New Books on Japanese Cinema and Pesaro F. F.

[Stephen Cremin]

I was only in Pesaro for a couple of days.  I really wanted to see list
members Roberta and Roland in the flesh and also had the pleasure to bump
into Bodo.  I think it was Bodo.  I don't think I've visited a cinema in
Italy and not bumped into Bodo.  There's a factory cloning him somewhere.  I
do recommend that any international film festivals do import one for their
event.  There were fifteen (phew!) panelists including Roberta, Roland, Ken
Okubo, Giovanni Spagnoletti, Dario Tomasi, Olaf Moller (would-be list member
in Europe without email or fax), Amano Mayumi (Pia FF), Tomiyama Katsue
(Image Forum), plus directors Kore'eda Hirokazu (DISTANCE), Ichikawa Jun
(ZAWAZAWA SHIMOKITAZAWA), Hara Masato (20TH CENTURY NOSTALGIA), Suwa
Nobuhiro (H-STORY), Sakamoto Rei (SEX FRIEND NUREZAKARI) and Tajiri Yuji (OL
NO LOVE JUICE).

(I can just find the last page of my notes at the moment.  If I find the
rest, I'll post more information to the list.  The directors were given a
framework in which to introduce themselves: Suwa was asked to talk about his
relationship with Sento Takenori and Kore'eda to link his films with Ozu. 
But neither seemed particularly comfortable with that restriction.  Roland
introduced the two pink directors, introducing the genre and its tradition. 
Please, please, correct any misunderstandings in the following, Roberta.)

Time was short given so many panelists.  I gave a very boring little talk
about how the export market for Japanese films affects the films being made;
giving a brief analysis of Japanese domestic distribution in recent decades
and how that connected to the directors' talks and the infrastructure people
in attendance.  Roberta gave a fantastic little talk on her perception of
the interesting themes in 1990s Japanese film.  She felt that films were
exploring phyical aspects of human bodies, in particular death, in
significant new ways, noting Ichikawa Jun's DYING AT A HOSPITAL as a
particularly important example, as well as Kore'eda's work.  She feels that
many directors have focused increasinly on the metamorphosis of the body,
noting Tsukamoto, Miike and a general manga influence that might have
influenced this.  She made us all even more keen to see Miike's new film,
presumably AN ASSASSIN CALLED ICHI, which takes this to a new extreme.  This
for her is a new type of violence in the cinema stressing an increased focus
on the body.  She also notes that children (and the family) become
particularly significant in 1990s cinema with films being made through
children's eyes such as Somai Shinji's MOVING and, by inference, Ichikawa's
OSAKA STORY.  She tied all these themes in with the recent psycho-horror
films which she feels need more exposure.

Questions from the audience were particularly bad.  Somebody in the audience
had mistook Kurosawa's Mori Masayuki with Kitano's Mori Masayuki leading to
an impression that Mori's rotting corpse (RIP) had found a new lease of life
behind the camera.  A question about politics in contemporary Japanese film
did animate the directors with Ichikawa Jun stating that films dealing with
politics are among the least interesting films being made.  But while noting
that politics is in some ways "outside" Japanese people, Suwa noted that
just being alive is political and hence all filmmaking is political, even if
you are only reinforcing political norms.  Hara, who feels that Japanese
people's "mass consciousness" neds to be built up, encouraged the audience
to see TSURU-HENRY and HARATOMIC LETTER as examples of contemporary
political cinema in Japan, both playing that afternoon.  Elsewhere he noted
that Japan has a 1000-year tradition of making diaries and that the camera
has replaced that tradition as a means of personal expression.

Spagnoletti and Tomasi did a good job of keeping chaos at bay with such a
large panel.  I think it was Olaf who gave a spirited defence of Kore'eda's
DISTANCE and any politician's in Eastern Europe should hire him immediately
as their speech writer.  I don't think Kore'eda and the rest of us ever
worked out what the question was about but I think the audience member was
upset that he hadn't explained the unexplainable and perhaps felt there was
too much "distance" in a film called DISTANCE.  Anyway, Olaf saved the day
and made a very long session a little shorter which I'm sure pleased Roberta
who didn't seem to smoke a single cigarette throughout the whole three hours
or so.

Stephen

----------
>From: Roberta Novielli <novielli at unive.it>
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Subject: New Books on Japanese Cinema and Pesaro F. F.
>Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 10:17:23 +0200
>

>My book's reference is
>
>Maria Roberta Novielli
>Storia del cinema giapponese
>prefazione di Oshima Nagisa
>Venezia, Marsilio Editore, 2001, pp. 356
>ISBN 88-317-7754-8
>
>It has been published only last week and I've just come back from Pesaro,
>that's  the reason for I hadn't posted the reference to the list before. I
>hope some of you will have the chance to read it, even if  Italian is not
>an easy language to read.
>
>As for the symposium held in Pesaro, it has been a surprise meeting Stephen
>there. I hope he may want to report the discussion to the list, he can
>write it in English much better than me.
>
>The book on Japanese cinema published by the festival was originally
>conceived as an Italian-English book, but  they have had some budget
>limitation and had to give up with the English version.
>
>
>
>Roberta Novielli
>Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia Orientale
>Universita' Ca' Foscari, Ca' Cappello, San Polo 2035
>30125 VENEZIA (Italy)
>tel. +39.041.52.85.801; fax  +39.041.52.42.397
>e-mail: novielli at unive.it
>
>