"Potemkin" in Japan

[bsk9 at columbia.edu]

The Makino Collection on the History of East Asian Film at Columbia  
University has many original proletarian film publications.
(http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/eastasian/special_collections/makino_mamoru.html)

Although this collection is largely in process, many of the Prokino  
materials have been processed and can be requested from off-site for  
use in the Special Collections Reading Room at Starr Library. If you  
are interested in seeing an Excel File list of contents of the  
proletarian film literature, let me know and I can send you the draft.

Best,
Beth K.




Quoting Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu>:

> This is actually going to be easy, but time consuming, to research.   
> You'll find many, many, many (!) articles on Soviet film starting in  
>  the late 1920s through the 50s. Kinejun and Eiga Hyoron have tons  
> of  articles. The proletarian film movement's publications have lots  
> as  well (there is a nice index for the Prokino publications as part  
> of  the reprint; most of the extant Prokino and non-Prokino books  
> and  journals are in the online reprint series Makino Mamoru and I   
> curated:   
> https://www.cjspubs.lsa.umich.edu/electronic/facultyseries/list/series/prewar.php). There are also lots of translations. In the postwar, there is also a discourse in the journals and even a specialized magazine. You have a lot of work ahead of   
> you!
>
> Markus
>
>
> _________________________________
> A. M. Nornes
> Chair, Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> Professor, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures
> Professor, School of Art & Design
> University of Michigan
> North Quad 6F, 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608
> Phone: 734-763-1314
> FAX: 734-936-1846
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On May 17, 2012, at 8:50 AM, Dolores Martinez wrote:
>
>> To the whole list, but Naoki Yamamoto especially,
>> I've just been reviewing this conversation and tried to get hold of  
>>  Iwamoti Kenj's book in the soas library.  No luck, although on  
>> film  we have a lot in Japanese.  Are there other references for  
>> Japanese  film's possible engagement with Russian formalism?  I  
>> remain, as  ever, interested in any Kurosawa references.  I do have  
>> copies of  Yuna's and Olga's articles, but anything else would be  
>> welcomed.
>> Thanks, Lola
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, 14 January 2011, Naoki Yamamoto wrote:
>> One of the earliest introductions of Potemkin to Japanese film  
>> discourse was a series of short essays entitled ?????????????that  
>> the literary critic Kurahara Korehito contributed to the March and  
>> April 1927 issues of Kinema Junpo. In these essays, Kurahara gave  
>> detailed accounts of Potemkin and other "revolutionary" films he  
>> watched during his one year stay in the Soviet Union. Then major  
>> critics like Iwasaki Akira and Iijima Tadashi followed Kurahara  
>> with their translations of Timoshenko ("Filmkunst unde  
>> Filmschnitt") and Moussinac ("Le Ciéma Soviétique"). In any case,  
>> professor Iwamoti Kenji (now teaching at Nichidai) is the most  
>> reliable scholar on the Japanese reception of Soviet film theory  
>> and practice and perhaps he might have mentioned something on this  
>> topic in his books like ????????????????????.
>>
>> Naoki
>>
>>
>> On Jan 14, 2011, at 9:47 AM, Dolores Martinez wrote:
>>
>> It would be worth asking Donald Richie about this.  He told me   
>> once, in passing, that Kurosawa's memoirs were more representative   
>> of how he wanted things to have been...
>> That being said, Donald might know if any 'illegal' copies of the   
>> film had possibly circulated earlier anyway.  Given the strong   
>> connections, pre-war, that liberals had with the broader world (I   
>> love Miriam Silverberg's book on this era), they might have seen   
>> the film outside Japan and circulated descriptions within Japan.    
>> Film magazines may well have published the story and stills, etc.
>> We really need a historian here!
>> Lola
>>
>> On 14 January 2011 14:34, <ryan.cook at yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>> My understanding is that Potemkin was not released in Japan until   
>> the 1950s, and
>> then only by means of film clubs (working with the Russian embassy) who
>> organized screenings after several attempts to distribute the film   
>> commercially
>> had failed for various reasons.  Yamada Kazuo wrote a book in 1978 about the
>> efforts to bring Potemkin to Japan in the postwar period, called "Senkan
>> Pochomukin" (Otsuki Shoten).  It would be very interesting to know where
>> Kurosawa might have seen the film in 1926...
>>
>> Ryan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Quoting Michael Kerpan <mekerpan at verizon.net>:
>>
>> 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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-- 
Beth Katzoff, Ph.D.
Archival/Public Services Librarian
C.V. Starr East Asian Library
319 Kent Hall
Columbia University
1140 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY 10027
email: bsk9 at columbia.edu
phone: 212-854-8728