eisenstein & montage in prole cinema

[Michael Raine]

By mistake, I sent this reply to Markus instead of to the whole list. I hope
he (and Chika?) will respond (have already responded?) here instead.

Chika Kinoshita's dissertation has an excellent discussion, extending the
work of Iwamoto Kenji and Yamamoto Kikuo, of the introduction of montage
theory between 1928 and 1931, generating what she calls a "culture of
montage" in Japan. She argues that Tokunaga Sunao's Taiyo no nai machi tries
to find a literary equivalent to the juxtaposition and simultaneity
characteristic of the Soviet version of montage, so a connection to The
Factory Ship wouldn't be surprising. Much of the discussion of Eisenstein
and others took place in mainstream journals, not only the Prokino texts.
That's true of the US too: it's amazing where translations of Eisenstein's
essays turned up (Hound and Horn?!). It seems the usual conduit for the
translations was through German, which makes sense. Yamamoto (Nihon eiga ni
okeru gaikoku eiga no eikyo; for all its methodological shortcomings I
really like this book!) lists Kurahara Korehito's articles in Kinema junpo
(March and April 1927) as the first accounts of Potemkin and other montage
films. Though his general point is that a lot of "montage" in Japanese films
(flash frames, etc) comes from European filmmaking practices, while the
dominant "influence" on Japanese film in general came from Hollywood. As
Markus says, a worthy topic for further study.

I forgot to mention that it's interesting, and perhaps not wholly
surprising, that Eisenstein's essays were published during wartime, and were
still being advertised during the Pacific War. Not all writers on film
during wartime were nativist champions of cultural autochthony: people like
Ooya Soichi defended "Americanism" in the pursuit of a populist "People's
film" and there are clear narrative and technical borrowings (Stagecoach,
midair photography) from Hollywood films. Also, some of the writing on
formal aspects of film as essential to a medium committed to total
mobilization seems to me to share Eisenstein's "illiberal modernist"
understanding of the relation between screen and viewing subject. Speaking
of wartime film books . has anyone see the book on film performance (Eiga
engigaku dokuhon) with chapters by Itami, Kinugasa, Ozu and many others? Is
it as fascinating as it seems? Apparently Waseda has a copy. 

 

Michael

 

From: Mark Nornes [mailto:amnornes at umich.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 1:41 PM
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: eisenstein & montage in prole cinema

 

 

On Oct 23, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Anne McKnight wrote:





 

But looking at the prole cinema materials that I have, Eisenstein doesn't
seem to feature much. I read of _Potemkin_ being banned by the government,
while essays and translations seem to focus on Pudovkin, and the
presentation of Soviet cinema by French scholars (whose work remains
untranslated in English to date). All this leads me to think that while
people hadn't perhaps seen _Potemkin_ in Japan, they both heard about it,
and/or may have seen it in Russia. Has anyone seen "story-plays" (eiga
monogatari) of _Potemkin_, for example? 

 

This is an interesting question, and I'd love to see it researched by
someone. Pudovkin does seem to get all the glory when it comes to the
Soviets. Sasaki Norio published a book of his translations from Eisenstein
(Eiga no benshoho) in 1931, and a second collection was published in 1940
(believe it or not). Books of Pudovkin's writings were published in 1930,
1935, and 1936, and all of those got revised, updated versions published
shortly thereafter. 

 

Some magazines were known for doing photospreads and scenarios of Soviet
films; however, the only one I've seen for Eisenstein was Zensen in one of
the Prokino journals. 

 

A couple things come to mind. 

 

First, this is late. In fact, long after the Kobayashi book. The proletarian
film journals don't really start until 1927-28, and I don't recall them
writing much of anything about Eisenstein-or Soviet cinema in general. You
can see them here, in my reprint series: 

 

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/filmprojournals.html

 

The earliest book is from Murayama in 1928 (Puroretarian eiga Nyumon;
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.bbx2322.0001.001), and that has almost
nothing on Eisenstein. 

 

One place you might be able to find some things is the back end of
Puroretarian Eiga no Tenbo; look around page 247: 

 

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=cjfs
<http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=cjfs&cc=cjfs&idno=bbx
2327.0001.001&q1=dlps&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=263>
&cc=cjfs&idno=bbx2327.0001.001&q1=dlps&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=263

 

Second, those first journals are mostly about screenwriting because they
didn't see production within their grasp. Pudovkin wrote some fairly
practical things about screenwriting, and I think the first book translated
was on that.  This could explain the preponderance of his writings. 

 

Third, also because this is all happening late, the criticism of Eisenstein
and Vertov's formalism has probably started affecting Japan. Formal
experiments like Iwasaki's Asphalt Road were criticized, so it would make
sense that Eisenstein's films were overlooked in favor of Pudovkin's more
pedestrian style of montage. 

 

Fourth, this involves translation, and from a fairly unusual language. You
never know how personal predilection of the translator=gatekeeper plays into
this.

 

Of the articles I've read on montage by Iwamoto and others, I don't recall a
discussion of this. But I have always wondered what was going on. 

 

Markus

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