prewar Japanese films set in film studios

[Michael Raine]

Since I seem to be spamming the mailing list anyway ... I should thank Faith
Bach for answering my question about why there seem to be so few films set
in film studios. I certainly agree that there are competing performance
traditions in Japan that might attract this kind of reflexivity. There are
indeed many very interesting films set in the theatre. But other countries
also have backstage musicals, films about the theatre, dance, vaudeville,
etc and still have space for the "operational aesthetic" of
films-about-filming (Show People, Movie Mad, Shooting Stars, etc etc). In
the light of this discussion of how actively Japanese films relied on
audience awareness of other films in the 1930s (certainly a common feature
of, for example, Hollywood film -- the vitaphone parody of Grand Hotel is
hilarious!) I'm even more surprised that I can't think of any examples. 

I do have one lead, which is also an example of a citational film title:
shortly after Deanna Durbin's One Hundred Men and a Girl was released in
Japan (the title was too racy so it was changed to Orchestra Girl -
Okesutora no shojo) Shinko released the film Extra Girl (Ekisutora no
shojo). There's also an earlier film, Ekisutora gaaru ... does anyone know
if these are indeed films about films? Do they have sequences set in the
film studio? Roland, do you have any more amazing nuggets of information?!

Michael

Michael Raine
Assistant Professor in Japanese Cinema
The University of Chicago
mjraine at uchicago.edu


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Subject: KINEJAPAN digest 2532


			    KINEJAPAN Digest 2532

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Kiyoshi Kurosawa's TOKYO SONATA Theatrical Release in Tokyo with
English Subtitles
	by "Marie Iida" <nyc.marie at gmail.com>
  2) RE: AW: Lost Japanese Films
	by Jasper Sharp <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>
  3) RE: About the so-called 'pinky violence'
	by Jasper Sharp <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>
  4) re: About the so-called 'pinky violence'
	by Ken Shima <nihoneiga1960 at gmail.com>
  5) ATG poster gallery
	by eigagogo at free.fr
  6) Re: ATG poster gallery
	by Sarah Teasley <s-teasley at northwestern.edu>
  7) Re: ATG poster gallery
	by Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu>