Favorite Japanese Films

[Li Hoo Cheong]

Two weeks ago, Marie Suzuki supplied me with the source of the booklet
<Nihon eiga no koken>.  I have since read this interesting item whose
content is worth reporting.

The booklet is a list of "My Favorite Work of Japanese Cinema" as chosen 
by 131 film directors, critics, film festival organizers, and other film
related people outside Japan.  A letter signed by Hasumi Shigehiko, Yamane
Sadao, and Morioka Michio (Program Director, TIFF) was sent to them asking
them to name the one single film they like most: "Be it silent or talkie,
classic or contemporary, famous or unknown, which is the one of your 
taste and why?"

As this enquiry is "not intended for drawing up, for instance, the 
permanent list of ten masterpieces of Japanese films", the editors of the
booklet do not give any summing up or comment on the replies received.
The booklet is just a listing of films and answers on 20 pages, with a 
one page introduction in Japanese.  The replies are chiefly 
in English or French.  All replies are also translated into Japanese.

My calculation shows that the 5 most favored directors are Ozu (named
34 times), Kurosawa (25), Mizoguchi (22), Naruse (10), and Oshima (9).
Yamanaka Sadao, Ichikawa Kon and Suzuki Seijun are all mentioned 3 times.
Directors who got named twice include Gosho Heinosuke, Shindo Kaneto, 
Imamura Shohei, Takita Yojiro, Kitano Takeshi, and Tezuka Osamu, the late
versatile animator. Another 18 directors are mentioned once, making a total
of 32 directors whose films got named as favorites.

About 70 films are named, 11 belong to Ozu, 9 to Mizoguchi, 6 each to 
Kurosawa, Naruse, and Oshima.  The top films are <Tokyo Story> (14),
<Rashomom> (13), <Ugetsu Monogatari> (10), and <Late Spring> (6). Four
films attract 4 votes each.  They are Ozu's <I Was Born, But ...>, 
Kurosawa's <Ikiru> and <Seven Samurai>, and Naruse's <Floating Clouds>.

Of the 131 respondents, 35 are from France, 26 from U.S., 7 each from 
Germany and Taiwan, 6 each from Italy and Russia, and the remaining from 
about 22 countries.  None is from China (there are 3 from Hong Kong, but
Hong Kong was not yet China in 1995).  About 8 respondents did not abide
by the rule, naming more than one film in their reply.  Spike Lee, for
example, named all Kurosawa's works.  Agnes Varda also said that it was
impossible to choose just one film and came up with a minimum of three:
<Rashomon>, <Tokyo Story> and <Ugetsu>, all winners as they turned out.

There are some revealing choices:  Both Alain Corneau and Bertrand
Tavernier picked Naruse's magnificent <Sound of the Mountain> (54),
Roger Ebert named Ozu's colorful <Floating Weeds> (59), Marco Bellochio
liked Ichikawa's <The Burmese Harp> (56), Theo Angelopoulos named 
Oshima's <The Ceremony> (71), and Abbas Kiarostami mentioned Kurosawa's
<Dodeskaden> (70).

There are, of course, some surprises, both in the choices and the
answers.  Jose-Maria Prado from Spain named Tanaka Kinuyo's 
<Chibusayo eiennare> (55) (The Eternal Breast), paying tribute to her
talent as a director.  Jean-Michel Frodon  from France advocated for
Watanabe Fumiki's <Shimaguni konjo> (90) (Home Made Movie), explaining
that: "Trying not to quote one of the great Japanese classics, I prefer
to pay my tribute to a daring, lonely and creative filmmaker, who, in the 
difficult environment of nowadays Japanese cinema, invents his own way, 
with both sense of reality and sense of the film art."  Paulina
Fernandez Jurado from Argentina broke the record by naming a film which
she had not seen, Mizoguchi's <Sisters of Gion> (1936) (also named by
King Hu).  She liked Mizoguchi, but had only seen <The Life of Oharu>
(a surprise left-out in this survey) and <Ugetsu>. "The reason for my
choice is based on Donald Richie's comment about <Sisters...> (perhaps 
the best of the prewar films)."  

H. C. Li