"Potemkin" in Japan

[Michael Kerpan]

I seem to recall reading that someone who saw Potemkin in Europe did a very detailed analysis of the film -- so that film makers in Japan who could not see the film could know (at second hand) what Eisenstein was up to.

--- On Fri, 1/14/11, Sybil Thornton <camford1989 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sybil Thornton <camford1989 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: "Potemkin" in Japan
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 12:28 PM

Hi,
People do "misremember" what they saw or did not see, or when.
However, the film could have been shown at the Russian embassy.   It would have come through the diplomatic "bag" and evaded customs.
Cheers,
Sybil Thornton
Arizona State University

--- On Fri, 1/14/11, mccaskem at georgetown.edu <mccaskem at georgetown.edu> wrote:


From: mccaskem at georgetown.edu <mccaskem at georgetown.edu>
Subject: "Potemkin" in Japan
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 4:38 AM


It seems to be a fact that the 1925 Eisenstein film "Battleship Potemkin," 
presumably in the form of reels in cans brought off a ship, was denied clearance 
by the Yokohama Customs in the later 1920s, apparently because it was 
(obviously) a "revolutionary" film.

But Kurosawa says in his autobiography that he saw it in Japan ca. 1926.

I know that foreign goods and people also had to go through Japanese Customs 
in Kobe, and likely in other major Japanese port cities as well, and the record 
only says that the film was barred in  Yokohama.

The 1928 V.I. Pudovkin film "Storm Over Asia," according to imdb.com, was 
released in Japan in 1930. One would think it would be more "sensitive" than 
"Potemkin," since it's about revolution in East Asia, while "Potemkin" is set during 
the Russo-Japanese War, and in one intertitle near the start of the film a Russian 
sailor says that Russian
 POWs are fed better by the Japanese than Russian sailors 
are on the Battleship Potemkin.

Kurosawa says that he saw "storm over Asia" in Tokyo ca. 1930.

There were multiple ports of entry at the time, and Kurosawa was a member of 
"Proletarian" groups that would have had an interest in seeing Soviet films in any 
case, by one means or another.

I also once read an essay by or about Uchida Hyakken, indicating that back then 
some Japanese in literary and artistic circles were interested in the concept and 
technique of "montage," as developed by Eisenstein in "Potemkin." I'd have to go 
find the physical book to track this essay down, but it does seem as if 
"Potemkin" was somehow available for viewing in Japan in the later 1920s.

Textbook-type Japanese histories say that "Potemkin" was not seen in Japan 
until decades later, but is this really correct?

One would think that Kurosawa, of all
 people, would have known whether or not 
he actually saw the film "Potemkin" in Japan as a young man, and he definitely 
said and wrote that he did.

Best Regards,

Michael McC
Georgetown Univ.









      
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