John Rabe

[Roger Macy]

Dear Kinejapaners,
Clearly the German film John Rabe will not be of direct interest to all listmembers, but a Q&A with the director, this week in London, had a number of connections to Japanese cinema, and so, rather than select from it, I'm posting my notes for you to delete or read, as you wish.
Roger

John Rabe, 2009, Florian GALLENBERGER

Thursday 3 Dec 2009, Q&A in English with Gallenberger and several others,, incl, a producer, his PA and translator, costume designer, & 2 others.  (No actors, not even Togo IGAWA, who is normally resident in London).  From notes typed at the time, but NOT VERBATIM.

Q: Complemented Gallenberger on the film and, in particular, the multi-lingual nature and crediting of at least 14 translators, [incl. subtitles  J.J. McCabe].  How had the script been constructed?

FB: I wrote the script, with numerous reworkings, using translators for the Japanese and Chinese [his English proved in the interview to be excellent.]

Q: Distribution in Japan ?

FB: None yet.  The Japanese Embassy in Berlin asked to see it, to understand what sort of treatment this issue was going to have.  We agreed.  The ambassador subsequently wrote that it was an important film.

We have had one offer to distribute in Japan, but only if the role of Prince Asaka was entirely removed - (Gallenberger explained that the actor of this role, KAGAWA Teruyuki, was very well known in Japan - so this was an offer to remove the one name from the film that was bankable there).

[The character of Prince Asaka in the film is haughty, tyrannical and absolutist.  He explicitly justifies his order to murder prisoners by linking it to the Emperor's wish to conclude the campaign swiftly.]

The film was going to be shown at a historical convention in Japan, but at last minute didn't happen.  Gallenberger doesn't understand why.

"The film won't be complete until it's got a distribution in Japan."

Q: Are all the characters real ?

FG:  No, some were created for dramatic purposes. The student photographer is an invented character.

Q: Can you say something about casting ?

FG:  Steve Buschemi: it took a while to get his attention, but he was highly professional and committed, once signed up.  ...   It was difficult to find Japanese actors who were willing to be in the film.

Q: Where did you find the locations ?

FG: 80% Shanghai 20% Nanjing.  For the Siemens compound, we used the old airport at Shanghai and built the buildings we needed.

Q; Why was there so little footage of the atrocities ?

JG: Atrocities were only shown in the context of the characters.  German reaction to the film has been that was that there was too much, Chinese that there was not enough.

Q: What of the character in the film who is the replacement manager sent out by Siemens.  Did such a person exist or is he created to show Rabe as the 'Good Nazi' ?

FG: Yes [laughs], the replacement manager of the Siemens plant is an invented character.

Q: [about the position of Rabe]

JG: Rabe was the only person who thought that Rabe was a Nazi.

Q: Was the Japanese officer with a conscience real?

FG:   No.  But I did speak to Japanese who were unhappy with what was happening at that time, so I felt the invented character was justified.

Q: [subsequently ?]

JG: After the war, General Matsui was sentenced to death but Prince Asaka was not in the Tokyo war trials.  After the war he was very respectable art collector and led a happy and quiet life.

Q: What sparked your interest in the subject ?

JG: One of the producers not present today read the diaries at the end of 90s when it came out.  Then I read the diaries.  I wouldn't have liked the character of Rabe that is revealed at the beginning of the film, but his actions reveal something different and that's what I find interesting..

Q: [Fate of Rabe?]

JG: After his return, Rabe wrote a book and gave lectures, trying to get attention to what happened.   When this started to get slightly larger audiences he was arrested by the Gestapo, his diaries were confiscated., and he was pressured to keep quiet.  After the war, Chiang Kai-shek offered a pension for him to testify at the Tokyo war crimes trial.  But he declined, on the basis that paid evidence would be tainted.  Rabe's denazification could not be automatic because he had chaired a meeting of the NS party [In Nanking, I think JG means] [The end-title of the film had already explained that Rabe died in Berlin in obscurity in 1950].

Q; Comparable to Schindler's List ?

JG: I did NOT watch Schindler's List because then I wouldn't have my own idea.

Q: Experience of directing together actors from different countries ?

