[KineJapan] The Meiji Era through the Dark Valley at NFAJ

Fri May 11 09:22:49 EDT 2018

Thank you, all, for yourcomments, and Fred for your correction, especially as that placing was a lateaddition to my notes, as I tried to indicate. And I have another correction. Inoticed that it is the Itō film that has a commercially available DVD. It’s justbeen delivered by Amazon, so I haven’t looked at it yet. But the front of thepackaging has a reproduction of the contemporary poster with furigana, whichshows that the reading of黄金地獄 should be Ōgen jigoku. It’s likely that the printwould also have the furigana, but I can’t remember. For no obvious reason theDVD has the copyright date of 1953, despite having a similar credit list ofactors and technicians.

Roger

macyroger at yahoo.co.uk

    On Friday, 11 May 2018, 21:55:57 GMT+9, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu> wrote:  

 Hi Roger,
I enjoyed reading your notes here, and revisited them after watching the Ito Daisuke Kurama Tengu film yesterday. I want to offer a small correction, as I think you've misattributed scenes from one film in your account of another. The street scenes of a circus coming to town which you mention in connection with Hiwa Norumanton Gō-jiken: Kamen no butō sound very much like the opening scenes of the Ito Kurama Tengu film, including all the characters you describe. Perhaps both films have similar scenes and characters, but given that they screened consecutively earlier in the series, it seems like perhaps you've transposed these scenes onto the other film.
The Ito film is striking, if decidedly uneven, but as you say, the anti-semitic caricature should not pass unacknowledged. Though far less central to the film's construction, there is some regrettable brownface as well. It mars what might otherwise have been a fairly entertaining (and visually quite remarkable) chanbara film.
Fred.
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 3:15 PM, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

The Meiji Era through the Dark Valley at NFAJ

Dear KineJapaners,

As reported before, the National Film Center has now become the National Film Archive of Japan -NFAJ. The signage inside and out at Takarachō has been changed, including thedirections in the metro station, The websitenow has its own domain, which links to the librarycatalogue, which is, for now, still under the wing of Momat.

Some things don’t change so fast though.There are still worryingly few staff to administer research, conservation andcuration for a major national film archive; there are still continuingprogrammes of films at wonderfully low prices; and there are still no more thantwo screenings each day in the cinema. Refreshing for those increasinglyblasted by trailers at the likes of the BFI, all films still start on the dotafter precisely fifteen seconds of silent darkness.

After a shorter opening programme, thefirst major retrospective inaugurating the NFAJ is ‘Meiji Periodin Films’. 2018 is the 150th anniversary of the deposition ofthe Shogunate but, since the Emperor Meiji came to the throne the previousyear, one can justify the squeezing in of some civil war dramas. As the introductorytext states, it’s partly an opportunity to show some films rarely shown.All the films I saw were NFAJ prints, with their original ‘NFC’ logos.

Of particular interest to me this lastweek has been a strand of films made in the late 30s and earlier 40s, which Ihave never had the opportunity to see. As they are all to get their secondscreening in the next week or so, I’m flagging them up, should someone care toread on, with the proviso that anyone who caught the tonnage of dialogue thatpassed through this non-linguist’s ears might have heard quite different films.

Actually, only one of the six films was mostlyset after the Meiji restoration, and three were set during the events leadingup to it. But what interested me was how history was being redeployed andre-narrated during this modern era.

The one that was set almost completely inthe Meiji era was Hiwa Norumanton Gō-jiken: Kamen no butō, - perhaps‘Normanton Incident Special: Masked Dance - made in 1943 by SASAKI Keisuke. Onemight reasonably think that the story of criminally racist arrogance by theBritish in the actual events of 1881 was bad enough not to need embellishment,but embellished it was. The surviving Indian cabin boy becomes Chinese, all thebetter to show the Japanese supporting him against the racism of the British. Ina long opening section, which introduces life in a western-embracing Meiji era,a young lawyer leads the push-back.  Forthe 1943 filmmakers, this allows the copious display of long-vanished elaboratedresses and ball-gowns, whilst also showing disapproval of them. The Britishwhite-wash at the end is emphasized, and becomes here a vehicle to show thatthe lawyer, and his firebrand friend, are on the right side of history. Theirexpressions of resentment dissolve into a hate-the-enemy coda which depicts the1940s military destruction of British-occupied urban areas.

