two Russian books

[Roger Macy]

A little while back, I came across two small books in the British Library in Russian published in 1926 and 1929, catalogued as on Japanese cinema.  It wasn't what I was looking for and I don't read Russian, but they were sufficiently interesting ( I didn't know of any books from outside Japan on its cinema before the fifties) - and attractive - that I bookmarked them and have been trying to see whether they are known about.  I couldn't copy them myself and needed to order copies, which would have been money down the drain if they were already written up.

This is a case where several dead ends have been encouraging and the thread this week on eisenstein & montage in prole cinema, including Markus' posting, persuaded me that they are not well known about and so I have dug further and now have photocopies of both.

 

The 1926 book turns out not to really be on Japanese cinema but I will deal with it briefly.

It's a booklet on the actor Sessue Hayakawa.  Although I believe he later did a little work in Japan, by 1926 his work had only broadened from Hollywood to Europe.  Daisuke Miyao's new book on Hayakawa just touches on this booklet (footnote 12 on page 285: 'Numerous articles and books on Hayakawa were published in Europe ...'), citing it as by "Ovanesov".  The slavonic curator at the British Library will have none of this and insists the author should be transcribed as Oganesov, as per the BL catalogue.  It seems a reasonable assumption that it is yet to be translated from the Russian. It has attractive artwork by K Vialov, which is thought to be the reason it was purchased.  Given that it talks up the Japanese origins of Hayakawa, possibly japonisme (or however it is transcribed into Russian) was not fading in the way it was further west at that time (although the book had been remaindered from 10 kopeks to 3 kopeks).

 

The 1929 book is a catalogue published by Goznak of an exhibition of Japanese films in Moscow.  It's a striking, playfully designed booklet that makes, for instance, Egoyan and Balfour's 2004 book on 'Subtitles' quite staid in comparison; it is designed by the noted constructivist artist El Lisitskii.



As well as essays and stills, there is a piece on posters with three illustrations.  This is followed by (I believe) a catalogue of a static exhibition with short pieces by different Russian writers on

1 Film production statistics, 

2 Feature film subjects, 

3 Cultural and Educational Films, 

4 Screen Actors, 

5 Theatrical releases and marketing, 

6 Posters, and 

7 Film reviews.  

 

Finally, there is a billing for showings for a 1928 film by Kinugasa that translates literally as 'Brave Man from Kyoto' and a documentary in two parts called 'Island Nation'.  The accompanying photograph is of a crew filming a palanquin scene from a dolly, so very much focussing on the craft itself.

It?s not as clear as I imagined to identify these films. ?Brave Man of Kyoto? stars :-

????????  ?????

??????  ?????

tsiodziro (chyoziro?) hayashi = kazuo Hasegawa

masako tsihaya (chihaya?).

IMDb says kazuo Hasegawa and akiko Chihaya star in Kaikokuki (1928) which has a title closer to that of the (supposed) documentary.  Who was in Akatsuki no yushi (1927) (?Brave Soldier at Dawn?) ?

 

Over to the experts.

 

 

Thanks to Katya Rogatchevskaia at the British Library for some quick indications of the content of the 1929 booklet and two women on the number 243 bus for help with the 1926 booklet.

 

 

 

Markus wrote

'I'd love to see it researched by someone'.  There's certainly initial work for a Russian-reader to translate the catalogue to establish what aspects of Japanese cinema were discussed in Moscow.  This ought to open up research into other possible records and mentions of Japanese films in popular and serious Russian media.  And - I'm running ahead of myself - are the mentioned films extant?  And what happened to the prints?

 

Roger Macy

 


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark D. Roberts 
  To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 5:52 PM
  Subject: Re: eisenstein & montage in prole cinema


  Anne, 


  On Oct 24, 2007, at 1:18 AM, Anne McKnight wrote:


    Does anyone know anything good written on circuits of exchange between Soviet Russia and J-film-makers and writers?



  Have you looked at Kinugasa? Apparently he went to Russia in 1928 to contact and study with Eisenstein.


  M
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