JF Waste?

[Aaron Gerow]

Mark,

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. I think you are right  
that, beyond public pressure via the media, government pressure is the  
main avenue for change. The problem is getting access. The JF  
partially has such access, so it is good the JF is thinking about this  
problem and not just kowtowing to the position the Asahi promotes. But  
it is also in an inferior position, so approaches have to be made to  
higher ups like the Bunkacho chokan. I liked the previous one, Aoki  
Tamotsu, who was a scholar in his own right, but I wonder about the  
current one, Tamai Hideo, who was head of the board of education of  
Kitakyushu.

One thing should be said about rights holders, however. Over the last  
15 years, I've written kaisetsu for literally hundreds of the films  
the JF has in its collection, so I have a good sense of what they  
have. It should be stressed that the majority of the films in their  
collection are from smaller or independent production companies,  
including quite a number of films that were never commercially  
released but only sent around the country to show at public halls,  
etc. I think it would be a mistake to think that the JF is simply  
buckling under to pressure from powerful rights holders. In fact, I  
think the JF has relatively few films from Toho, which is now the most  
annoying about rights (though that might also have to do with the fact  
that Toho doesn't show much interest in showing its catalog abroad  
unless big money is involved). Big companies like Toho, Shochiku and  
Toei may make some of these demands, but I also had the feeling when I  
learned of the practice the Asahi described that some of these  
contracts may be backdoor attempts to subsidize independent producers.  
I can't confirm the intention, but that has probably been the effect  
in some cases. This does not obviate your arguments about rights, but  
it does complicate the history of this practice, and underline that  
the government subsidy system itself is rather haphazard and illogical  
(for instance, to get Bunkacho money, you have to have a distributor  
beforehand, but that eliminates the vast majority of independent  
producers). And it does compel us to consider what rights could mean  
for independent producers as well. It was great that when we showed  
one of the dokuritsu pro films from the 1950s at Yale, the rights  
holder was so happy he let us have it for just the cost of shipping.  
But I don't think independent producers are all like that. Where do  
they fit in the picture?

By the way, I ran into someone from the JF at a party over the  
weekend. He thanked me for the blog piece, but also mentioned that a  
few other news organizations are planning articles along the same  
lines of the Asahi one. He heaved a great sigh....

That kind of media attitude needs to be changed as well.


Aaron Gerow
Associate 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