"Potemkin" in Japan

[Naoki Yamamoto]

Hi Lola,

One chapter of my dissertation, which I have just submitted a few  
months ago, deals with this topic by looking at the Japanese reception  
of Russian filmmakers and their theories (especially Vertov's) in the  
late 1920s and early 1930s. I don't know if it could be of your help  
as it has yet to be published in any format (it will be available  
through ProQuest sometime this or next year), but I can send it to you  
if you contact me off-list.

As Markus mentioned, one of the best places to start off your research  
are prewar Japanese proletarian film magazines like Eiga kojo,  
Puroretaria eiga, and Shinko eiga. Thanks to his wonderful curation,  
these magazines are now all available at Michigan's Motion Pictures  
Reprint Series.

Naoki


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 「最近のソ 
> ウェート映画界」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 『ロシア・アヴァン 
> ギャルドの映画と演劇』.
>
> 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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