JG: [Gave credit to his assistant and translators]  The Japanese actors do exactly what you tell them to, and take freedom exactly when you tell them to.  

Ulrich Mühe was going to be Rabe but he died before they shot.  Then chose Ulrich Tukur    They have very different approaches.  Mühe was more analytical, Tukur more extempore.  

Q: Directing in China ?

JG: Difficulties made it hard to keep the [basic] idea 'in all the craziness'.

Q: How is Rabe known in China ?

Assistant:  Mainly by intellectuals.  JG: in Nanjing quite a lot, which helped in getting extras..

Q: Why the growth of interest in the massacre?

JG: China is no longer at the end of the world.  Iris Chang was instrumental to the discovery of Rabe's diaries. ...

Q; What about the film Nanjing! Nanjing! ?

JG: He had communication with that team during the shoot.  Used the same three tanks, and some of the minor Japanese actors (since there were not many who were prepared to appear in China).

Q: What of the other nine or so films slated on the Nanjing massacre ?

JG: Hmm, I heard of a number like that.  Apart from Nanjing! Nanjing!  one other film got into pre-production, but I haven't heard of any others being filmed, and they seem to have fallen by the way, after these two got into production.

Q; Finance ?

JG: Lots of German, some French, some Chinese, who haven't, by the way, heard the word 'licence fee', and have terrible problems with piracy [I notice that there was a multi-print distribution in China in April].

Q: Chinese censorship?

FG:  To make a film in China, you have to go through censorship.  The short version is that it was easy.  Some small parts they wanted removed from the Chinese distributed version.  It was harder to get permission for permission at the start.  On my first informal reconnaissance visit, I got a call on my temporary mobile phone (whose number no one knew), before we'd even applied, saying there was to be only one version that had to have a Chinese director, so we should not bother to continue.  But after much work, things changed.  We actually inserted some other points in the script to be cut by the censors, but they didn't cut them.  Also they didn't enforce censorship on shooting, unlike the Indians.

Q: So what were the minor parts that needed removing from the Chinese version ?

FG: Chinese asked that the nudity and the Nazi salute by the Chinese be removed.

Q: Can I press you on this?  What was the Chinese view on the depiction of KMT resistance to the Japanese ?

FG: Ah, in the early scene with the medal-giving by the Chinese government to Rabe [used in the film operatically for the 'good doctor' to pass comments, in an aside, about the 'toadying Nazi'], we were not allowed to use the name of Chiang Kai-shek.

Postscript by RM:

My biggest regret that was that we did not develop a line of questioning on his research, or the script-writing in Asian languages (the multiple credits for translators were actually for production, not the script).  I recall now, at the beginning of the film are two shots, one of Rabe writing a journal and then, immediately afterwards, of Rabe being shown with proper Nazi attitudes and being both patronising and authoritarian with the Chinese.  So, there was a perfectly good health warning that the film was constructed through the viewpoint of someone with such attitudes.  But this warning got forgotten, partly with the high-impact of the film, but also because of the film's multi-lingual format, which gave it a veneer of objectivity and balance.  I'm tempted to call this coloration (re-coloration?) of the script 'non-abusive' (plundering from Nornes).  Conveying a story through archetypes is a much-hallowed path, but none of the archetypes were adult Chinese.  The main character of Nanjing! Nanjing!, a Chinese deputy to Rabe, is virtually a non-speaking part in this film.

Then there's the question as to fusing archetypes onto historical persons.  There are, of course, august literary precedents for so doing, but it does not lie well with a format with high claims to historic reportage.  The character of Prince Asaka Yasuhiko is not an archetype but is conveyed as instigating atrocities in direct language.   My first reaction was that he wouldn't have needed to employ such direct language, given his aristocratic rank.  But then I thought of Lord Mountbatten, who was of comparable position to the throne.  When I listened in after the war to members of UK forces in India praising Mountbatten, my father would always voice a dissenting view that the language with which he addressed the troops was unforgivable (and he would never give me examples).   So I can't be sure on that point.  But I can understand any one being wary of taking on the distribution of the film in Japan ~ would its less-than-perfect portrayal be worth the real risks ?  But an offer to buy the rights and cut the Asaka role could not have been made for commercial reasons.
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