Yanagisawa Hisao

[Abe-Nornes]

I was sad to hear of Yanagisawa Hisao's death. Our paths crossed many
times. Yamagata. Independent documentary screenings here and there. His
wife's minshuku in Miyagawa-cho. Yanagisawa made some pretty interesting
films, and was quite the risk-taker. After the war he left the security of
studio work and was among the first wave of independent filmmakers in the
late 40s. He was basically a hired gun I suppose. Two of these films which
Aaron didn't mention, kyoiku eiga, are very good---"Mt. Fuji Summit
Observation Post" (Fujisancho kansokujo) and "People Living on the Sea"
(Umi ni ikiru hitobito). Both show men working in extreme conditions, the
wintery summit of Fuji and the very tall seas off the coast of Japan. I'm
sure these were particularly impressive for their day, like the IMAX of the
1940s perhaps. I can't think of many documentaries from the 1940s or before
featuring photography in the midst of such brutal conditions. 

Yanagisawa is best known for his films on the mentally and physically
handicapped, and his subjects were more often than not children. The films
are careful studies following the daily lives of these people, shot and
editing in such a way as to allow spectators uncommon access to their
experience of the world. The strength of this work is evidenced by the fact
that he was constantly being invited all over Japan to screen these films
at hospitals and support groups until he was too weak to travel...thirty
years after their production. 

In the larger scheme of things, Yanagisawa must also be remembered as a
pioneer of the independent production/screening movement. In the 1950s, he
became frustrated with PR film work, and was one of the first to take
independence a step further, raising money wherever he could on the basis
of the importance of his subject matter. And then traveling the country
with print under arm. He once told me about one of the more striking
fundraising methods I've ever heard: he would take the Kyoto phone book,
pound a nail through it, and contact each and every person that got hit!

Yanagisawa was developing this kind of method about the same time as other
filmmakers, particularly those coming out of Iwanami (Ogawa Shinsuke looked
up to Yanagisawa as a sensei). Also, while his films admittedly fail to
achieve the power of Tsuchimoto's Minamata Series (as emotional
experiences, as "movement cinema," as theoretical experiments), the latter
cannot really be seen outside of the context of Yanagisawa's pioneering
work (Yanagisawa's Children Before Dawn was 1968; Tsuchimoto's Minamata:
The Victims and Their World was 1971, and before that Tsuchimoto only did a
1965 tv doc on the subject). Yanagisawa was probably the first filmmaker to
broach this controversial subject and treat his subjects as _subjects_. As
fellow humans that think, emote and live. 

Toward the end of his life, as he spent more time around hospitals taking
care of his own failing health, Yanagisawa started up a film on nurses, the
unsung heros of medical care. I don't know how far he got on this project,
but I do remember pleasant meals with the director when staying at Isoda
Ryokan. So passionate, but so soft-spoken. 

I have one encounter with Yanagisawa-san that will stay with me for the
rest of my life. At the 1991 Yamagata International Documentary Film
Festival, I screened the Monbusho version of "Gakuto shutsujin," which
reports this enormous ceremony for students who were being yanked from
schools and sent to the front to die in the late stages of WWII. Footage
from the Nichiei newsreel is often shown on television and films,
especially shots of the muddy uniforms of the kids as they march through
the rain. The Monbusho version is longer, and much, much more powerful for
reasons that escape me. It's a devastating, draining film in the way that
no other propaganda film I can think of is. After the Yamagata screening,
Yanagisawa-san came up to me in the lobby of the theater. He was white and
shaking, and started sobbing as he thanked me for showing the film: "I
remember that day. I was in Kyoto, and I remember going outside and seeing
posters on the telephone poles for the Gakuto Shutsujin ceremonies. I never
saw the film until today, but my brother was at that Tokyo ceremony. He
never came back from the war. I looked so hard to see him in the
crowd---one last look at my brother's face---but I couldn't find him."

Some thoughts about the delicacy of life upon hearing sad news....

amn