Ainu actors in prewar Japanese film

Fri Sep 9 05:09:54 EDT 2011

Something else I forgot to mention,Makino Productions "Ainu no Musume" from 1927,most likely without any Ainu in it although as Aaron has already mentioned,any existing actor of Ainu origin would have concealed their origins and in any case during the Meiji period most people had been forced to adopt Japanese names.
Actor Takashi Ukajo surprised the media by confessing he was actually of Ainu origin when he was already 46 a few years ago!

http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1927/bc003810.htm

________________________________
From: Maria Jose Gonzalez <tkarsavina at yahoo.com>
To: "KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2011 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: Ainu actors in prewar Japanese film

Fascinating question.
Can you read Japanese,Peter?
The sadly departed and Kyoto-based Ainu scholar,Chupuchisekor -I apologise if the romanised version is not correct,for I have never seen it- did a very interesting series on "Images of Ainu in Japan" for Kyoto Shimbun.
You can find it here:
http://www6.plala.or.jp/fynet/2scrap411nihonnoainu.html

Available online,you will also find a summary for a seminar titled "Ainu Culture and Media",where he discusses 
Ainu in films.
http://www.frpac.or.jp/rst/sem/sem1109.pdf

The first Ainu moving images date from 1898 courtesy of the very own Lumière  Brothers so they predate Japanese cinema!Accounted next are documentary films regarding the Russo-Japanese war,which geographically makes a lot of sense .After these,the emphasis is on landscape/nature documentaries and next he discusses some studio films.
Since so much has been lost,it is impossible to say for sure how much Ainu appeared in Yamato productions but Chupinsenkor talks about three Shochiku films from 1921 and 1922,mentioning there were others he did not watch and where the Ainu were often depicted as bad characters.
I have not watched the Naruse you cite but was this the case?
Already at war,北の同胞-Northern Brothers ?-from 1941 is a Kokusaku Eiga where both Ainu and Yamato people fight for their country...

I am not that familiar with Ainu culture but will confess to finding this information after watching Kimi no Na,which Chupu-san also discusses.
There is not much available in English and it is a pity.Just a study of name places and Japanese words that actually come from Ainu would be an excellent read.

Maria-Jose Gonzalez

Maybe not strictly relevant, but have you seen the footage from Benjamin Brodsky's A TRIP THROUGH JAPAN WITH THE YWCA which includes 1919 shots of the Ainu community? The NFSA recently restored it in collaboration with the National Film Preservation Foundation in the US. See http://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/a-trip-through-japan-with-the-ywca-ca-1919 

I mention this as we are curious to know if there is any earlier surviving material which shows Ainu community, whether drama or actuality? 

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
[Please note that I am
 often absent Mondays]

Film prints shipped to:
NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA
att: Cinema Programming
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The National Film and Sound Archive collects, preserves and provides access to Australia's historic and contemporary moving image and recorded sound culture. 

Hello all,

This will be an odd question, but does anyone know if there were any
Ainu actors in prewar Japanese film? I have seen a couple of silents
recently which featured actors that look like they might, in fact, be
of
 Ainu decent, though I could just be seeing things. The western
looking man in Naruse's "No Blood Relation" (1932) comes to mindPardon
me if this is an odd question.

Pete

________________________________
From: Aaron Gerow <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2011 2:59 AM
Subject: Re: Ainu actors in prewar Japanese film

I have not heard of any actors from that era who then
 or later termed themselves Ainu. Perhaps there were some but because of factors such as discrimination, which lead zainichi actors for instance to hide their backgrounds, did not admit it publicly.

A good paper could be written about the representations of Ainu in Japanese cinema, which incidentally could include Naruse's Kotan no kuchibue, as well as other works like Kimi no na wa or Daisogen no wataridori.

Aaron Gerow
Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Yale University
320 York Street, Room 311
PO Box 208236
New Haven, CT 06520-8236
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
site: www.aarongerow.com
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