TV coverage, content & treatment / red army incident

[Mark Nornes]

On Tuesday, September 3, 2002, at 09:37  AM, Anne McKnight wrote:

> This means that no-one know where to put commercials, and both
> in terms of TV syntax and daily life, the 'frame' within which details
> attain significance did not itself take place.  Until much later, 
> which I
> guess would be the project of films like The Choice of Hercules.
>     Someone out there may be or may have talked to people who saw the 
> Asama
> sanso jiken footage in 'real time.' I'd be interested to know their
> impressions and interpretations.

I have only seen bits and pieces myself, being turned away from the 
archives. Pat Steinhoff saw more and said it's rough, detached because 
of the distance between the house the hillside where the cameras were 
kept (using extreme telephoto lenses). I have asked people who watched 
it real time, and nobody remembers enough to be useful. The items I've 
read about the reportage are, despite its historical importance for 
being the first major live broadcast of an unfolding political event, 
boring and descriptive. No one asks the kinds of questions Anne is (tv 
studies outside of Comm is nascent in Japan, so it's not surprising).

However, I just spent some time in the Univ. of Hawaii's Takazawa 
Collection, which is mostly Red Army related materials. There are 
amazing clipping files for all the major Red Army incidents, and it is 
clear that the print reportage for the Asama Sanso Incident was 
providing a framework for the reading of the raw, live footage. 
Presumably, there were plenty of packaged news shows/interjections doing 
the same thing on tv as well, but the histories I've read only describe 
24-7 coverage.

By the way, through various contacts who are in touch with former 
Sekigun types, I've heard that Adachi, Matsuda, and others fully 
supported the attack on 9/11.

Markus

PS: Speaking of Harada, it was just announced in the Japanese media that 
he will be appearing AS AN ACTOR  in a Hollywood film called "The Last 
Samurai." It's to be directed by Edward Zwick, and he'll play across 
from Tom Cruise. Plot is a Civil War vet, presumably Cruise, who goes to 
Meiji Japan to train the new army and kick any remaining samurai ass. 
He's captured and learns the way of the samurai, presumably from Harada 
Masato, and then has to decide which way to choose. You can imagine the 
rest.