese video I have seems the same.
>If there is any contextualization it would seem to be for a Japanese
>audience. The voice-over explains the European origins of
>ballroom dancing, shakou dansu. There's a quotation from Shakespeare and
>one from Adam Smith. As David Desser points out, the scene of apparently
>British dancers is reprised later in the film. Did Suou give any details?

I'm translating this from an article Suo ran in Bungei Shunju (1997.8) on
his 16-city promotion tour in the U. S.

"To get it under 2 hours (Miramax's non-negotiable condition for release)
we cut the scene where the dance instructor has a fight with her father
completely, and pared down the interval between dialogue.  That got us down
to 1h 58m.  Then we also changed the narration that covers the opening
scene of the English dance hall, so the American audience would be better
able to relate to the film (rikai shite moraeru).  I wrote the words
myself, and had Sugiyama (i.e. Yakusho Koji) read it for me..."

Carol, I'm wondering if they didn't then turn around and stick that new
narration back onto the Japanese version.  That would be interesting.

j.m.