Mis-send (formerly Re: Yamagata: Docu-karaoke)

[batgirl@tkb.att.ne.jp]

Dear KineJapanners,

Apologies for the message forwarding Markus's earlier posting from 
Yamagata (and to Markus for interrupting a wonderful posting in 
mid-sentence!). I'd just opened a new mail window to start composing my 
own report from the Yamagata festival, and clicked on the send button 
by accident. I'll write up my own report, and post it soon.

Sarah Teasley

On 2007/10/11, at 18:10, batgirl at tkb.att.ne.jp wrote:

>
> On 2007/10/10, at 10:24, amnornes at umich.edu wrote:
>
>> Yesterday was quite the roller coaster. I understand Pedro Costa's 
>> talk actually made it's way to the topic of sound sometime after I 
>> walked out the door. I still have no regrets for making my way to 
>> other venues, even though the Indonesian documentary I ended up in 
>> was a mess. In a few minutes, the next sound workshop starts. This 
>> time it is with Kikuchi Nobuyuki, a legend in cinema sound here. He 
>> worked on many of the best films by people like Ogawa, Tsuchimoto, 
>> and Sato---to say nothing of Aoyama and many feature filmmakers. I:m 
>> looking forward to this one. One of Costa's few comments worth 
>> passing on was, "I know from being on many sets that cinematographers 
>> are always in a distracted state, worrying about a thousand things; 
>> sound men are quiet, very Zen, sitting there in peace waiting for 
>> shooting, kicking into action with total concentration when the time 
>> comes."  This bodes well for today's talk (and also makes me wonder 
>> what personality Costa would attribute to directors like him!).
>>
>> Jasper's comment makes me recall a scene from the other day. The 
>> politician at the center of Campaign was on the streets, ribbon 
>> around his shoulder, campaigning for the festival screening of his 
>> film. (He also asked Kawase Naomi about how cameras affect people 
>> being shot, adding that he has some experience with this.) There were 
>> some interesting conversations at Komian about whether this is simple 
>> fun or pure cynicism. In other words, was it the cheerful dedication 
>> to public service we see in the film itself, or part of his efforts 
>> to ingratiate himself to the party so he doesn:t have to pay for his 
>> next election. I tend to be convinced by the latter argument, but 
>> there was lively disagreement.
>>
>> A highlight of the festival for those lucky enough to attend was the 
>> screening of Kidlat Tahimik:s epic I am Furious Yellow. This is an 
>> incredibly wonderful, powerful film that charts the growth of 
>> post......
>>
>> [I was just interrupted by Sarah Teasley, who invited me to write a 
>> dig at all those KineJapan members at the festival who are writing 
>> nothing. I won't. I am simply trying to create some good karma. I 
>> always wish that people would write up dispatches on the fly from 
>> events I am unable to attend. So Sarah, you can write something when 
>> you don't seem me around!]
>>
>> ....back to Kidlat. His film charts the growth of post-Marcos 
>> Philippines and the growth of his own family. The star of the film is 
>> his son, Kidlat. In terms of tone, I am Furious Yellow is very close 
>> to Perfumed Nightmare. Whimsical. Cute. Cutting irony. Deceptively 
>> complex critiques of Hollywood cinema and capital, particular of the 
>> American variety.
>>
>> This is a very special film for the way the production itself grew 
>> with his country and his family. He brought it to the 1989 festival 
>> as a one-hour film. Then he came back in 1991 with a longer version. 
>> And at the 1993 edition he returned once again with a three hour 
>> version. There were other screenings around Japan in the 1990s. Each 
>> showing, we would see a slightly longer version. Sometimes it would 
>> suddenly end. Other times, it would shift to silent rushes. He 
>> finally added end credits to the latest version, but it still has the 
>> sense of a mysterious living creature because each projection has 
>> ended with a performance.
>>
>> Yesterday was no different. Just before the end credits hit the 
>> screen, Kidlat shouted out from sidestage and then walked into the 
>> image dragging something. When the lights went up, we say that it was 
>> a cart filled with cameras and projectors. Kidlat was wearing black 
>> robes with a colorful cape and a mortar board cap. He exclaimed, "I 
>> have returned from America with my PhD in spaghetti."  He went on to 
>> explain he was going to cook a spaghetti dinner for us, laying out a 
>> table cloth, place settings, then the spaghetti: 16mm film. To the 
>> 16mm spaghetti, he added the 40 year old 16mm wind-up Bolex he shot 
>> the film with, his trusty 8mm camera from the 1960s, and the 16mm 
>> Canon Scopic camera that Ogawa Shinsuke gave him on a 1990 visit to 
>> Magino (one I made with Kidlat, come to think of it). While Kidlat 
>> cooked, his two sons took the stage and shot him with DV cameras. 
>> Suddenly, they became part of the performance. He pointed at the 
>> lens: "What is this?" They responded, "Di-ji-taal" and started 
>> taunting him for being a 16mm dinosaur. Kidlat despaired---"How can 
>> this be? I just returned from Hollywood with my PhD in spaghetti!" 
>> Suddenly, he threw off his cap. Whipped off his cape and robe. And he 
