New Reference Book

[Stephen Cremin]

The KineJapan list has already discussed the question of how to date 
Japanese films.  I'm posting this email to raise some further questions as 
to how reference books on Japanese film should address other related issues. 
  Perhaps its best if any responses are mailed to me privately because it 
may be excruciatingly dull to most of you on the list.

I've just completed a new reference work this week: a directory of 700 
Japanese film directors, with over 9000 films listed in their filmographies. 
  It complements rather than replaces "The Asian Film Library Reference to 
Japanese Film".  I'd like some suggestions from KineJapan members as to how 
if can be improved.  Its fully bilingual, giving kanji, romaji (with long 
vowels indicated, etc) and - where available - an English title.  I'm still 
deciding which indices to create for it, but the main text currently runs to 
100+ A4 pages.  It will always be a work in progress but I'm thinking of 
holding back publication until January so it can close off the century.  
Thats NOT to say that the work is a complete reference to Japanese film, but 
a lot of "official" English titles will be finalised by then with the Tokyo 
IFF and the work of the New Cinema from Japan team.

I'm faxing a sample page to some of you who own "The Asian Film Library 
Reference to Japanese Film".  I'll also send a draft copy of the document to 
these customers in September or October for your suggestions (and beta 
testing).  (The 1999 update to the book should be completed this month, with 
over 100 extra titles typed in now; again, I'm experimenting with a fully 
bilingual format for that.  And all these books have to be cross-referenced 
with each other...)  If anyone else would particularly like to see a sample 
page, I can afford to fax it to a few of you.  Email me privately.  But I'm 
also interested in your opinion for the pricing of such a work, as I expect 
its something most of you could use.  I'm thinking around the US$20 mark.  
And, of course, the book is also perfect for the Japanese market.

Directors are listed with their name in romaji and kanji with the year of 
birth (and death) noted.  I'll probably list alternate kanji for those 
directors who changed the spelling of their name through their career: 
Suzuki Junichi, for example.  Titles themselves in filmographies are simply 
listed in the following format (where {} indicates "optional" information):

Year {Month} / Kanji / Romaji / {English Title} / {Classification} / {AFL 
Ref.}

1. Year and Month

Release dates are indicated here, not copyright date.  A problem arises with 
films whose release has been significantly delayed.  "They Who Step on a 
Tiger's Tail" gets a 1950s release, not 1945.  "After Life" is 1999, not 
1998.  But what to do with films which have yet to receive a theatrical 
release?  For example, Kobayashi Masaki's "Bootleg Film" which screened in 
TIFF 98 and Cannes 99.  And unless I somehow missed it, Tsukamoto's 1998 
"BULLET BALLET" doesn't seem to have a commercial release yet.  Presumably, 
an asterix can indicate the first festival date as a temporary measure?  Any 
other suggestions.  And of course, experimental films, documentaries, etc, 
have all kinds of problems in ascertaining a "release" date: short films 
tend to eventually get released in a compilation programme of the director's 
work, the date of which tells you very little about the development of the 
work.  Where listed, OV's are listed by the video release date (of course).  
Don't mention "Kamikaze Taxi" (or "Fried Dragon Fish").

2. Kanji Title

There are some punctuation issues here: use of a "dot" or a space to 
indicate sections of a title, etc.  Yes, this discussion can get really 
dull.  But when a film has an "English" title, there is also the issue of 
upper and lower cases.  "BAD GUY BEACH" for example.  Should its 
capitalisation be treated as purely stylistic.  Acronyms are kept in caps: 
"MARKS no Yama", for example.  Do I preserve the low caps in "undo", the 
formatting of "PiCNiC", etc?  The British Film Institute (BFI) ignores the 
capitalisation ... they have to draw the line somewhere with more and more 
stylistic devices being used in film titles.  Again, sorry this is so 
pendantic.

3. Romaji Title

Long vowels are indicated with a European "hat" above the vowel.  I'm only 
capitalising the first word, except in the case of proper knowns: 
"Sazae-san", "Nihon", etc.  Again there are enormous issues of hyphenation, 
and the best you can hope for is consistency.  Often films with two sections 
(often released a week apart) are marked "Zenpen" and "Kohen" respectively.  
(A simple example.)  I've opted to mark them simply as "I" and "II".  But 
sometime, the "-hen" is a little more ambitious with, for example, 
"ren'ai-hen" and "kekkon-hen" in "Ren'ai to kekkon no sho" to take an 
example from Abe Yutaka's filmography on the sample page.  Or "onna no maki" 
and "yuko no maki" in the case of Abe's "Onna to iu shiro".  Again, I'm 
thinking of simplifying to a "I" and "II" ("III", etc) here, rather than 
phonetic representation.  Is this a terrible idea?

