New Reference Book

[Abe-Nornes]

Although Stephen has suggested this discussion should become private
because some will find it dull. I think it's important enough that it
should be done in view of everyone who's writing about Japanese film. 

Pricing: $20 is certainly within the reach of individuals. 

Making it bilingual (with macrons no less) is fantastic, and should be
expected of any serious reference work like this. It's also a daunting task
when it comes to names! 

>1. Year and Month

I think you can set yourself a standard, release date for example, and then
indicate one or two symbols for other genres of dating. Quite a few
reference works for American films use the date when the film was reviewed
in Variety, but for domestic releases of Hollywood films the international
film festival circuit is basically meaningless. This seems to mark the
moment when the film was "completed" even if it may not be released per se.
For this kind of reference, maybe you could have one mark for festival
premiere and another for generally accepted completion....the former for
films like Afterlife, and the latter for films that never get released or
where it's simply hazy (as with many documentaries and avant-garde shorts).


(I'm starting a project on Ogawa Productions, and am finding varying dates
for nearly all the films.)

>2. Kanji Title

In cases like PiCNiC, I think it should be left as in the original. 

Capitalization _is_ stylistic, and is worth retaining. 

>3. Romaji Title
>
>Long vowels are indicated with a European "hat" above the vowel.  

Depending on the font you finally use for this, it could be a simple matter
for convert these to straight macrons.

>I'm only 
>capitalising the first word, except in the case of proper knowns: 

This is good.

>Often films with two sections 
>(often released a week apart) are marked "Zenpen" and "Kohen" respectively.  

This seems fine, but in the examples of 
 
>"ren'ai-hen" and "kekkon-hen" 

I think it needs to be retained. This contains narrative information other
than first and second.

>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.  

Actually, I think this is a very bad idea. Ask yourself who is going to use
the romaji: probably foreigners with little or no Japanese. Well, if they
have a little they can presumably read the katakana, however, you want to
allow people with absolutely no Japanese access to the pronunciation of the
Japanese title. Imagine journalists talking to Japanese film people who
want to have Japanese titles on hand for discussions or interviews, or
librarians being asked questions. Imagine writers writing in English who
want to include the romaji for a title, but don't know Japanese. I think
you have to make all romaji a direct transliteration, not an adaption or
translation. 

>4. English Title

>English titles change over time...and too many director filmographies 
>used in catalogues have been created (ie "translated") 
>without watching (or even reading about) the individual films themselves.  

And many of these translators know nothing about film. Some just have no
imaginations. In my upcoming writing on Ogawa Shinsuke, I'm planning on
introducing new translations of some titles where the original is strong
and imaginative and the translation is deadly dull. 

However, if a film does have an English title it would be nice to have a
record of it. In an extreme case like the Sazae-san film, you could put an
aka ___ in parenthesis.....especially if you think your work will become
the first source people look at.

>5. Classification

The films that will confound your classification system are the ones that
trouble boundaries. Why not leave your own classification system flexible
enough that it can accomodate all films. Thus, the Kinoshita Renzo animated
short is just that. An "animated short." Likewise, why not call the Imamura
film a "documentary fiction film"?

>6. AFL Reference

>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.  

This makes sense.

>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.

Kanji is far more important than romaji here, and the alternate names
problem could be solved with single line entries in the main text (eg:
"Kawase Naomi, see Sento Naomi"). 

Thanks for your effort, Stephen!

Markus