the eerie silence on KineJapan is maddening!

Fri Mar 18 08:08:35 EDT 2011

I completely agree with Faith, not time to think about cultural  
heritage now, sorry.

Matteo Boscarol

Sent from my iPhone

On 2011/03/18, at 20:29, Pete Larson <pslarson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm glad someone agrees with me that the foreign coverage of the  
> nuclear reactor has been vastly oversensationalized and has been  
> riddled with disinformation and misinformation. This extremely poor  
> coverage comes at the expense of the people who were directly  
> affected by the quake and the following tsunami. These are the  
> people who should be receiving coverage. Granted, it has all the  
> Hollywood that one could ever want.
>
> Most disturbing to me has been the awful dehumanization of people  
> living in Japan, and the portrayal of Japan as inherently dangerous  
> for foreigners, reinforcing tired stereotypes of the US as the only  
> safe place for Americans.
>
>
> On 3/18/2011 4:23 AM, Lindsay Nelson wrote:
>>
>> As someone who has been in Tokyo since August (currently in Kyoto  
>> to have a bit of a break from the aftershocks), I can say a few  
>> things.
>>
>> 1. The nuclear power plant story is being ridiculously  
>> sensationalized in the American media. Article after article and  
>> expert after expert have declared that there is absolutely no  
>> danger to anyone outside the immediate vicinity of the plant, and  
>> yet the major news outlets ignore these stories and continue to  
>> vamp up the fear. Worse, they do this at the expense of reporting  
>> on the real crisis, which is the 400,000 + people in the northeast  
>> who have limited food, water, and shelter and are already dying as  
>> a result.
>>
>> 2. Many people have made the decision to leave--at least  
>> temporarily--for a variety of reasons. Aftershocks were constant  
>> for the first 24 hours after the quake, and they continue even now.  
>> I personally have not slept much at all for the past week-- 
>> partially because of the stress of the aftershocks, and partially  
>> because I have been dealing with frantic, panicked family members  
>> who were horrified that I hadn't fled the city. I also worried  
>> about blackouts as my only heater is electric, it's getting very  
>> cold, and kerosene / space heaters are completely sold out. I've  
>> left for a few days to get some sleep and try to re-group, but I  
>> plan to return. The bottom line is that even if there is no danger  
>> from the power plant, there are plenty of other reasons why people  
>> might choose to leave. And given the changing nature of the power  
>> plant situation and the huge amount of conflicting information  
>> available, I can understand why some people would be concerned  
>> enough to leave.
>>
>> 3. Regarding film archives and screenings--for the most part it's  
>> business as usual in Tokyo. The scheduled blackouts have been  
>> avoided so far because people are doing a great job of conserving  
>> energy. Some universities have postponed classes and some smaller  
>> companies have shut down to allow their employees to spend time  
>> with their families, but most places are up and running. Very  
>> few       Japanese are leaving the city (the shinkansen were  
>> crowded today as I headed for Kyoto, but Monday is a national  
>> holiday, so that's not too surprising). If regular blackouts become  
>> a necessity this will of course impact daily life considerably, but  
>> for now other than slightly reduced train service, a gasoline  
>> shortage, and shortages of items like bread, milk, and rice (really  
>> just the result of over-buying, not an actual shortage), Tokyo  
>> seems pretty normal to me.
>>
>> I provide informal updates about the situation on the ground and  
>> links to helpful articles at http://gradland.wordpress.com.
>>
>> --Lindsay Nelson
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 12:03 AM, Quentin Turnour <Quentin.Turnour at nfsa.gov.au 
>> > wrote:
>>
>> William,
>>
>> Perhaps to shift things just to the issue of film archives...Thanks  
>> for your great and thoughtful post, Odd also considering I've just  
>> spent the morning doing a run through of the NFC's 35mm print of  
>> the SHINGUN/MARCHING ON and also reading your great on-line article  
>> about this unusual early Showa silent.
>>
>> Literarily a few minutes after your post came up, Kae Ishihara at  
>> the Film Preservation Society posted an email and link to English- 
>> speaking FPS members http://www.homemovieday.jp/English/latest-news/
>>
>> In the last few days I've had some contact with her, Akira Tochigi  
>> at the NFC and a few others in the Japanese screen culture  
