[KineJapan] Matsue Apologizes for Dotei o Produce....sort of

[Markus Nornes]

I've been working on a third book about Japanese documentary, this time
focussed on ethics and the post-Ogawa era. So naturally, I've been
carefully tracking the Matsue-Kaga controversy over their film Dotei o
Produce (2007, I believe). This whole thing erupted very publicly when Kaga
took the opportunity to turn a butai aisatsu for the film into a
carnivalesque critique of Matsue's unethical behavior on the set and
afterwards (I'll be it is still on youtube if you didn't catch it before.

Matsue and his producer just issued apologies over the whole thing.

http://spotted.jp/2019/12/13_message/

That's an upright and long-overdue thing to do. However, I have to say this
apology is remarkably vague. It's completely unclear what Matsue is
apologizing for. The issue is complicated, when you get right down to it
this is about power harassment. Indeed, if the film is significant at all,
it's for showing how naturalized power harassment is in the film world in
Japan. It's rather incredible Matsue was happily putting his bad behavior
on display, so something tells me he's now apologizing for the wrong thing.

Markus


---

*Markus Nornes*
*Professor of Asian Cinema*
Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design

*Department of Film, Television and Media*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street*
*Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
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