[KineJapan] 'Nanking', 1938

Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan kinejapan at lists.osu.edu
Mon Jan 22 12:01:07 EST 2018


It looks as if people should "sign" their name in their post.  I looked at the web-site (wonderful essay!) for the person's name of this post.

David Desser

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From: KineJapan [kinejapan-bounces+desser=uiuc.edu at lists.osu.edu] on behalf of Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan [kinejapan at lists.osu.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2018 8:22 AM
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] 'Nanking', 1938

For what its worth, I wrote about Nanking in my Master's thesis and how it contrasted sharply with the tone and feel of Shanghai/Beijing. You can also read it online here: http://eigagogo.free.fr/en/shina-in-wartime-japan.php

Just fyi I found this film quite easily back in 2005-6 when I was writing my thesis. Picked it up at the video rental store and there were quite a few copies available at other outlets as well.

Here's a short excerpt:

Nanjing, the second film in the trilogy, was filmed two days after the city’s fall in December 1937 by Shirai Shigeru and edited by Akimoto Ken. It offers an interesting contrast because of the similarity of the images used but the different effects that were achieved. It minced no words about the extent of the destruction – the screen overflows with helmets, spent bullets, unexploded grenades, and all manner of an entirely annihilated city. The movie opens with a slow, wafting shot of a misty swamp, the trees barren of leaves. There is no sign of life, only the sound of the troops marching by. The city is a wasteland. But the introduction is paired oddly with an upbeat, faux Chinese tune that saps the pathos and results in a disconcerting, unreal experience. By comparison, in Shanghai, the long, traveling scenes of destruction in the marshes, the city, and the suburbs are eulogised by the lonely cry of a violin in a minor key, which elicit a keen sense of tragedy. Further, the scenes of destruction in Nanjing only comprise the first few minutes, as if to reduce its significance, whereas in Shanghai it takes up almost ten continuous minutes in the second half.


The two films’ different representation of the victory march also merit comparison. The victory march, a standard feature of the patriotic cinema experience, had been used in news films and other documentaries to convey the military’s success. But in Nanjing, it took on additional weight and significance; not only was it Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuomintang Party’s capital, it was a historic capital surrounded on all sides by a series of ancient castle gates that date back to the Ming Dynasty. The gates were designed for defense purposes and were heavily fortified. There were three main gates from which the Japanese army attacked – Yijiang Gate in the west, along the Yangtse river, Heping (or peace) Gate in the north, and the impressive Zhongshan gate in the east, which comprised four rows of seemingly impregnable gates. Their near-complete destruction is featured in the movie’s opening minutes – although the bodies had been removed, the high number of casualties was obvious from the sea of darkened uniforms, helmets, and spent bullets covering the ruins. It was through Zhongshan gate that General Matsui chose to conduct his victory parade. Leading the cavalry, General Matsui’s troops cross the screen in resplendent fashion from right to left, on their way to the Kuomintang headquarters. In the background, Nihon Rikugun (The Japanese Army), a favourite marching tune is played. The same trumpet music is used in Shanghai during the victory parade too – but almost immediately it fades out, and the camera, trailing along and filming the crowd in the opposite direction from the march, reveals the anxious, fearful, and uncomfortable expressions on the Chinese faces in the crowd.

In fact, portraying Chinese citizens turned out to be the most difficult, and often gave the lie to the careful image they were trying to construct and maintain. And in many cases scenes of soldiers playing with children appear to be staged or reenacted. In a promotional poster used for Nanjing, two Japanese soldiers are seen giving out cigarettes to Chinese men in the crowd. But a closer look at the poster – and of the scene in the movie – reveals the men cowering along the wall. The two soldiers tower over the trembling men, who had been rounded up for questioning for involvement with Kuomintang activities. The intent of the poster was to highlight the army’s benevolence, instead it was undercut by the visceral fear in the expressions of the men coiled up against the wall. Shanghai too, featured scenes of the army’s civilised and benevolent gestures to the Chinese population, for example of the prisoners-of-war having their meal. But this scene is undercut by the wary eyes and sideway glances at the camera, and their reluctance to pick up their chopsticks and eat the bowl of rice laid before them. In this case however, given Kamei’s refrain, that not all is as it seems, it is much more likely that the contrast was intended.

On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 7:24 PM, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu<mailto:kinejapan at lists.osu.edu>> wrote:

Dear KineJapaners,

This is just a response to the posting by Mark Selden on Asia-Pacific Journal about the film, Nanking, 1938: http://apjjf.org/2018/2/Selden.html . I think I got a slightly better picture by going direct to YouTube.

There’s some information on the film in Markus Nornes’ Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era through Hiroshima, which is a more accurate source than JMDb, whose page seems to have been compiled from secondary sources in the era when the film was ‘lost’. Unsurprisingly, the Massacre is off-screen in this film. I did, though, find it more of interest than Markus, particularly the section where the film’s narration attempts to pars a position on Chiang Kai-shek (from 30 minutes in), along with his fascist-style architecture.

There is one credit that JMDb gets right, which the film’s awful subtitles do not. The music is by 江文也, JIĀNG Wén-yě, pronounced in Japanese as KŌ Bunya. He was the subject of research of the protagonist in Café Lumière, HOU Hsiao-hsien’s Tokyo-based fiction feature.

Roger

macyroger at yahoo.co.uk<mailto:macyroger at yahoo.co.uk>


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