>> was suddenly in a loin cloth from the tribal people near his home in 
>> Bagio. He said no to digital and brought out a bamboo camera and he 
>> and his sons danced and played drums and gong.
>>
>> This is a variation of all the performances he's done over the years, 
>> often with props he's left in various storehouses around Japan. All 
>> good fun, with the audience clapping and howling. But also 
>> thought-provoking. How do you ensure that the ways people use DV 
>> avoid easy conventions and the ideological baggage they imply?  This 
>> is his ongoing question, and he is now forced to enact the question 
>> in his own work. This year, the last lab developing 16mm closed down 
>> so it is impossible to work on film in the Philippines unless you 
>> shoot 35mm. Kidlat's new project, on his middle son, is 
>> half-film/half DV. And a third film on his third son is all DV. (And 
>> the middle son, Kawayan, told me that the long-awaited epic on 
>> Magellan is going nowhere fast---and the actor that played the 
>> explorer passed away!)
>>
>> From that high, the day ended on a somber note at Komian. There was a 
>> wakare-kai for Sato Makoto, who committed suicide just before his 
>> 50th birthday. As was predictable, his absence from the festival was 
>> palpable; you could occassionally see conversations at Komian Club 
>> and in the theaters suddenly turn somber and know what people were 
>> talking about, or thinking about while they tried to regain control 
>> of their emotions. Initially, the festival was hesitant to do 
>> anything. Better to simply "meet under the bridge."  This is a 
>> reference to a famous story from the 1989 festival, when Makoto was 
>> in the middle of editing Living on the River Agano. He and his crew 
>> had no money, but wanted to attend, so they came to Yamagata and 
>> pitched a tent under a freeway bridge. There was talk of holding a 
>> quiet wake for him under that bridge, but in the end the festival 
>> organized a wakare-kai at Komian.
>>
>> A few of us from the Tokyo office came prepared with an isshobin of 
>> daiginjo to share with Makoto. His many students put together a 
>> documentary record of the speeches at his Tokyo wakare-kai, which 
>> drew over 500 people despite the fact that it was hardly advertised. 
>> The room at Komian was packed, most people having to stand. We 
>> watched an hour of the speeches and interviews. A slideshow or two of 
>> Sato's life. Some footage of his seminar at Kyoto----one scene showed 
>> him telling the students about the Yamagata festival, even drawing a 
>> map of the city, and then a crude picture of one of the venues....cut 
>> to the classroom, and there was even a student taking careful notes!  
>> This was so typical of the cheerful quirkiness we so loved Makoto 
>> for. It had everyone laughing through their tears.
>>
>> Markus
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Quoting amnornes at umich.edu:
>>
>>> Yesterday, an Australian bloke accused me of being the prime 
>>> propagandist for the Yamagata festival, and I guess I:m guilt as 
>>> charged. But still just telling it as it is. It:s really a special, 
>>> living animal---as director Yano wrote in his Documentary Box 
>>> article.
>>>
>>> Of course, there are low points. Just came from one. Fujioka Asako 
>>> had the brilliant idea of a set of workshops/master classes on sound 
>>> and documentary. Sound rarely gets the attention it deserves, in 
>>> theory, pedagogy or practice. And I think it:s particularly bad in 
>>> Asia. Documentarists here clearly aren:t paying attention to sound. 
>>> It:s obviously enough for them that it:s being recorded by the mike 
>>> on their camcorder, which signals either an overemphasis on the 
>>> image or on the basic recording functions of the documentary. In any 
>>> case, the workshops are very much needed. Costa was an interesting 
>>> choice, but the first thing he said was, "Well, I didn:t prepare 
>>> anything. I never do and that:s the point."  That sounded like 
>>> trouble. He went droned on for an hour about his filmmaking, so 
>>> catatonic I thought he was going to drop his head on the table and 
>>> go to sleep. He opened with a dismissal of theory, and when he 
>>> finally got to sound an hour later he held up the Soviets as his 
>>> idols---obviously, never read Eisenstein, Pudovkin et al's 
>>> theoretical statement on sound. In between, he decried the 
>>> monstrosities he was forced to watch upstairs as a member of the 
>>> competition jury, and advised the assembled young directors that 
>>> they only needed to watch Chaplin to understand cinema. How watching 
>>> a silent film helps you craft a better sound track was unclear. He 
>>> did get into sound, stating that his basic message was that it was 
>>> "expensive." That you can:t do anything with amateur equipment (not 
>>> helpful for this crowd of Asian independents), and then the next 
>>> minute he asserted that the trick was how to eliminate money from 
>>> the equation. That's about the time I left for lunch.
>>>
>>> Luckily, yesterday was fantastic. There was the second installment 
>>> of J-Pitch here, a UniJapan project initially created by John 
>>> Williams. I think this was another collaboration Asako brought to 
>>> Yamagata. Great idea. Basically to have producers of one sort or 
