emigration in Japanese Girls at the Harbor
Alexander Jacoby
a_p_jacoby at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Apr 7 20:40:47 EDT 2009
Emigration features in quite a few of Japanese silent films as a positive conclusion or at least as a potential solution to problems. Shimizu's Eternal Pearl (Fue no shiratama, 1929) is another example, and I've seen others, though I'd have to check my records to name them.
In the mid- to late- thirties, emigration is still presented as a solution to problems, but by then, the destination is Korea or Manchuria. See for instance Shimazu's An Older Brother and Her Younger Sister (Ani to sono imoto, 1939), with its ending at the airport. Grass gets caught in the wheel as the plane takes off, and the last line is "That grass will grow in China."
ALEX
--- On Wed, 8/4/09, Roger Macy <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
From: Roger Macy <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: emigration in Japanese Girls at the Harbor
To: "KineJapan" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 8 April, 2009, 1:20 AM
Dear KineJapaners,
If anyone cares to suggest answers to some questions on
Japanese Girls at the Harbor, I would much appreciate it. It
would be nice to think that Keiko McDonald's promised book on Shimizu has a
midwife somewhere, but in the meantime a viewing has aroused my curiosity.
One advantage of a boxed set of a director's films is
that you can spread their viewing out, rather than keep within the short
concentration of a cinethecque convoy.
I got round to watching Shimizu's Minato
no nihon musume last night which was more than up to
expectation. What surprised me at the end was how Shimizu could show
emigration as a positive and morally redeeming conclusion to his story in
1933. Although Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, in her Nippon Modern, says
just that Sunako disappears in the end; William Drew, in his
Midnight Eye piece, says that 'Sunako ultimately takes charge of her
destiny by going abroad with her artist-paramour in search of a new life' - a
reading with which I concur.
Although the dialogue (and perhaps the script submitted to
the censors?) does not mention emigration, the direction of the ship out
of Yokohama, and the opening sequence, of the Canadian Pacific gangplank onto
the 'Empress of Russia' seems to leave little doubt. I went back and
checked the beginning to see if it was a revealed flash-back - it's not - but
this did remind me that I had tried to adjust my set when the opening pan seemed
to have the bottom cut off, leaving ships and foreground apparently unsupported
by water or quayside. But the contrast to the closing pan, showing the
flotsam and jetsam left behind in Japan has to be deliberate. The
paintings of Sunako, in her old-world guise as a bar hostess/prostitute,
which she asks her partner to jettison from the ship, mysteriously do not fade
or wash away, but remain in full appearance, clinging to the Japan shore, whilst
the redeemed couple sail away.
Has
emigration in Japanese cinema (beyond the Japanese empire) been discussed or
observed previously ?
Are
there other such filmic examples of emigration portrayed in a positive
light ?
Can
anyone suggest likely western movies of the time that inspired the story ?
Two couples who have no family seems very Hollywood. (The
writer of the original story, 北林透馬, isn't in WINE - still looking
for suitable directories.).
Would
a silent film in 1933 be suitable for an émigré market ?
Roger
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