Re: Tenkô in Japanese film ?

[Mark D. Roberts]

Dear Michael,

Actually, I've not seen Yamada's "Kinema no tenchi" but I'm adding it  
to the "to-see" list now. Isolde Standish's book is something I  
recently skimmed looking for other information. It struck me as a  
very solid piece of research, and I'm happy to have another excuse to  
go look at it some more.

For a cross-cultural study of tenk?, it might also be interesting to  
consider films produced in Vichy France. My sense is that compared  
with Germany under the Nazis, fewer people felt the need to simply  
escape, there are questions of how filmmakers negotiated with an  
occupying authority, and the whole issue of collaboration/conversion  
is more murky. I must admit that I know little about it, but I'm  
wondering if that might provide another good point of comparison for  
the situation in Japan, where, as you say, tenk? might be more the  
exception than the norm, and filmmakers, writers, and critics were  
focused more on coping strategies than exit visas.

I very much appreciate your suggestion that I take this up as a  
longer project. It's certainly an interesting topic and I will give  
it some thought. If you don't mind, I may contact you off the list in  
the future to ask some questions, since you understand a lot of the  
basic issues better than I.

Again, thanks very much for your ideas and support.

Best Regards,

Mark