How big tobacco bought the big screen

[Roger Macy]

Thank you, all, for your responses.  I've ordered Reid's book, Jonathan.

The last film I saw at San Sebastian was, finally, in a no-smoking area.  In fact, it tilted so far the other way as to seem like a temperance movie.  SAEKI Kiyoshi's Showa Zankyoden, made 1965, set in 1946, had no smoking and a virtually alcohol-free bar scene.  And despite the details of the plot revolving around the the trading of goods at markets, no-one in 1946 Tokyo is dealing in cigarettes or alcohol.  Since Saeki went on to make six more 'Contemporary Tales of Chivalry', at least it proves you could make a non-smoking film for Toei without getting the sack.

Not remotely black, it reminded me of westerns made for children.  But it's the only Saeki film I've seen. and, apart from two references in Anderson and Ritchie, I can't see him written about in English.  Can anyone say if the temperance message is typcal of his oeuvre?
many thanks,
Roger

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jonathan M Hall 
  To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
  Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 12:05 AM
  Subject: Re: How big tobacco bought the big screen


  Dear All,


  I enjoyed Paul's posting a week or so ago.  Smoking was not always glamor, it could also be a cultural weapon.  Perhaps most memorable is the image of Ayako spitting out her cigarette when she's returned home at the end of Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy.


  The best writing in English on the Japan tobacco monopoly and health industry in English is work by Roddey Reid, a literature and science studies scholar at UC San Diego.
  I recommend his wonderful Globalizing Tobacco Control: Anti-smoking Campaigns in California, France, and Japan.  In addition to the cultural studies and policy analyses in the book, Reid also spent a lot of time looking at historical representations of smoking especially in film; I helped him with that work when I was a grad student in Tokyo.  It was fascinating to construct, as we did informally, a short history of smoking in Japanese cinema.  I bet there's a great article waiting to be written there ...


  With best wishes to all,
  Jonathan
  UC Irvine




  On 26 Sep 2008, at 09:59, Anne Ishii wrote:


    could this have simply to do with japanese tobacco being a state-run monopoly through the 80s?
    and if it's film of the 40s, the very same government was tightly monitoring film content for militarist incongruence, right?


    On Sep 26, 2008, at 12:43 PM, Paul Roquet wrote:


      I have been thinking about cigarettes in Japanese film as well, after watching Shina no Yoru (China Nights, 1940) earlier this week. Every time Hasegawa and Ri Koran look all ready to kiss, out comes the box of cigarettes instead, with Ri seductively striking a match and lighting her man's tobacco. I'm not sure if they were sponsored to light up, but it certainly seems like an effective way to add to add to the allure...


      Come to think of it, Yamaguchi/Ri Koran's character slides into femme fatale mode for at least the middle part of the film - perhaps that's where she picked up the habit.


      Paul




      On Sep 26, 2008, at 1:47 AM, Roger Macy wrote:


        Does anyone know if there is any smoking gun connecting the tobacco industry with Japanese cinema?
        I noticed this report about Hollywood in the Guardian on-line
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/26/tobaccoindustry.smoking
        and it is, doubtless, reported elsewhere.

        I've been watching as many films as I can of the 'Japan in Black' season here at San Sebastian.  The 'noir' elements of many of the films are debatable (as the organisers readily admit).  Femmes fatales are passing rare, along with private detectives, etc. etc.  Train scenes figure strongly and memorably, but all the films share two elements: they were popular films that featured well-photographed scenes of stars, smoking (or was it " stars' smoking ").
        Roger





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