As one might expect in a 1943 Japanesefilm, the casting of the westerners’ roles was decidedly mixed. Some of theseactors, by the evidence of these films, had something of a living depictingwicked foreigners. But earlier in the film, I seem to recall, there were streetscenes of a western circus coming into town. The point here was that theforeign vagrants were unfairly disrupting the living of honest, hard-workingfamilies, particularly a widow and her two performing children. The brashcircus was very convincing, fronted by a blonde with bare limbs and shoulders,straight out of Hollywood casting. I’d love to know more about where they gotthese players from. Come to think of it, the people of all classes in thestreet scenes of 1881 were unrealistically well-clad - presumably all thebetter to depict the ‘nakedness’ of the westerner.

Seiki no gasshō-ai kuni kōshinkyoku - Century Chorus - Patriotic March, 1938, wasa biopic of the musician SETOGUCHI Tōkichi. Since he lived on to1941, his life, by definition, covered far more than the Meiji period, althoughthere is a substantial section set in that era. As a naval bandsman withcomposing ambitions, we eventually see him get his sea-legs. To the sound andback-drop of active gunnery in rough seas, he composes his Battleship Marchwith full notation. To those wary of over-exposure to Gunkan-kōshinkyoku,I’d say there are many films of the period that employ the tune far moreblatantly. In the sound-track, we first get it in fragments and, indeed, muchof the sound-track uses a backdrop of silence to illustrate the sounds thatSetoguchi hears and imagines. After his naval retirement send-off, to theunavoidable accompaniment, we see Setoguchi entering civilian life, and hearhis new world - that of Taishō modernism. Setoguchi’s reception during hisWestern tour in this era is off the menu in this film. He seems, if I got itright, to be living above a record store. This long episode, of afish-out-of-water, I found highly imaginative. But the authors had their ownreason. Taishō becomes Shōwa and a new generation enters military service.  They are finally able to report to his bedsidethat his music is back in fashion, and he’s big - in Italy and Germany. We hear Gunkan-kōshinkyokuagain, which the visuals cut to be an accompaniment of a march-past ofHitler. Taishō modernism gets to be shown here as a historical mistake that hasbeen corrected.

More exposure of Gunkan-kōshinkyokucould be heard in another ‘naval’ film in the same programme, Sugino Heisō-chōno tsuma - perhaps The Widow of the Honoured Heiso Sugino, 1940.Only three of five reels survive. We follow a widow of a casualty of the Russo-Japanesewar as she struggles to bring up three sons. The arithmetic of that makes thisfilm also a Taishō drama, but set rurally. I didn’t ascertain exactly whichreels survive, but we seemed to get the end, even though I didn’t spot the‘end’ character. Perhaps at the beginning of that reel, there is anextraordinarily beautiful and evocative scene. An elegiac, long-phraseaccompanied song, different from any gidayū I have heard, accompanies a slowsweep over landscape of considerable beauty. The camera eventually pans down ona memorial visit to the father’s grave. After the rituals are completed, thefamily walk back down the road. The three sons are in naval uniform, the motherin formal attire. The mood lightens, the pace quickens and the four of them aremarching proudly ahead - to Gunkan-kōshinkyoku. This, Ithought I was being told, was how honourable people had spent their Taishō era- preparing for the next joyful march to war.

There was a fine restoration drama, Ishinno kyoku - Melody of Restoration, made by USHIHARA Kiyohiko in 1942.It was the prestige commencing drama of the new conglomerate Daiei company withan all-star cast and staff. To me, it had something of the feel of 1950s epics.That might be partly due to the different feel of the grand scenes of marching armiesthat punctuated long interior dramatic scenes, seemingly made by differentunits. The excellent acting was well photographed. There had clearly been amove away from the placing of characters in ensemble scenes of many 1930s filmsto a style more familiar to modern eyes, of easily readable characters in theforeground. The print was also in very good condition (it does not appear tohave been preserved via the ‘captured films’), apart from a few minutes ofcyclical lightening, probably at the beginning of the penultimate reel, whichwas starting to give me a headache before it abated.  Made in Kyoto, it seemed to me that several scenes were shot in Nijō Castle’s interior. The music was mostly, if not alldiegetic.

