Dating Films
Stephen Cremin
asianfilmlibrary
Wed Jun 9 06:04:27 EDT 1999
In my reference works, I use the Japanese release date. The reason is that
I want a record of a precise year, month and day (of the month) so that I
can in some way give a [pretty] consistent chronological order to cast and
staff filmographies. Where two films are released on the same day, I try to
order them using a-i-u-e-o, ie "alphabetically".
But I do think that the copyrighted date should be listed as a piece of
extra information with the film credits. But as Max suggested, this can be
painstaking to determine ... especially when based in London. Where a film
has been previously released on video or shown on television - as with
Harada's "KAMIKAZE TAXI" or Iwai's "FRIED DRAGON FISH" - then I tend to list
the theatrical release date in filmographies, while giving the earlier date
with the films credits.
My key problem comes with films which just don't get a Japanese release at
all. What year to put on Kobayashi Masaki's "Bootleg Film", etc...
(If there are inconsistencies in my reference books, I am very happy to
receive corrections by email.)
Stephen Cremin
Asian Film Library/LPAFF
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