eisenstein & montage in prole cinema

[Chika Kinoshita]

I'm kind of embarrassed to see my sensei kindly promote my dissertation
chapter, while I was overwhelmed by the constant onslaught of course
preparation... Thanks, Michael!

The ways in which the Soviet montage film theory and films were introduced
to the Japanese film community around 1927-1931 are interesting, because the
actual films came later (Pudovkin's The Storm Over Asia in October 1930,
Eisenstein's The Old and the New, Dovzhenko's The Earth, Vertov's Man with a
Movie Camera, and Mikhail Kaufman's In Spring in 1931). I haven't looked at
the censorship records of those films; it must be a fascinating research.

Potemkin was imported but turned down by the Custom at the Yokohama bay (for
this dual censorship, Makino san's book provide a great account). Kurahara
Korehito's report to Kinema junpo in 1927 did mention Potemkin's use of
non-professional actors, filtered photography in the ocean, and handling of
the crowd at the Odessa steps briefly. But as Kurahara and Kobayashi Takiji
were very close friends, Kobayashi must have got knowledge of Potemkin
directly from Kurahara. A number of Japanese who lived abroad sent rather
detailed (some really detailed, occasionally shot by shot) descriptions of
Soviet montage films they saw in New York etc. to Kinema junpo and other
film magazines prior to the above films' release in Japan; Iijima Tadashi
translated an excerpt of the scenario of October for one of them. Shinkô
eiga (not to be mistaken for the film studio established in the 1930s), the
organ of Prokino edited by Murayama Tomoyoshi, published some movie stories
(eiga monogatari, synopsis juxtaposed with still photographs) of Soviet
montage films. But I don't recall any on Potemkin. I remember reading some
people talking about it (probably the same ones Will mentioned) in film or
literary journals, but I'd have to go back to my photocopie piles. Anyway,
in my chapter, I argued that sort of "montage" style of contemporary
proletarian literature, like a staccato enumeration of nouns and brief
sentences, came from those descriptions and translations of the unavailable
Soviet montage films (as well as from modernist literary movements form the
mid 1920s like Shinkankakuha).

As for the term "montage" (montaju in katakana), Iwasaki Akira is credited
with first using it in his translation of Semyon Timoshenko's booklet on
montage in 1928 (from German). This translation was eventually included in
Sasaki's translation of Pudvkin as an appendix. Fukuro Ippei Will mentioned
seems like the only translator of Russian. The National Film Center in
Tokyo's exhibition on film history, which I saw a few years ago, but is it
permanent??) included his books, posters he got from Russia, etc.

Iwamoto Kenji's pioneering article, "Nihon ni okeru montâju riron no shôkai"
[Introduction of the Montage Theory to Japanese Cinema], Hikaku bungaku
nenshi 10 (1976), 67-85, as well as Yamamoto Kikuo's book Michael talked
about, provides excellent bibliographical references on this topic. For the
info. on the Soviet films shown in Japan, Yamada Kazuo, "Nihon de jôei
sareta Sobieto eiga," in Bessatsu sekai eiga shiryô: Sobieto eiga no 40 nen
(Tokyo: Sekai Eiga Shiryô Sha, 1959) is useful, while Yamada doesn't tell us
the source of the info., making us leaf through Eiga kenetsu jiho and Kinema
junpo.

To add to Roger Macy's fascinating discovery of the 1929 Russian catalogue
of the exhibition about Japanese cinema, Eisenstein's "The Cinematographic
Principle and the Ideogram" was first published in it as "Afterword."

Cheers,

Chika

On 10/25/07, Michael Raine <mjraine at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>  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
>
> <http://www.umich.edu/%7Eiinet/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&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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