Love & Pop -- extended re-mix

[Aaron Gerow]

>i couldn't help but feel (and
>it took me a whole month to figure out what i felt) that most pockets of
>super-modern society have lost the "unity" or singularness of values,
>purpose and identity ... perhaps it is out there, and some of us do have a
>grasp of it (and can make powerful, insightful films about it) ... but for
>those who don't, it is "all" just out there mixed-up with the red herrings
>
>in this way, i feel i agree with Mark in suggesting that at this stage
>perhaps "connecting", bringing about that certain "buzz" in their lives is
>more important ... well, that's probably about the best we could do, we
>so-called film intellectuals and film "belabourers" ... i certainly do not
>want to lose my ability to connect with the younger generation, because like
>it or not they will soon become the custodian of humanity ...

A great setting-up of the issue.  I feel there is much I can agree with 
you here, but I would just want to make some comments.

First, I also feel there is a need to reconnect things, but I wonder 
about how this is done and what kind of unity is being created.  I think 
one reason why many young Japanese look at conventional images of heroes 
found not only in movies but also in textbooks and educational media and 
see something false--in fact, why many feel such traditional institutions 
of unification such as the school and the family are seen as bankrupt--is 
because they don't really provide a real means of unification for those 
people (be that in terms of identity formation, value creation, etc.).  
Things have just changed too much for these old means to work.  (Some 
have argued that the prospect of the nation, as put forward for instance 
in Kobayashi Yoshinori, can seem a more realistic means of unifying to 
some Japanese precisely because it is so abstract and fictional--in 
comparison, they know the other, more immediate and concrete solutions 
too well to believe in them.)  The problem in part lies in the fact that 
many of these old means simply do not understand the current problem.  
Given this, just throwing forward any model of connecting will not work.  
It has to be one that recognizes the current situation and works towards 
making connections based on what is realistically available.  At the same 
time, one must be concerned with what kind of unity is being presented: 
reconstructing Imperial Japan, for instance, no matter how seductive it 
is to some young Japanese, is not very desirable.

What I find interesting about directors like Aoyama and Yamamoto Masashi 
is that they are not just presenting the empty flux of contemporary 
society, but are actively engaged in making connections, ones based on a 
realistic appreciation of the current situation.  Aoyama's Shady Grove 
and Eureka are in fact about communication, but they do not begin from 
the utopian premise that a communion with others is possible, but from 
the opposite: that the other cannot be known.  Instead of being a 
nihilist, however, Aoyama then poses the questions: how then can we 
communicate when real communication is impossible?; how can we relate to 
others when knowledge of the other is impossible?; how can we represent 
the unrepresentable?  The first step is often just the mutual recognition 
of existence (a step that is often illogical and a leap of faith, but a 
necessary one), and the scenes in Eureka of people contacting each other 
through knocks on pipes and walls--actions which communicate nothing 
other than the other is there--represent this first step.  Aoyama et al. 
then confront the emptiness of contemporary existence not by presenting 
"full" alternatives that effectively deny the problem of emptiness to 
begin with, but try to work from the emptiness as a starting point.  That 
I feel is more realistic.

How this invloves the audience is then complicated.  Providing images of 
unity and connection can be used by audiences, but often only in an 
illusory way, imposing unity where none exists, providing connections in 
which the sides being connected have not participated.  I wonder whether 
or not one of the basic premises of the kind of detached style we see 
these days is nothing other than the challenge to the audience to stop 
sitting back and to try to build connections, first by bridging the gaps 
between the camera/audience and the characters.  That's why I still think 
a more critical style, one that involves audience participation, is still 
needed.

Aaron Gerow
YNU

P.S. Forgive all the citations of Aoyama (I must sound like an Aoyama 
groupie).  I'm writing an anthology contribution on him and he is 
floating around in my head a lot these days.