Momijigari

[Aaron Gerow]

According to the news services, the Council for Cultural Affairs has  
recommended to the Minister of Education to designate the 1899 film  
Momijigari, one of Japan’s earliest existing films recording the  
Kabuki actors Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and Onoe Kikugorō V acting in the  
eponymous play, an Important Cultural Property (Juyo bunkazai). If  
the recommendation is accepted, the film photographed by Shibata  
Tsunekichi will become the first film ever to be given that distinction.

This might be a momentous decision in terms of film policy. I have  
long complained about a cultural properties policy that privileges  
pre-modern arts and "traditional" practices as "true" Japanese art,  
thus denigrating modern arts like film as "Western" and not "truly"  
Japanese. Such policies serve to construct the nation while also  
threaten the preservation of the film heritage. Institutions such as  
the National Film Center get nice buildings (to support the  
construction industry) but not enough money to really support good  
preservation, research, and education in film. Breaking the standards  
by designating not just a film, but also a reproducible form like the  
cinema as a cultural treasure, may open the way for Japan to create  
something like the National Film Registry in the USA.

But there are reasons not to be too optimistic. Even in its original  
production, Momijigari was less a film than a recording of a  
theatrical scene, and in fact used as a substitute for theater at  
least once. True, it communicates much about the complicated  
historical relationship between cinema and theater in Japan, as well  
as represents important aspects of early film culture, but one can  
imagine that the Council designated it less because it was a film  
than because it, again, was a record of two illustrious actors (and  
actors can be designated living cultural properties under the current  
system). The question will be whether cultural property policy will  
ever designate a film not so-connected to a traditional art as an  
important cultural asset - or even a film director or actor as a  
living cultural treasure.


Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
site: www.aarongerow.com