Imamura

[David Desser]

At 10:15 AM 8/19/99, anne mcknight wrote:
 >I have a slightly different Imamura question, which is that I've seen both
>the original idea & the production of Hara Kazuo's *Yukiyukite shingun*.
>Does anybody know any more about the background of this, or how the
>collaboration proceeded?  I am guessing
>the south seas battles (New Guinea in this case) may have been an object
>of inquiry due to Imamura's consistent interest in south seas/nan'yo
>"primitivism"  as well as his interest in fictional histories, historical
>fiction.
>
>Thanks for any leading leads.
>anne mcknight

Coincidentally, I've just finished reading a monograph on the film, written
by Jeffrey Ruoff and Kenneth Ruoff in the Flicks Books series. (These books
seem to be somewhat hard to come by, though our own Aaron Gerow did one of
the books in the series.)  The Ruoffs wrtie that Okuzaki Kenzo, the
protagonist of the film, approached Imamura in the late 70s with the idea
of making a film about his (Okuzaki's) anti-war, anti-Emperor activities.
Imamura, worried about the film's commercial possibilities, turned over the
project to an assistant of his, Hara Kazuo, who produced the film along
with his wife, Kobayashi Sachiko.  Imamura, Hara, even Okuzaki himself
provided the rather minimal funding to shoot the film over its five-year
production process.

I'm sure Okuzaki approached Imamura for the very reasons you outline,
except that the New Guinea aspects are minimal to the film.  The Ruoffs
write that Hara and Okuzaki did return to New Guinea with an eye toward
Okuzaki making some sort of ritual apology for Japan's actions, but the
footage could not be used in the final film.

David Desser