[KineJapan] question about Japanese film and Mark Cousins' series

[ReelDrew at aol.com]

Although I've written a number of articles on early Japanese cinema, I  
value the expertise of others on the subject, including those here who have 
made  a particular study in this field. I'm currently writing an analysis of 
Mark  Cousins' documentary series, "The Story of Film." Those who are familiar 
with it  will recall that Cousins places the Japanese cinema of the 1920s 
and 1930s in  the forefront of what has been described as a radical 
reinterpretation of world  film history. He appears to believe that Japanese cinema 
surpassed all others in  those years in terms of artistic maturity. 
 
While for many years I have sought to bring greater recognition to the  
once-neglected field of early Japanese cinema, often in the face of 
considerable  indifference on the part of the film history establishment, I never did 
so with  an eye to diminishing the pioneering cinematic achievements of other 
countries  or regions. Some of Mark Cousins' reading of Japanese film 
history thus arouses  questions in my mind, particularly in comparison to those 
of other countries.  Did Japanese directors of the '20s, '30s and '40s enjoy 
as much creative freedom  as he states, seemingly unhampered by the kind of 
commercial and political  constraints that filmmakers elsewhere experienced 
in those years? I recall that  toward the end of his life, Daisuke Ito 
stated in an interview that the  political censorship the Japanese government 
then imposed on filmmakers was  terrible. Also, due to less-than-supportive 
studio executives at Shochiku, Mikio  Naruse in the mid-1930s left the company 
and went to Toho. 
 
I believe the proper appreciation and understanding of Japanese cinema can  
be best served, not by indulging in dubious theories of cultural 
superiority as  I think some writers have done with respect to Japan, whether 
consciously or  not, but by viewing it within the context of world film history. 
Hence, I'd be  interested in the views of others here concerning the degree to 
which Japanese  filmmakers did or did not work under conditions similar to 
cinema artists  elsewhere in the world in those years.
 
William M. Drew
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