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[Abe' Mark Nornes]

A friend, Fujioka Asako, who does the Asia Program at the Yamagata
Festival, sent me a short report on some of the tv doc that Hara Kazuo
showed in his last Cinema Juku. It was held at CineNoveau, the theater
started by the editor of Eiga Shinbun. This is the kind of thing that will
be shown in a large retrospective at the Yamagata Festival next fall.  It
sounds like amazing stuff!

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Like this docu about the huge coal mines after they closed down in
Kyushi. In a Terayama style, the director uses an actor playing a former
mineworker who drinks sake all day and watches newsreels of the mines in
its hayday. You think you're looking at archival material, then you find
the actor in the film! with three other miners playing mahjong inside
the mine! Suddenly this butoh dancer comes out from the depths of the
tunnel and dances away... "Makkura" directed by Kimura Eibun at RKB
Mainichi Hoso. (I think Image Forum has some stuff by him, I remember
Nakajima san showing me a few minutes of a clip some time ago. Oh, now I
remember. Nakajima knows this guy from Image Forum Festival in Fukuoka,
where he lives now)


Or, the documentary about the conductor Ozawa Seiji by Hagimoto Haruhiko
that's composed almost entirely of closeups. You have the violinist's
head taking up most of the picture in the opening shot..for a long
while, you can only see frantic head movements and parts of Ozawa's hand
behind the head. You have rehearsal scenes and stage scenes shot from
almost the same position intercut, and connected with one fluid
Beethoven soundtrack. 

Or, you probably know the one called "Anatawa..." where a woman reporter
sticks her mike into people's faces on the street, without a word of
explanation, and starts barraging them with questions (written by
Terayama, actually...). SOme questions very everyday mundane, and some
metaphysical or philosophical. If the interviewee hesitates at all, the
interviewer just goes on with the next question like a machine. The
program is just a continuation of these "attacks". Like 200 people
interviewed. 


Hara Kazuo wanted to show a TV program called Hinomaru, directed by
Hagimoto, but TBS didn't give permission. Apparently when it was
broadcast, it caused such an uproar and the phone was ringing off the
hook...
It's supposedly in the same style as "Anatawa..."

Hagimoto commented after we watched the US version of "Anatawa..."
(attack interviews on the person on the street in NY) that some of the
Japanese subtitles were obviously purposely omitted, probably because
TBS was jittery after the furious public reaction to  "Hinomaru". Those
were the questions about the Vietnam War and "If you were drafted, would
you go willingly?"

The idea is that the more spontaneous and un-edited TV is, the more
anti-authority it becomes, which is what some of the young directors at
the time came to believe as their ideal. Some fo theese people later
left TBS and established Telebiman Union. 

Films like that. Got to see 5 or so per day. It sounds like TV docus
from the 60s and 70s are kind of attracting attention recently...
Apparently the directors of the era who are approaching retirement
started a re-union group that regularly holds meetings and screenings of
those days. 

Asako