>>> another come in an explain how the system works. There was a nice 
>>> session with a serious and impressive NHK producer, and then 
>>> yesterday's bit with Kawase's producer from France (she joined him 
>>> for the first part). He was quite interesting and, although Costa 
>>> just got in a direct dig at the guy, I thought he was refreshingly 
>>> supportive of the artistic end of things in ways that I rarely see 
>>> in American producers.
>>>
>>> There was also a nice panel on postwar German documentary. Their 
>>> theme was on war memory and the documentary. Four directors on 
>>> stage. After discussing their own work and positions, which were 
>>> strongly self-conscious about generational difference (moving from 
>>> accusatory attitudes to more reflective and sympathetic ones). The 
>>> panel had been taken to the Japanese doc Ants (Ari no heitai), which 
>>> is about a vet who gives testimony to the atrocities he witnessed 
>>> and participated in. The panel spontaneously invited the Japanese 
>>> director to the stage, which initiated a fascinating back and forth 
>>> about differences and similarities between Germany and Japan. 
>>> Andreas Veile asked a series of pointed and great questions of the 
>>> director. He noted that the Japanese vet's assertation that he was 
>>> just an ant, no choice but to follow orders, was a discourse 
>>> familiar to all Germans. They hear the same thing, and he felt this 
>>> was a way of avoiding taking responsibility. He noted that the 
>>> Japanese director intercut those scenes with close-ups of ants, and 
>>> wondered if that meant there was no ironic or critical difference 
>>> between the vet and the filmmaker. He worried that there was none, 
>>> considering that he reiterated the ant image in the title of the 
>>> film. The Japanese director responded by veering into well-worn 
>>> tropes: hi no maru, national anthem, victim consciousness, basically 
>>> steering around the question. Andreas wasn:t satisfied---I love 
>>> follow-ups, they are so rare----and he reiterated the question and 
>>> phrased it more directly. Same result. The Germans later wondered if 
>>> there was a translation problem, but I suspect that the Japanese 
>>> director wasn:t equipped to understand the question in the first 
>>> place.
>>>
>>> They also noted that his film had many images of the war in China, 
>>> and they asked the Japanese director if this was the first time such 
>>> images were inserted into the public sphere here (the film gave them 
>>> that sense, and the heroic posturing of the intro and Q&A did as 
>>> well). The Japanese director and the MC explained that there were 
>>> few images out there, that the war was taboo in Japanese society, 
>>> and cited only Emperor's Naked Army when they asked about films. The 
>>> Germans, on the other hand, explained how a series of films---most 
>>> especially Holocaust and Shoah---rocked German society. I suppose 
>>> this is the way most Japanese see the situation, but in 
>>> conversations with the Germans at Komian last night we discussed how 
>>> it's a little different. WWII is everywhere in japan, all the 
>>> time----in contrast to the states where we really don:t hear much 
>>> about it unless "the greatest generation" is being invoked to start 
>>> a war somewhere. I suspect there are as many tv shows, reports, 
>>> newspaper and magazine articles as Germany. But the German directors 
>>> talked about the incredible impact Shoah had, how everyone knows the 
>>> film and most saw it. But I'd bet good money that the people walking 
>>> around outside without festival badges have never heard of Hara 
>>> Kazuo. Fascinating how all those films about the war create no 
>>> reverberations like in Germany. We wondered if it said something 
>>> about the two societies, or does it have something to do with the 
>>> relative position and prestige of film?
>>>
>>> The day ended with a big bang. Another Asako and Company project was 
>>> documentary karaoke night. It was a crazy and wonderful idea. The 
>>> festival staff approached a number of directors---from India, Japan, 
>>> China, Philippines, etc.----to create music videos\documentaries to 
>>> which they added karaoke subtitles. The Fins did their revolutionary 
>>> music. The science film staff created a wonderful film with the 
>>> Tetsuwan Atom song. Kawase danced to her film with her child on 
>>> stage. But the highlight had to be, again, the Germans. But less 
>>> because of the Germans than the film that the Tokyo office put 
>>> together. The tune was Beethoven's 9th, the finale, which clearly 
>>> needs a conductor. So there was festival director Yano, who is 
>>> famous world-wide for being invisible during the festival, off in 
>>> some corner smoking and never ever taking any stage. Yano conducting 
>>> the 9th, probably stumble-down drunk, in the office, out on the 
>>> street at night in a lovely image befitting a jazz album cover, a 
>>> bunch of Germans next to the screen leading the entire theater in a 
>>> rousing chorus. Yano will never live it down. When he arrived at 
>>> Komian later that night, the entire place erupted in En Die Freude 
>>> as he slinked away to another room.
>>>
>>> Markus
>>>
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>>
>>
>