>> community (such as Fujioka Asako of the Yamagata Doco festival - a  
>> cultural event which of course takes place within a prefecture once  
>> removed but still very close to the tragedy of the tsunami). But  
>> Kae's email is a great summary of what's happening with the NFC and  
>> regional film archives, and even some Japanese film industry  
>> matters - Sony's HDCam tape plant was at Sendai, for example.
>>
>> As I alluded to, ironically we've been doing a season here of 1920s  
>> Japanese silents from the NFC and Matsuda, and the reconstruction  
>> of the Kanto area post-1923 obviously looms as a sub-text in many  
>> of the films we were screening... Or as a text on some              
>> of the mid-1920s Ministry of Education Tokyo reconstruction films,  
>> such as the eccentric PUBLIC MANNERS TOKYO SIGHTSEEING (...which  
>> has led us to making the decision to postponed a screening of these  
>> films).
>>
>> Our program included a visit by the benshi Mr. Kotoaka Ichiro, who  
>> bravely went ahead with a performance of his final session only  
>> minutes after getting the news of the earthquake and then had some  
>> difficulties getting back to Tokyo from Australia the following  
>> day. We are currently ben asked to hold the prints from this series  
>> for the NFC until advised; as the FPS's site indicate it seems not  
>> so much that their facilities have been damaged, but shipping  
>> services are still unreliable, power is a problem and staff simply  
>> have having trouble getting to work
>>
>> Finally, and noting the debate that your email inadvertently  
>> sparked over foreign perceptions... Those who know some of the  
>> history of what happened in the wake of Great Kanto will remember  
>> that immediate international goodwill degenerated badly in mutual  
>> recrimination in the weeks and months following; especially in  
>> Japanese-US relations. Whilst some of this had to do with the  
>> coming of US legislation restricting Japanese immigration, the  
>> beginnings of militant nationalism, and a   trickle of  
>> international press accounts of bad Japanese official behaviour  
>> (especially of the anti-Korean pogroms), lets hope the same thing  
>> doesn't happen again.
>>
>>
>>
>> Quentin Turnour, Programmer,
>> Access, Research and Development
>> National Film and Sound Archive, Australia
>> McCoy Circuit, Acton,
>> ACT, 2601 AUSTRALIA
>> phone: +61 2 6248 2054  |  fax: + 61 2 6249 8159
>> www.nfsa.gov.au
>>
>> The National Film and Sound Archive collects, preserves and  
>> provides access to Australia's historic and contemporary moving  
>> image and recorded sound culture.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ReelDrew at aol.com
>> Sent by: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>> 18/03/2011 02:27 PM
>>
>> Please respond to
>>
>> KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>>
>> To
>> KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>> cc
>>
>> Subject
>> the eerie silence on KineJapan is maddening!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been a member of KineJapan for the last ten years. I joined  
>> originally out of a need to obtain translations of the intertitles  
>> of Japanese silents on VHS in my collection. I am very grateful to  
>> those members on KineJapan who aided me and made it possible for me  
>> to, among other things, write an article on Hiroshi Shimizu that is  
>> published on Midnight Eye.
>>
>> Since then, I have regularly received almost daily the messages  
>> that have been posted here. In all honesty, a large number--perhaps  
>> the majority, in fact--have been of limited interest to me inasmuch  
>> as they tend to deal with contemporary Japanese films. Consistent  
>> with my enthusiasm for films in other countries, including my own,  
>> produced in earlier decades, it is my interest in the Japanese  
>> cinema of the past, especially the films of the 1920s and 1930s,  
>> that has been of consuming interest to me. Nevertheless, from time  
>> to time issues involving those golden years do come up here.
>>
>> However, whether or not the topic has been of particular interest  
>> to me, I have always valued the fact that KineJapan has always been  
>> there, an extremely valuable resource to be consulted when needed.  
>> Never before since I've been here did this group shut down.  
>> Certainly, it was very active right through the events of 9/11 as  
>> were other film discussion groups in which I participated.
>>
>> Since the tragic events that began a week ago, though, this place  
>> has suddenly turned into a ghost town. Aside from a very limited  
>> amount of p

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