Leonard Schrader

[Mark Nornes]

It's worth noting that Schrader was also a co-translator of a  
manuscript called Masters of Cinema that has played an important part  
in the history of Japanese film studies. This was a book-length  
manuscript of translations of interviews with canonical directors. In  
the age when few foreigners writing about Japanese film read  
Japanese, this manuscript made the rounds and provided valuable  
background to that first generation of scholars. Look in the  
footnotes of that era of books/articles and you'll find references to  
it.

I've thought of reviving this manuscript and attempting to publish  
it. To that end, I contacted Schrader about a year ago and asked him  
what the story was behind this unusual ms. Here's what he wrote:

> Hello Mark Nornes,
>       The "book" is called MASTERS OF JAPANESE FILM.  It has never  
> been
> published because I became too busy writing screenplays.  At one  
> point Weatherhill
> was ready to publish it; at another point Knopf wanted to publish  
> it; but that was over
> 30 years ago.  In 1973 I deposited the unfinished manuscript in the  
> Pacific Film
> Archives at Berkeley, so scholars could use it.  For five years I  
> received annual
> updates on who was requesting what parts of it, but then it stopped.
>      The book concentrated on Mizoguchi, Ozu, Naruse and Kurosawa.   
> It translated
> into English every interview they ever gave.  (For example, I found  
> not only a lost
> Mizoguchi film but also a "lost" Mizoguchi interview from a mid- 
> Twenties magazine
> which is not in the possession of either the Japanese National  
> Library or the Japan
> Film Library.  In the late Sixties, Kyoto was a great place to find  
> used bookstores filling
> up with priceless materials being dumped by a dead filmmaker's  
> estate.)  Many of the
> Kurosawa interviews were, of course, already translated.  Next the  
> book translated every
> interview with the filmmaker's crew: screenwriters,  
> cinematographers, etc.  (This is
> how I became good friends with one of Mizoguchi's screenwriters,  
> the late Yoda
> Yoshikata who was the "go-between" at my wedding with my Japanese  
> wife.) In addition,
> the book translated a sampling of Japanese film criticism on each  
> filmmaker: it ranged
> from the mainstream consensus (such Iwasaki Akira) to the  
> provocative.  The "criteria"
> was to find something (anything?) that didn't bore me to death.  In  
> addition, I sent out
> questionaires to every director asking about these four  
> filmmakers.  I received several
> replies.  In addition, I interviewed my friends such as Kurosawa  
> Akira and Terayama
> Shuji.  So I have, for example, Kurosawa saying that although  
> Mizoguchi is Japan's best
> and most Japanese filmmaker, he didn't understand the samurai class  
> as profoundly as
> he understood the merchant class, so he wished Mizoguchi would have  
> asked Kurosawa
> to direct his few scenes with samurai.
>      I began the translations with a fellow faculty member in  
> Doshisha University English
> Department, Nakamura Haruji, a super sharp guy who is now Dean of  
> Doshisha University.
> However, he became busy and was soon replaced by my soon-to-be-wife  
> wife Chieko.  For
> awhile the translations were done by the three of us, but the bulk  
> of the work was done by
> my wife and me.
> Cheers,
> Len Schrader
> lschrader at afi.com
> dirtylens at earthlink.net

So there you go. Interesting story. I'm still looking into the  
possibility of publishing this. We'll see.

Markus