Subtitles in Japanese Theaters in the 1930s

[Aaron Gerow]

> This I haven't heard of. In fact, I have not heard of any 'preserved" 
> talkie setsumei; however, there are records of setsumei (see Jeffrey 
> Dym's book on benshi for more on that). There are also the Matsuda 
> videos with new benshi performances added. You could say these 
> preserve a certain conception of benshi setsumei from the 80s to the 
> present....

I haven't heard of any film prints that preserve the benshi commentary 
on a foreign talkie, but there are several examples of films preserving 
benshi commentary in general. From a historical standpoint, the History 
of Japanese Film that Gonda supervised during the war has several 
scenes of silent films accompanied by benshi narration. Some silent 
films like the Makino Chushingura were re-released with benshi 
soundtracks after the coming of sound. And some of the poverty row 
studios dealt with the coming of sound by making a film silent and 
releasing it with a benshi soundtrack, or adding scenes of a famous 
kodan or rokyoku performer starting and ending the film (what they 
"narrate" comes between). Some of those films are still extant.

Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
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e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu