JF Waste?

[Aaron Gerow]

Thanks to Jasper for reminding us that the JF will tell if they have a  
film if you inquire. But that ironically presumes expert knowledge in  
the first place: the ability to select your films first and then ask  
the JF if they have them. Keeping their lists secret prevents those  
who don't know about Japanese film from starting from scratch and  
trying to put together a program. This problem is exacerbated when it  
seems that some of the cultural officials abroad don't know about  
Japanese film either.

>  I would add as a rebuff to the journalist in question that  
> considerably more people went to see Wife to Be Sacrificed at the  
> BFI than the Haneda Sumiko documentaries that played at the same  
> venue 6 months earlier.

That is an important point to make.

> I'm not sure of the political or class-related allegiances of the  
> various newspapers in Japan, but this article reminds me of the type  
> of thing we get in the more idiotic conservative press in the UK, I  
> mean of course the Daily Mail, who had a go at the BFI earlier this  
> year for their DVD release of a collection of British sex education  
> films from the past century, entitled Joy of Sex Education.

The Asahi is a left-wing paper, but as one can tell from the JCP, or  
at least their film critics, the left can sometimes be quite prudish  
in Japan (that was one of Oshima's complaints against the old left).  
The Asahi (which is not JCP) is more complicated because Yamane Sadao,  
for instance, who edited one of the best books in Japanese on Roman  
Poruno, often writes for them. My impression is that the bunkabu  
people are mostly liberal, but those in the shakai or seijibu (one of  
whom probably wrote the piece in question) have probably not seen a  
pink film in their life.

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



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