More on Memoirs

[Alexander Jacoby]

  Hi all,
   
  In the light of the recent debate about and amusement at the "Japan" presented in "Memoirs of a Geisha", I have just despatched the following letter to the Japan Times. Whether they will publish it or not who knows, so for what's it worth, I thought I might as well share it with you here.
  
ALEX
   
   
   
  "Both Kaoru Shoji's review of "Memoirs of a Geisha" (December 15th) and a more recent article by Roger Pulvers (January 8th) took the film to task for its stereotypical misrepresentation of the geisha lifestyle and milieu. But neither writer evoked the distinguished tradition of Japanese films about geisha, in the light of which this new Hollywood treatment of geisha life is not only inaccurate, but superfluous.
   
  In 1936, around the time when Memoirs of a Geisha is set, Kenji Mizoguchi made Sisters of Gion, one of the enduring masterpieces of Japanese cinema. Mizoguchi acknowleged exactly what Mr Pulvers condemns the new film for repressing: that the geisha system was one of institutionalised slavery, and that its male clients and patrons were brutally exploitative.
   
  That film is only one example of a tradition which includes, for starters, such neglected gems as Mizoguchi's later "Gion Festival Music", Hiroshi Inagaki's "Geisha in the Old City", and Kimisaburo Yoshimura's "Clothes of Deception". All these films trenchantly exposed the sad realities of geisha life. The Japanese cinema has refuted, in advance, the sentimental vision of Memoirs of a Geisha. Journalists critical of Hollywood Orientalism should be drawing attention to the abiding achievement of Japan's own filmmakers."


		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/private/kinejapan/attachments/20060111/4a3aad2b/attachment.html