American movies in Japan

Michael Raine michael.raine at yale.edu
Wed Jun 5 23:28:24 EDT 2002


I have to admit I didn't read all of Ee oto ya nai ka? (it's about 1,000
pages!) but I found several chapters helpful in writing about the "Nikkatsu
new wave" in my dissertation. There are many explanations for postrecorded
sound in Japanese films, from economics and the difficulty of ensuring quiet
on location and on sets surrounded by increasingly dense suburbs to Noel
Burch and Donald Richie's "presentational" Japanese culture (illusion, it
seems, was never the goal). Dubbing is a slightly different question, I
think -- I'll write a bit about that in another message.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
[mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]On Behalf Of Aaron
Gerow
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 9:58 PM
To: KineJapan
Subject: Re: American movies in Japan


> While subtitling definitely is cheaper than dubbing, could it be that in a
> domestic film post-recording is cheaper (or easier?) than sync sound?

I wonder about this these days. Again, I wonder how much of it doesn't
have to do more with conventions and political stances than pure
economics. Many filmmakers today are shooting on very low budgets, but
there are quite a few who insist on location sound like Suwa Nobuhiro and
Kawase Naomi. Thus they use sound recordists with a background in
documentary like Kikuchi Nobuyuki, who started out with Ogawa Shinsuke
and has done films ranging from Angel Dust to M/Other, Eureka to Oinaru
gen'ei. There's is in many ways a statement about reality and reveals
once more the important influence of documentary on contemporary Japanese
film. Given this experience in low budget documentary (not all of which,
in the 1960s, was sync sound, by the way), one wonders if there is really
that much of a difference in cost.

For more on sound in Japanese cinema, people should read Hashimoto
Fumio's book with Ueno Koshi, Ee oto ya nai ka? (Little More, 1996).
Hashimoto is one of Japanese cinema's great sound recordists who started
out with Nikkatsu in the late 1950s (Michael, you should read this!) and
is still active today (he did sound for Mohohan).

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171



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