Kinema Club V impressions

Tue Jul 12 09:00:41 EDT 2005

> Since when has it been a custom to deliver handouts at academic 
> conferences?
E.N.


>  As for the paper presentations at Athenee Francais - I thoroughly 
> enjoyed the ones that I attended, but was very annoyed that many of 
> the presenters didn't prepare sufficient handouts which made it that 
> much more difficult to follow the discussion. I was very impressed by 
> the breath of topics being researched and the quality of some of the 
> presentations. A word of advice for presenters though - eye contact!!! 
> It was very painful when some presenters just read off their scripts 
> and made no effort to engage the audience.
>
>  Thats it from me for now, its been quite a while since the conference 
> so forgive me if some of my recollections are a bit faulty...!
>
>  cheers
>  Wei Ting
>
>
>
>
> On 7/7/05, david henry <dahenry at umich.edu> wrote:
>> recent Kinema Club V and since no one else has written on it I
>> thought I'd forward some impressions. Since this is my first post I
>> should probably introduce myself: David Henry, ABD at the University
>> of Michigan working on Folktales, Textuality, and National Identity
>> in modern Japan.
>>
>>
>> The first day, Wednesday, at Sagamihara/Kyobashi was great if
>> somewhat rushed. At Sagamihara we divided into 2 groups of 10 or so
>> each for separate 25 minute tours of the film vaults. There were 2
>> basement levels, each with 9 large rooms, for a total capacity of
>> 200,000 cans of film (they're now at 60% capacity, so I guess roughly
>> 120,00 cans right now?) The main storage rooms were set at either 10
>> or 15 degree celsius (why the difference? hmm) with a special room
>> for films that had 'caught' vinegar disease(?) set at 5 degrees.
>> There were jackets provided at the entrance for us, but they were one
>> short, and as I was the last one in the door it made for a rather
>> chilly tour!
>>
>> Seemed like excellent facilities. Nice landscaping up top to keep
>> things cool down below, a special air filtration system for the
>> vinegar diseased film that pulled air out through the floor and was
>> separate from the general air flow. They're also storing a fair
>> number of films for the major studios in return for reduced fees if
>> they want to strike copies, etc. For better or worse most of their
>> collection (at least almost all of the film canisters I passed by)
>> was porn. As the staff person was extolling the excellent facilities,
>> I noticed the film next to me was 'Shinjuku mesu nikki.' (something
>> like that) Later, there was an awkward pause, but he mentioned that
>> film center employees simply preserve everything they can get their
>> hands on without making any artistic judgements about value; hearing
>> this seemed to put everybody back into a good mood.
>>
>> Aaron did a good job herding us around, although it was raining and
>> we decided the (train) route as we were going (meaning we had to keep
>> on our toes hopping on and off trains). I heard they watched some
>> clips of very early Japanese films at Kyobashi, but I missed the
>> afternoon segment.
>>
>> I thought quality and variety of the panel presentations was really
>> good and I'd be interested in hearing other people's observations in
>> this area.
>>
>> I missed Rey Chow on Sunday, but Saturday's Avalon screening and talk
>> were great. Lamarre and Ueno were a little worried at first as Oshii
>> was maybe 10-15 minutes late, mentioning he got lost walking the
>> local streets. A Japanese woman (from Japan Foundation?) with a
>> British accent provided excellent translation for Oshii; opinion was
>> mixed on how Lamarre/Ueno decided not to translate each other's
>> comments but try to roughly recap each other in J/E. I really liked
>> it; thought it made for a dynamic interplay; J or E speakers
>> obviously didn't notice, and some J/E speakers I talked with found it
>> mildly irritating. Ueno questioned Oshii about criticism of fascism
>> in his works; which lead to a 15 minute criticism of Miyazaki and
>> Isao, comparing them to yakuza, dictators or Stalin for their
>> humanistic vision but dictatorial production methods. Lamarre
>> forwarded the question of dogs/wolf/wolfman in Oshii, Oshii responded
>> with mostly platitudes although mentioned that he's given up
>> collecting wolf T-shirts and is now collecting dog T-shirts. Hmm.
>> Well, he also mentioned wolves may seem like noble natural creatures,
>> but dogs are really the more developed, especially after living with
>> humans. He did have an interesting comment on close-ups; how they
>> lead us to expect truth in what they're expanding in on and their
>> dictatorial power; specifically he mentioned you can't do close-ups
>> in cel animation, but you can with CG, so he really enjoyed playing
>> with that in Innocence.
>>
>> As to military images in his works, he confessed to loving war
>> machines, buying those glossy Naval Warship or Aviation magazines in
>> Ochanomizu and lamenting how the old woman at the register always
>> looked at him like a criminal. He hazarded the opinion that if you
>> can't tell the difference between an armored personnel character and
>> a main battle tank then maybe you really shouldn't be commenting on
>> war/peace issues. Also that Japanese always assume the role of
>> higaisha, but maybe they should try to assume the perspective of
>> kagaisha sometimes. Ueno broke in at this point to suggest that of
>> course Oshii wasn't suggesting aggressive war, but the need to stop
>> hiding behind a victim mentality, which is probably what Oshii meant.
>>
>> Anyway, this is getting long, but I'd really be interested in hearing
>> other people's impressions of the conference.
>>
>> Best,
>> David Henry
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> "Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward, You 
> can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the 
> dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs
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