Fwd: Re: Collectors and academics

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

There was a discussion recently on H-Film about collectors and academics 
and I thought some on KineJapan may be interested in my post on the 
subject that touches on Japan.  Maybe others can share their experiences 
in trying to deal with collectors when doing research in Japan.

******************

Subject:     Re: Collectors and academics
Reply-To:    H-NET List for Scholarly Studies and Uses of Media, 
H-FILM at h-net.ms
From:   IN%"onogerow at gorilla.ne.jp"  "Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow"  
8-MAY-1998 10:27:47.27

Given the flurry of arguments over the collectors vs. academics issue, I
thought people might want to hear about a real situation in a nation
other than the U.S.: Japan.

Unfortunately for an academic like myself, academic film studies does not
have the status in Japan it does in the United States.  Few universities
offer degree programs, there are few academic journals, and it is very
hard to publish academic oriented book-length studies.  The general
opinion among not only academia but also larger cultural institutions
(including the Ministry of Culture, etc.) is that the study of film is
not a worthy discipline because film itself is only a mass,
industrialized form of entertainment that causes more harm than good.  Of
course, there are many other historical factors behind all this, but
that's the gist of the situation.

The additional problem this has created for film studies is the fact that
the official institutions that do collecting, such as university or
government libraries, archives, etc., have either not been interested in
or had the resources to make possible collecting the various kinds of
film related materials: films, magazines, stills, press materials,
industry documents, technology, etc.  This has created great gaps in the
historical record.  It's already a great tragedy when so many Japanese
films have been lost, but when there are not even complete runs of many
of the major film magazines, yet another aspect of Japanese film culture
and history has been lost.  It's also a pain for researchers like me: to
look at just one year of a 1920s film magazine, I have to visit several
libraries, and even then there'll often be one month's issue no one has.

It is in this area that collectors have been invaluable.  Not having to
account to the ideologies of major institutions, they can collect
whatever they want just because they want to.  And many in Japan have
been collecting what is missing from the collections of major libraries
and archives.  Thus when a publisher recently reprinted the first few
years of _Kinema Junpo_, THE major film magazine in Japan, they ran into
the problem that no institution had a complete run of it, even when
combined.  Thanks to several collectors who had the missing issues,
however, they were able to reprint a complete run.

Collectors have also been important in saving materials that otherwise 
have
been lost.  Industry history, for instance, is even today largely ignored
as a legitimate form of film study and most archives don't even think of
collecting studio memos, accounts, etc.  I imagine most of the studios
just throw them away.  Some of this material has been rescued by
collectors.  One, Makino Mamoru, for instance, rescued some very valuable
studio documents from Toho's wartime period.  He just happened upon them
in a used bookstore.

Some collectors have also been good researchers.  The late Tsukada
Yoshinobu was so devoted to finding out about the first year after the
cinematic apparatus was imported in Japan that he spent decades
researching practically every newspaper in the country to trace what was
shown where.  He then published the contents of every article he found in
his _Nihon eigashi no kenkyu_ (Gendai Shokan, 1980).  Makino Mamoru has
made bibliography (in the real sense of the term: the study of books) one
of his specialities and has published much about the history of film
publishing in Japan.  He has also directed the republication of many
prewar film magazines (unfortunately, microfilming is not in for film
magazines since not enough libraries buy them).  He also spent forty
years looking at every film magazine from prewar Japan to accumulate by
himself an index of film-related articles (which is finally being
published this year).  His final research interest in censorship, and his
two-volume history of pre-war censorship--much of it based on materials
he saved--will also soon be seeing print.

Makino has also been a godsend to young researchers like myself since he
is dedicated to promoting film studies.  His main concern in collecting
has always been in making available what he finds to the general public.
I personally spent over a year going to his house once a week to look at
some of his rare materials from the 1900s and 1910s.  Makino is a credit
to film study in Japan, I would argue; one of the most important film
researchers it has.

The problem with collectors, however, is that few are as open as Makino.
Most collect for one of two reasons: for the personal desire to possess
something of interest to them (the fetishism thing), or for monetary gain
(with some four page prewar film programs selling for over $100 at used
book fairs, the film-related antequary market can be very lucrative).
Unfortunately, neither of these reasons prompts most of the collectors in
Japan to make available their materials to researchers.  When they
collect for themselves, they don't care about other's needs.  When they
do it for money, they definitely don't want anyone touching it.  This
extends to the realm of film prints: it is rumored that several
collectors in Japan possess the sole prints in existence of several
prewar masterpieces that have otherwise been thought lost.  They simply
take pleasure in owning such works and refuse to show them to anyone (or,
they hope to sell them for outrageous prices that archives cannot
afford).  Since these are on nitrate stock, who knows when they'll blow 
up.

While some collectors have thus been a great help to the preservation and
study of Japanese film history, far too many are responsible for damaging
it.  By hiding their collections, often in unsafe conditions, they only
increase the risk that the film heritage will be lost.  By not opening it
to the public and researchers, they not only prevent the research needed
to provide a better understanding of Japanese film, they contribute to
the image of film culture as the realm of "fans and fanatics".  Frankly,
I spend a lot of my time rueing their existence, not thanking them.

Most in the U.S. probably cannot appreciate this situation since U.S.
archives and libraries have been much better at collecting necessary
materials than Japan's.  But in my situation here, I must both depend on
collectors, and accept the fact that some of the research I want to do is
impossible because they exist.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University

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