The two other tales of restoration were filledby the derring-do of the then familiar character of Kurama Tengu, the legendaryman of the people, who had been appearing in films since 1928. His July 1941outing, directed by SUGANUMA Kanji, Satsuma no misshi - Envoy of Satsuma- is a hate-the-French vehicle, elaborating an attempt at that time by French agentsto arm the Shogunate. Redeploying Kurama Tengu, along with his popular star, ARASHIKanjurō (‘Arakan’), who had played this role since its film debut, was awell-trodden propaganda move. It recalled for me the deployment of long-playingheroic character, Maxim, in the first 1941 U.S.S.R. ‘Fighting Film’, Meetingwith Maxim, Vstrecha s Maksimon. Who better to gain quick approval of a patriotic hating of the enemythan an already well-established popular hero? This is shown most obviously in Satsumano misshi in a sequence where the resentful face of Arakan gets stepclosing-ups, montaged with step close-ups of the tricolor on the French shipthat was bringing the armaments.

There are overwhelming reasons why neither could havebeen a direct influence on the other, and there is also a very importantdifference in their contexts. The U.S.S.R. had then been invaded, whilst Japan was not at war with France, and would not be so for most of the war. It’s alsoworth noting that this anti-Gallican piece appeared just as those, I think, ofmore liberal complexion, were extolling all things French in journals like EigaHyōron. I’ll go further: I’d say the scriptwriter of Satsuma no misshi,MARUNE Santarō, here under the pseudonym, 来栖重兵衛, had the same idea as me that interest in  the French was a proxy for a wished-foropposition. And it’s not just the French who are selling the country, but theirJapanese collaborators, shown in extended scenes of wine-drinking, rather thancheese-eating. Despite photography by MIYAGAWA Kazuo, it looked cheaply madewith unconvincing sound. The print, a bit flecked, appears on the L.o.C. listsof captured films.

Kurama Tengu’snext outing the following year, still with Arakan, was under the script anddirection of ITŌ Daisuke. This was easily the best-preserved print of the setand looked as if it had never been through a projector before (althoughja.wikipedia refers to a 2010 NFC screening). In fact, it was the bestpreserved print I’ve ever seen, with sparklingly clear images and sharp soundthroughout. As you might expect for a film by Itō, there’s a spectacularsword-fight, this one being set in a multi-floored, brick-built warehouse andfilmed by a camera that roamed vertically and horizontally. As in Suganuma’sfilm, there are nice flashes of light on Kurama’s sword-blade, but in this filmwe see it on the revolver, and even, flamboyantly, on the point of a pin. Thatpin, belonging to a blinded woman, has strong connotations in the plot.

Everysuspense-and-rescue trope, and then some, is thrown at the final denouement.The British, and probably others, are linked orally to the nefarious armsdealers, but the over-whelming direction of hate in this film is something sodeplorable that it should require far more contextualisation than that given.The arms-dealers are called ‘Jacob’ and have grotesque false noses and habits.Such gratuitous promotion of anti-semitism, during the very maelstrom of theHolocaust, surely needs to be overtly acknowledged and commented on at anyscreening. The film was projected and billed with its original title, KuramaTengu: Kogane Tengu - Kurama Tengu - Golden Hell. I seem not to be the onlyone who sees that trope of avarice as part-and-parcel of the anti-semitism,since, at some point, the film’s title in Itō filmographies got changed to KuramaTengu: Yokohama ni arawaru - Kurama TenguAppears in Yokohama. The film does not appear inany list of captured films and, at this point, I know nothing of its history ofpreservation.

Roger

macyroger at yahoo.co.uk

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