From film to TV

[John Dougill]

Thank you to Aaron Gerow and Michael Badzick for the information about
transcripts/screenplays.  Michael Badzick writes that novelised versions of
drama stories can be found in Kinokuniya in California - are these in
Japanese or English?

I was interested in Michael Badzick's "Examples abound as well of
television largely "inspired by" American movies and television."  I've
often noticed Japanese dramas copying or parodying whatever the latest
American hit is, and if I'm not mistaken what looks like this season's big
drama - Kyukyobyoto 24jikan - is a direct copy of ER.  Is anyone else
following the tv dramas this season and if so what?  It might be
interesting to compare notes....

As for quality flowing out of quanity, that might well happen but then
again it might not.  Japanese tv has a volume output, but only the bravest
of souls would assert that this has led to programmes of exceptional
quality.  I can't help recalling too the last film review in the Asahi
Evening News of the late great Alan Booth, intimate of Japan and things
Japanese, who fumed that he could no longer bear sitting through the
endless reels of mediocrity being churned out by Japanese film companies no
matter how much he was paid.   Bollywood is famous as a mass producer of
films for its home market but I'm not aware of many Indian films scoring
high as quality films, unlike France for instance which produces far fewer
films.  Doesn't the fact that Japan in recent years produced more films
than the US (238 films in 1993 compared with 210  by the US in 1992)
suggest that it is closer to the Bollywood model?

Just a thought
John Dougill
Kyoto