[KineJapan] Hara Kazuo's Cinema Juku wraps up

Sun Mar 29 04:15:32 EDT 2015

I couldn't agree more, Sato was somehow more in tune with the international documentary milieu (even if unintentionally) and very interested in the "filmic" aspect of non-fiction, Memories of Agano, Self and Others (2 of my favourite Japanese documentaries) and partially Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said are perfect examples of this aesthetic approach (almost a "return" to the fukeiron of the 60s/70s). 
With some notable exceptions, if when we compare contemporary Japanese documentary with its international counterpart, I find it to be too much on the amateurish side, so to speak, and too focussed on "what" to film and less on "how", but I don't want to generalise and it would be nice to hear what the other members of the list think about this. 

Regards

Matteo Boscarol
ボスカロル マッテオ
記憶ただ陽炎のゆらめき
- History of Japanese Documentary
http://storiadocgiappone.wordpress.com
- Torino Film Festival
Asia consultant (Onde, Doc)
http://www.torinofilmfest.org
- Sonatine2010
http://www.sonatine2010.blogspot.jp
- Screenweek Japan
http://blog.screenweek.it/rubrica/sw-japan

> On Mar 29, 2015, at 12:32 PM, Markus Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:
> 
> Japanese self-documentary was completely cut off from its foreign counterparts. And the choices were not the obvious ones. They were people that have already had contact with Japanese, often through Yamagata. 
> 
> That he could have all these foreigners and not make any substantial connections says a lot about the generally hermetically sealed discourse that goes on here. There's a lack of translation, so they are not aware of the way "self-documentary" has been discussed through Montaigne and the idea of the "essayistic." No one is reading English texts, so no one has introduced that. The only scholar that was called on what a fellow named Serizawa, who came from a psychological POV. Discussions were strictly between panelists; if you wanted to pitch in, you had to wait until the end of the day and submit a question in writing and hope Hara chose it from the pile. I had plenty of things to say or add, but was never called on. Too bad. 
> 
> It resulted in a strange disconnect between how its perceived here and what's been going on abroad for decades. Abroad, you have mature filmmakers like Marker, Hammer, Varda, Trinh, McElwee, and many others. There is a strong attention to film form, while being tied to a personal POV. In Japan, the discussion kept devolving toward a group of one-hit-wonder young people making films about their families and then disappearing. This was one of Sato's main complaints in the debate with Yasuoka. And in the years before his death, he was increasingly exploring the essayistic films abroad and beginning to make his own. Thus, yesterday Hara showed (and made fun of) a TV program Sato made about the birth of his second daughter—made in a direct cinema style with a television network, over two decades ago and just after his first big film, and probably just to make some cash; it's significant that not a single person mentioned Memories of Agano, a truly essayistic film and Sato's late attempt to push the self-documentary in a new, formally inventive direction.
> 
> Sato Makoto's death was a huge, huge loss for Japanese cinema. 
> 
> Markus
> 
>> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:48 AM, Alex Zahlten <Alex.Zahlten at gmx.de> wrote:
>> Markus, thank you for a great description of the Cinema Juku talks! I was wondering how Hara set up the relation of documentaries made in Japan and those made in other contexts. Since the Juku explicitly makes the distinction via the title of "Kaigai ni okeru serufu" I wondered how Hara handled this in the talks themselves.
>>  
>> Best,
>> Alex
>>  
>>  
>> Gesendet: Samstag, 28. März 2015 um 14:05 Uhr
>> Von: "Markus Nornes" <amnornes at umich.edu>
>> An: "Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum" <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu>
>> Betreff: [KineJapan] Hara Kazuo's Cinema Juku wraps up
>> Today was the last day of Hara Kazuo’s Cinema Juku. This was a year-long series of talks with the theme of documenting the self. Hara gathered people at Athenee Francais once a month for sessions featuring a mix of screenings and discussion with filmmakers. It included foreign filmmakers like Gina Kim and Wu Wenguang. You can see the whole lineup at their website: http://newcinemajuku.net
>>  
>> Today’s session was to sum up everything, pivoting around the debate between producer Yasuoka Takaharu and Sato Makoto in 2003. Sato was quite critical of the “self-documentary” that had taken over Japanese documentary, and Yasuoka was a supporter. They touched on the debate, but constant sidetracks (some pretty interesting) kept them from really wrapping things up in any serious way. It’s too bad. 
>>  
>> Today’s juku also suffered from a problem that ran through the entire year. The place of women in the project was really quite problematic. This was true from the start, when the largely female staff bailed and left the juku after the first month or two. And while Hara did feature a number of important women, like Kawase Naomi, Hamano Sachi, and Yang Yonghi, too often they were relegated to themes connected to women; thus, it was not surprising that no women were invited to today’s meta-level wrap-up of the year’s efforts. Hara also treated men and women very differently. Men were cut a lot of slack, given mostly softball questions, and questionable behavior was excused with little to no comment. For example, pink director Hirano Katsuyuki talked about the children that he fathered (ultimately in absentia, except for the sex act) he admitted he doesn’t really care to even see them, but sometimes gives them presents. Hara did little more than laugh. But when when women took the stage, Hara relentlessly questioned them about their most intimate personal lives. It was sometimes quite uncomfortable, as when he pressed Kawase Naomi about the state of her marriage. 
>>  
>> Just today this blind spot about gender was particularly obvious. One of today’s films was Kazoku Ketchup, one of the earliest self-documentaries, which begins with the main character urinating on his mother in front of the family shrine. Hara said little about this scene except that it “took courage.” In contrast, later in the day Hara showed Sato Makoto’s diary film about the birth of his second daughter, and ridiculed Sato and the film. He didn’t get far into his reasons, but it was clear he couldn’t see how a well-functioning couple going through childbirth—together—had any social dimension. He seemed blind to what was going on in the film, perhaps because there was nothing extreme or provocative in it. Or it could just be that the two never got along. But it could just be Hara’s blind spot; earlier in the juku he was perplexed why his daughter from Extreme Private Eros—who he admitted he hardly spent time with over the decades—refused to go on stage when he showed the film….in turn perplexing many audience members who wondered why he didn’t get it.
>>  
>> This was all rather unfortunate, because Hara is very smart otherwise, listens to people with a special intensity, and generally holds great discussions. I learned a lot in the juku, and admired the ambition to hold such sustained discussion. Just today, there were several high points with Kawanaka Nobuhiro and Matsue Tetsuaki.  But I also understood why so many people stopped coming halfway through. 
>>  
>> Markus
>>  
>> --
>> Markus Nornes
>> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
>> Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
>> Professor, School of Art & Design
>>  
>> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
>> 6348 North Quad
>> 105 S. State Street
>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
>>  
>>  
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Markus Nornes
> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> Professor, School of Art & Design
> 
> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> 6348 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
> 
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