the eerie silence on KineJapan is maddening!

[Lindsay Nelson]

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 posts
> specifically on the topic of the tsunami, there has been absolutely nothing
> here. No one has even bothered to post how things are going on in Tokyo,
> while all sorts of wild, apocalyptic rumors circulate unchecked in the US
> that Tokyo is about to become irradiated, that it may be doomed. I believe a
> few welcome posts here from knowledgeable people in the Japanese capital
> might help to clarify the situation and perhaps alleviate some of these
> fears.
>
> I have had a consuming obsession with early Japanese cinema for the last 36
> years. In trying to interest people in the West in this topic and to
> recognize the value of Japanese films from those years, I have long had to
> confront an enormous amount of indifference and insensitivity to these
> achievements by too many in America and elsewhere in the outside world. It
> has taken so long to bring attention to these films here. Indeed, it was
> only this January that the premier venue for classic cinema in the United
> States, Turner Classic Movies, after being on the air for 17 years, finally
> presented three Japanese silents--Ozu's famous masterpieces, "Tokyo Chorus,"
> "I Was Born, But. . .," and "Passing Fancy." So it is only very recently
> that this neglected period of Japanese film is just starting to receive some
> recognition here.
>
> Given this obession of mine, I would very much like to know how the
> archives and other collections of Japanese cinema are coping with the
> current crisis in Tokyo. Are they able to function normally in their work of
> preservation considering the power blackouts etc.? If there really should be
> an evacuation of the capital, has there been discussion of removing films
> and other cultural treasures from Tokyo to Kyoto, a much safer city and
> which I personally feel should be restored to the position of Japan's
> capital?
>
> As to whether now is the proper time to discuss the preservation of culture
> in view of the terrible loss of life and the continuing threat, I believe
> that, far from being at odds or incompatible, the preservation of human life
> and humanity's cultural heritage are inseparable. The heroic people of Egypt
> have shown all of us the way recently in this area. During a time of turmoil
> in which a corrupt, discredited dictatorship was attempting to hang on to
> power by employing ruthless methods against the protestors, demonstrators
> courageously appeared to form human chains around the Library in Alexandria
> and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to protect these treasures of our history.
> I would hope that, should it ever become necessary, a similar sense of
> cultural responsibility will be demonstrated in other countries, including
> Japan. The heritage of Japan, including its film history, is the common
> property not just of one country but indeed, the legacy of all the people of
> the earth.
>
> In all those non-Western countries that the West chose to lump together as
> "Oriental," for much of the 20th century the four most significant in terms
> of creating outstanding cinemas in the first half of the last century were
> Japan, China, India, and Egypt. This preeminence in the new art of film was
> emblematic of these nations' continuing cultural leadership in the modern
> world. In terms of documenting and preserving the national film heritage,
> however, Egypt under the Mubarak regime was scandalous. The Egyptian film
> archive was by far the worst run in the entire world, mismanaged by members
> of Mubarak's family. So neglected was the state of the archive that it was a
> common sight to see rats crawling out of cans of film in the vaults. The
> situation with the Egyptian archive was thus symptomatic of the larger ills
> afflicting the society under the corrupt regime that ruled Egypt for thirty
> years. Needless to say, with the present rebirth of Egypt through revolution
> there is a far greater hope that the glories of Egyptian cinema from its
> bright beginnings in the silent era to the achievements of later decades
> will be at last properly preserved.
>
> While the infrastructure of Japan including its archives can hardly compare
> to its counterparts in Egypt in the Mubarak years, there has nevertheless
> been a steady decline in Japan in the two decades since the economic bubble
> burst in the early 1990s. Egypt is now trying to recover from a social
> disaster, Japan from a natural one exacerbated, it seems, by a variant of
> the same corruption and cronyism that long afflicted Egypt. I think Japan,
> like Egypt, will need to transform itself anew, but as with Egypt, that
> transformation must be solidly based on the preservation and dissemination
> of past achievements including a glorious legacy of early cinema.
> Consequently, in addition to my general concern at the eerie silence that
> has suddenly taken over KineJapan, as though all its members have been
> struck dumb, I would in particular like to know how the film archives and
> other institutions consecrated to cinema history in Japan are faring during
> the present crisis.
>
> William M. Drew
>
>
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