Imamura

[Abe-Nornes]

Jonathan wrote:

>Can we exactly call the work a collaboration?  And what value is there in
>underlining the Imamura connection?  The Ruoffs are keen to set up the link
>between Imamura and Hara.  Referring to Extreme Private Eros, Love Song
>1974, they write "Like Imamura's Buta to gunkan, Hara's film paints a
>savage portrait of a Japanese port town corrupted by the American naval
>presence."  (p. 6) .....These comments are not developed, and
>make me wonder what is the Ruoffs agenda is establishing Hara alongside /
>beneath Imamura.  

The agenda is clear, and is not an unusual one in film studies.
Well-meaning writers (teachers, programmers, etc.) who are promoting a
marginalized form of cinema (documentary, video art, porno, etc.) draw in
prestigious narrative cinema to legitimize and "glamourize" the object of
their affection. I do it all the time. Pretty much everyone does. 

The Ruoff's case is probably a little more complicated, as little is known
about Japanese documentary. If there is any weakness in this very fine
book, it's that virtually every film reference is to a fictional film. On
the one hand, this helps to level the differences between famous directors
like Imamura and Oshima and a great documentary filmmaker like Hara,
working against the general prejudice against documentary. On the other
hand, it helps people who have seen a little Japanese cinema make sense of
a film they may not have seen (and is hard to access). 

The problem with this strategy is that it pretends to be context, when what
we really need to know is what was going on in the Japanese documentary
world at the time. The fiction and documentary film worlds are, of course,
deeply interconnected. However, at the same time they are relatively
autonomous, and the discourses swirling around the documentary in Japan
have a life of their own. This context is missing from the Ruoff's book,
especially when you look at the excellent job they do with the production
process and postwar politics of war memory. 

Markus

PS: Peter's suggestion of get-togethers at Kyoto and Yamagata is an
excellent one. I'm there!