[KineJapan] 100 years of Kinema Junpō

Fri Jul 12 03:42:57 EDT 2019

Thanks Quinten, that was fascinating.

Actually, the problem you point out is directly related to the issues you
raise. Kinema Club (and then KineJapan) was formed precisely to do
something about this. The first "members" were frustrated at the lack of
bibliographic resources for Japan—including in Japan—and started a packet
of xeroxed tables of contents. Go and copy one of your own, add it to the
collection, and you got the packet and were "in." This system went by the
wayside when we went digital with KineJapan, which has been a remarkably
resource for people tracking down information.

[By the way, it's not too late to submit an idea/question for the upcoming
anniversary edition of Kinema Club in Ann Arbor. Drop me a line if you are
interested.]

Back to FIAF...

Here is what Aaron and I wrote in the Research Guide to Japanese Cinema:

“FIAF
> www.fiafnet.org/uk/publications/fdbo.cfm
> FIAF is the global organization of film archives. Their online database is
> the go-to resource for anything from film periodicals. While it has
> impressive coverage of non-English languages, there are extremely few
> Japanese journals here (we would be shocked if it weren’t so typical).
> However, for articles on Japanese film in foreign film periodicals, this
> should be one’s first stop. Subscription only; included in Proquest.”
> Excerpt From: Abé Mark Nornes and Aaron Gerow. “Research Guide to Japanese
> Film Studies.” Apple Books.

And while we are at it, I might as well pass on our entry on Kinema Junpo
and some hints on how to use it:

“Kinema junpō (1919-)
> Kinema junpō = The movie times
> Tokyo: Yūshōdō Shuppan, 1993-1995.
>  = The movie times., 1993-1995.
> Eiga junpō
> Tokyo: Yumani Shobō, 2004.
> Kinema junpō = The movie times
> Tokyo: Bunsei Shoin, 2009.
>  = The movie times, 2009.
> Kinema junpō is the most important film journal in Japan, concentrating on
> film criticism and trade news. It started as a coterie publication in 1919
> and lasted until 1941 when the government forced it to change its katakana
> title to Eiga junpō. There was a fitful attempt to restart it after the
> war, but publication only resumed for good after 1950. Since KineJun made
> an effort to print not only reviews, but also “shōkai” (basically credits
> and plot summary) of every commercial film released in Japan, it is an
> essential source for beginning to research a film. Many of the major
> critics wrote for it and the industry analysis is also important, although
> its stance has been relatively conservative and a target of criticism for
> other journals trying to distinguish themselves. The second issue in
> February (the February 15 issue or “gejungō”) is the Best Ten issue,
> featuring both the results of the Kinema junpō Best Ten, the critics poll
> that[…]”
> Excerpt From: Abé Mark Nornes and Aaron Gerow. “Research Guide to Japanese
> Film Studies.” Apple Books.

Our book has a lot of hints on how to use Kinejun, and the partial database
indexing it has received.

I'm happy to say that there is one bit of wrong information in that
*kaisetsu;* there are now full runs of Kinema Junpo at Michigan and Yale.
If you need to work in it, UM has a library grant for visiting and I'll bet
Yale does, too. If there are other full runs, I'd love to hear about them.

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*

On Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 12:25 PM quentin turnour <unkleque at yahoo.com.au>
wrote:

