Tokyo Olympics

[Mark Nornes]

First off, for the production history and some very interesting takes 
on the film take a look at the recent Ichikawa book edited by Quant. 
There's a roundtable in there among KineJapan types---Katie Russell, 
James Quant, Eric Cazdyn, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto and myself. You can also 
find it in the liner notes of the Criterion disk of the film.

II don't know if you'll find an answer to your question. However, I do 
think you've picked up on something. Seriality, anthnologizing, 
cataloguing---these are all aspects of mainstream documentary in Japan 
since the long form conventions coalesced back in the 1930s. Or at 
least a strain of them. One of the better examples is the atomic bomb 
film; perhaps when the scale of the object become huge, an 
amplification of this structure is a way to manage the excess.

What is interesting is how the Ichikawa film is so often used to 
represent Japanese documentary, yet it's actually so out of touch with 
what was going on at the time. Hani and other Iwanami types had broken 
the ice, and Matsumoto had already done a number of great experimental 
docs. 1964ish is precisely when all the best filmmakers from Iwanami 
quit to do their own thing, the year of Tsuchimoto's film on the 
Malaysian exchange student.

I recently saw Kuroki's Hokkaido, My Love after many years, and what 
struck me this time around has to do with what Anne's brought up. 
Kuroki was trying to break the mold and do something different, 
something that eventually got he and the film into trouble. What he 
seemed to be working against was exactly this anthologizing impulse of 
the conventional doc. The need, or the sponsor's desire, to have every 
aspect of every industry in Hokkaido represented in the film. Kuroki 
messed around with this by adding the love story. One has the sense the 
two kinds of desire battle throughout the course of the film.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By the way, I saw this at an event I've been meaning to describe on 
KineJapan. Kubota Tatsuo has just published a book. He is one of the 
important figures in the postwar independent documentary, as he was the 
sound man for most of the important films by Ogawa, Tsuchimoto, 
Kigashi, Kuroki, Sato, and others. He also did a number of the feature 
films by Kuroki and Higashi, et al. It's an interesting book because he 
actually wrote it, rather than simply including an interview as we've 
seen with a few other recent books by cameramen and other crew members.

Kubota Tatsuo. Kikoete Imasu ka, Eiga no Oto (Tokyo: Waizu, 2004).

Kawasaki Shi Shimin Museum did a series in conjunction with the book. 
Lot's of great films, and a mini-symposium with Kubota, Kuroki and Sato 
Makoto; organized by Kawamura. It was pretty interesting. Here are a 
couple of the stories that struck me.

----Kubota talked about the difference between doing sound on location 
vs. at the late stages (seiri). He likes doing both. In the latter, you 
have a privileged view of the film as a semi-outsider. He and Sato 
talked about coming in at the post-production of Aga ni ikiru, when it 
was too long and needed cutting. Sato was thinking about certain 
sections, and Kubota told him to cut others. It was painful, but in 
retrospect Sato was totally impressed by Kubota's choices and thought 
it made the film.

---On location, he often shot docs without synch. For example, on 
Kuroki's Hokkaido- My Love, he would watch the rushes and only then go 
to the shooting locations to capture sound. That way, he could really 
be in tune with the imagery, ensuring that he recorded sound in ways 
that would enhance the film.

----He had a great story about the "origin" of Ogawa Productions. Well, 
not Ogawa Productions, but Ogawa's career as an independent filmmaker. 
After quitting Iwanami, where he was unable to direct a film, it's 
known that Ogawa was writing many scripts and trying to sell them to 
companies. People often mention a script on beer. But Kubota had the 
inside story. A brewery was interested in his script, and had him come 
in along with his crew (Kubota and Suzuki Tatsuo).  Ogawa went in alone 
to talk to the company president. 20 minutes later, he came out and 
announced that the deal had fell through. Unbeknownst to them, the 
company had taken his script and shown it to another production 
company; they came in with a lower bid, and basically stole Ogawa's 
script. Kubota described the three of them walking down the street, 
despondent, and suddenly Ogawa broke out in uncontrollable tears. It 
was from that moment, Kubota said, that Ogawa made the turn away from 
the safe sponsored film to scary independent route. That's why he 
gathered the students around him shortly after this to make Sea of 
Youth.  It was a funny story.

Finally, I thought I'd mention one of the films they showed before the 
symposium in a double feature with Hokkaido, My Love. It's Aru 
shuppansha---Goju-nen. This was directed by Hani Susumu to celebrate 
the 50th anniversary of Iwanami Press. I don't ever recall seeing it on 
a filmography for Hani, but it's worth a look if you ever have a 
chance. Simply because Iwanami has it's place in both publishing and 
cinema history. Basically, a newsreel and shot/edited on 35mm, it 
covers the Iwanami story. In that sense, it's fairly conventional and 
probably the reason Hani doesn't talk about it. But it's conventional 
only if you liken it to the usual newsreel fare. The soundtrack is 
spectacular. A complicated sound montage of 20th centural aurality. The 
perfect choice for a celebration of Kubota's work.

All pristine new prints struck by Kawasaki. That's the place to go if 
you want to see these films. They were stunningly beautiful for PR 
films.

Markus




On Nov 25, 2004, at 7:48 AM, anne mcknight wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone has read anything about the production 
> history of
> Ichikawa Kon's Tokyo Olympics, documenting the 1964 games. Watching it
> again, it struck me how 'yearbook-like' the structure was, and how 
> devoted
> it was to the kinds of seriality that archives are typically 
> interested in,
> rather than the kind of narratives that documentary film-goers are 
> typically
> interested in. For instance, in the beginning, the film's VO goes 
> rather
> interminably through EVERY Olympic locale since 1896, anthologizing 
> the list
> in the manner of an archive, not the zippy story-telling fashion of a 
> 90-min
> doc.
>
> I like Yoshikuni Igarashi's piece on the Tokyo O, that locates it in 
> various
> hygiene movements of the postwar--cleanups of Tokyo, monitoring of 
> athletes'
> bodily functions, and so on. But I was rather intrigued by the 
> seriality,
> the anthologizing impulse of the film. Does anyone have any insights 
> into
> this it was funded by the Japan Olympics Committee, and I'm not sure 
> they
> envisioned anyone actually seeing this on the big screen...or WERE 
> people so
> used to watching newsreels and so on, that they could deal with this 
> kind of
> endlessness...
> Thanks for any speculations.
> Anne
>
>
>
>
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