There's also the difficult issue of how to resolve phonetic approximations 
of English, usually given in katakana.  Given that the kanji (hiragana, 
whatever) is also given, I opt to "correct" the approximation.  So 
"Suwaroteiru" becomes "Swallowtail".  (In this email I'm ignoring long 
vowels for legibility.)  But what about more difficult approximations: 
"apaato" and "depaato" (as in "apartment" and "department store") become 
"apt." and "dept." in this book.  (Aaron is smiling his UNcheesy grin now.)  
And what about Agata Morio's 1994 "Otobai Shojo" which presumably refers to 
"Auto-Bike" or "Motorbike".  (At this point Aaron is falling off his seat in 
laughter...)  For a while I opted for "Auto-Bai" (!) but I'm now making the 
exception with "Otobai".  (I know of lost any respect I've had on the list 
at this point, when you realise that I don't have a life.)

4. English Title

There is an emormous difficulty in designating an "official" title.  One 
example I came across was "Spring on Mount Sazae" for "Sazae-san no 
Seishun".  The translator had clearly not seen the kanji.  (Sazae-san is a 
person, while "seishun" presumably refers to his youth.)  And, of course, 
English titles change over time.  If the text becomes the key reference for 
Japanese film internationally, perhaps it makes sense to propogate new 
"official" English titles through it.  I know this is a very dangerous (and 
arrogant) proposal and I'd certainly indicate true "official" titles in 
bold.  But we are all already on a slippery slope.  Perhaps KineJapan 
members with a specific interest in a specific directors work can suggest 
"ideal" translations for their filmography: too many director filmographies 
used in festival catalogues, etc, have been created (ie "translated") 
without watching (or even reading about) the individual films themselves.  
Inevitably mistakes have been made.

5. Classification

Here, I'm referring to whether a film is a short, documentary, animation, TV 
work, original video, etc.  Of course, there can be short animations and 
other combinations.  But what is a short: less than 40 minutes, or less than 
one hour?  And even defining documentaries is a fool's game: Imamura's "A 
Man Vanishes"?  But what other categories would be useful to you?

6. AFL Reference

A cross-reference to the film's listing in volume one of the Asian Film 
Library Reference to Reference Film of the 1999 update.  (No reference and 
its not listed, of course.)

I'm sure I could find out a "proper" way to answer all these questions on 
some specialised librarian course, but my main concern is to make it usable 
to KineJapan readers who represent the range of people who will be using 
this work: fans of Japanese films, festival directors, distributors, 
critics, etc.


In the sample page I've listed the films in English alphabetical order, but 
I'm tending towards Japanese alphabetical order (a-i-u-e-o...) to maintain 
the same ordering as the AFL Reference Books.  And for Japanese customers.  
There'll be an index in English alphabetical order with alternate names 
listed: Kawase Naomi and Sento Naomi, for example.  I guess there needs to 
be an index of not only English titles, but also romaji, perhaps merged.  
And a separate kanji film title index would help Japanese readers.  But I 
have to keep the printing costs down.

I'm also wondering whether to "piggyback" some of my Korean database at the 
back.  Perhaps just 50 to 100 directors with a very strong bias towards 
1990s cinema as an aide to festival directors, etc.  Nobody is going to buy 
a book about Korean film, so it makes sense to smuggle it into people's 
homes this way.  Again, I'd publish the hangul and (where available) the 
English title, but no "romaji" equivalent.  (Hangul is pretty much phonetic 
anyway, like hiragana and katakana.)  Just an idea.

And what information do you want on directors?  Do you want the place of 
birth as well as the date?  The university they studied at?  You'll have 
noticed the formula used in festival catalogues: "A was born in B in 19xx.  
He studied C at D University, before making his debut "E".  He has 
subsequently directed "F" and "J", winning praise at international film 
festivals".  Perhaps we need a fifty word introduction to each director, 
with a little more intelligence and wit: "Yamada Yoji, king of 
sentimentality..."  Perhaps its something I can work on for the next 
edition.  And if the book is a financial success, perhaps I can pay for 
these and film synopses to be written by KineJapan members, or perhaps in 
the currency of AFL Reference Books...

Anyway, thanks for indulging me and this slight abuse of the list.

Stephen Cremin

PS: I think perhaps one person on the list may be awaiting a copy of "The 
Asian Film Library Reference to Japanese Film".  A new batch is being 
printed on Monday, so should be with you within 10-12 days.


The Asian Film Library
Suite 19, 2 Lansdowne Row
Berkeley Square
London W1X 8HL
United Kingdom

asianfilmlibrary at hotmail.com
www.6degrees.co.uk/lpaff

Tel: +44 7970 506 326
Fax: +44 171 493 4935 [Suite 19]


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