> *UNOFFICIAL*
>
>
>
> The formal authority here *should* (more on that should in a moment) be
> the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals.
> https://www.fiafnet.org/pages/Publications/International-Index-Film-Periodicals.html
> .
>
>
>
> This lists the following still active journals, by longevity:
>
>
>
> Variety - USA - 1905-
>
> American Cinematographer – USA - 1920-
>
> Radio Times - United Kingdom - 1923-
>
> Architectural Digest - United States of America – 1925- (has published
> occasionally on cinema)-
>
> Iskusstvo Kino - Russia - 1931-
>
> Sight & Sound - United Kingdom - 1932-
>
> Monthly Film Bulletin- United Kingdom - 1934-1991 (Absorbed into S&S)
>
> Film-dienst - German Federal Republic - 1947-2017? (Unclear if this has
> ceased publication formally).
>
> Télérama – France - 1950-
>
> Filmcritica – Italy - 1950-
>
> Cahiers du Cinéma – France - 1951-
>
> Kwartalnik Filmowy – Poland - 1951-
>
> Journal of Communication - United States of America - 1951-
>
> Positif – France - 1952-
>
> Kosmorama – Denmark - 1954-
>
> Séquences – Canada - 1955-
>
> Film a Doba - Czech Republic - 1955-
>
> Gazette – Netherlands - 1955-2005
>
> Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media - United States of America -
> 1956-
>
> Gentlemen's Quarterly - United States of America – 1957 (publishes
> occasionally on cinema)
>
> Filmrutan – Sweden - 1958-
>
> Filmbulletin – Switzerland - 1958-
>
> Film Quarterly - United States of America - 1958-.
>
>
>
>
>
> .. except data reliability for the FIAF Index is (as FIAF would admit)
> entirely dependent on the institution-sourced indexing services that have
> been provided by its members since the project started in 1972.
>
>
> That’s patchy. For example, I know that Iskusstvo Kino has stopped and
> started a few times since 1931, whilst the Italian journal Black and White
> has been running since the late 1930s, but has only been published since
> 1970 according to FIAF.
>
>
>
> Of course, from the pov of this group and this conversation, the startling
> absence is Kinema Junpo. Checking in on the FIAF Index this morning, I only
> just realised that this has never been indexed, nor any other Japanese
> publication apart from the probably unfamiliar to all HBF Newsletter
> (1997-2002) and Studies in Broadcasting (1963-1999)… although it does
> include the short-lived – 1977-79 – French journal Cinejap, which
> apparently was a specialist Japanese cinema journal published in French and
> English and which had people Tony Rayns  on its board:
> http://www.cineressources.net/ressource.php?collection=PERIODIQUES&pk=41.
>
> Arguably, this reflects the old-school Euro-centric nature of FIAF;  most
> of the indexing work is done by European FIAF members, reflects their
> national cinema journal publications and that they were mostly subscribing
> either in their national languages or ones their staff could read. Other
> Asian national screen studies publications are also absent, apart from
> India’s Cinema in India and Cinemmaya, Singapore’s Media Asia and a range
> of hard copy, mostly now defunct Oz and NZ publications. The Index doesn’t
> try to catalogue on-line publications.
>
>
>
> Except, as mentioned, the Index’s data is volunteered by its members.
> There are two FIAF members in Japan: the NFAJ (member since 1958) and the
> Fukuoka City Library (Associate since 2003). Both could have been
> contributing to the Indexing project in order to reflect the status of
> Japanese screen journals of record, but seem not to have been. I have no
> current access to the full index, which needs to be subscribed through the
> academic suppliers Ovid an ProQuest to confirm this. But it would be a
> question worth asking. Anyone tempted to email to the Index’s editorial
> team in Brussels to clarify the status of Japanese and Asian publications
> would probably encouraged to do so by the editors themselves, who are
> dead-keen to make the project better: pip at fiafnet.org
>
>
>
> If I’m correct, I can guess why Japanese data is absent from the Index.
> It’s time-consuming work, the FIAF member libraries doing it are rarely
> subscribing in Japanese or have Japanese-speaking volunteers who can do the
> indexing and many FIAF members have been shedding their own paper library
> services and librarians in recent years. T
>
>
> TheFIAF-member archives that probably should be undertaking this, the NFAJ
> has always been so chronically understaffed, journal subscription and
> indexing is a way-somewhere down-there priority. The Fukuoka Library
> archive probably doesn’t even realise it’s a thing.
>
>
> But perhaps the new status for the NFAJ and the centennial of Kinema Jumpo
> might timely markers for a push to get Japanese screen publishing heritage
> indexed into an internationally visible form. Could be a collaboration with
> Kinejapaners?
>
>
> Quentin Turnour.
>
> National Archives of Australia.
>
>
>
> Sent from Yahoo7 Mail on Android
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>
> On Fri., 12 Jul. 2019 at 10:26 am, Markus Nornes via KineJapan
> <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
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>
>
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