[KineJapan] looking for a pdf copy of Yamane Sadao's essay

Markus Nornes nornes at umich.edu
Tue Apr 14 23:15:40 EDT 2020


I’m afraid the hard copy is in my office, and that is off limits as we
shelter in place!

M

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 8:57 PM Mathieu Capel via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Many thanks for sharing this text Markus.
> Would you know its references ?
> Best regards,
>
> Mathieu
>
>
>
> Le mer. 15 avr. 2020 à 09:09, Markus Nornes via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> a écrit :
>
>> I happen to have a very old computer file that has this. I'll paste it
>> below. Others might be interested in it.
>>
>> Markus
>>
>>
>> *From Political to Private: Japanese Documentary Filmmakers in the Own
>> Words*
>>  Introduction--
>>
>>
>> Changes in 1960s Documentary Cinema: From PR Films to Image Guerillas
>>
>> Yamane Sadao
>>
>> THIS IS MISSING SECTION NUMBERS, EXCEPT FOR #4
>>
>> In December 1960, an event occurred that marked an end to one period of
>> Japanese documentary film history. The Educational Filmmaker's Association
>> ("Kyoiku Eiga Sakka Kyokai"), started in 1955 as an organization of
>> directors of educational and culture films, changed its name to the
>> Documentary Producer's Association of Japan ("Kiroku Eiga Sakka Kyokai").
>> While at the time it was only a modification in name, the group remaining
>> essentially the same, it symbolically intimates the new developments
>> documentary film would realize through the 1960s.
>>
>> 1960 was, of course, the year when the fight against the renewal of the
>> U.S.-Japan Security Treaty hit its peak in June. The struggle took place on
>> a society-wide scale and in its course, fundamentally questioned not only
>> politics, but all ways of thought and culture. The shift in emphasis from
>> "educational" films to "documentary" films was produced within this
>> intellectual and cultural atmosphere. On the editor's afterword page in the
>> February 1961 issue of the Association's official organ, *Kiroku Eiga *("Documentary
>> Cinema"), the following statement appeared after an announcement concerning
>> the name change and touching on the Security Treaty conflict: "We will
>> break the various bonds that dog us due to the use of the word
>> 'educational' and start again as a collection of documentarists."
>> Incidentally, the editorial chair at the time was Noda Shinkichi and the
>> editorial board was composed of Kuroki Kazuo, Tokunaga Mizuo, Matsumoto
>> Toshio, Nishie Takayuki, Kumagai Mitsuyuki, and Nagano Chiaki.
>>
>> Certainly this new movement did not simply appear out of the blue in
>> 1960, but was augured by events in the latter half of the 1950s. Here is a
>> list of the debut films and years of several documentary filmmakers who
>> were active in the sixties:
>>
>> Matsumoto Toshio: *The Bends *("Senkan," 1956)
>>
>> Haneda Sumiko: *Village Women's Classroom *("Mura no fujin gakkyu," 1957)
>>
>> Kuroki Kazuo: *Electric Rolling Stock of Toshiba *(1958)
>>
>> Onuma Tetsuro: *The World of Microbes *("Mikuro no sekai," 1958)
>>
>> Mamiya Norio: *A Shopping Street Reborn *("Umarekawaru shotengai," 1959)
>>
>> Tsuchimoto Noriaki: *A Steelyard Built in the Sea *("Umi ni kizuku
>> tekkojo," 1959); *An Engineer's Assistant *("Aru kikan joshi," 1962)
>>
>> Matsukawa Yasuo: *The Story of Printing Paper *("Ingashi no hanashi,"
>> 1960)
>>
>> Fujiwara Tomoko: *The Wisdom of the Orangutan *("Oranutan no chie,"
>> 1960)
>>
>> While this is only a list I made up off the top of my head, it is worth
>> noticing that almost all of these are PR films. In contrast to the
>> flourishing of documentary cinema in the mid-fifties, which centered on
>> independent productions connected to left-wing or labor movements, from the
>> late 50s on, industry and association publicity films became the center of
>> activity for both "educational" and "documentary" filmmakers. Needless to
>> say, this was related to the fundamental revival in the Japanese economy
>> spurred on by the demand created by the Korean War. For instance, at the
>> beginning of the roundtable discussion printed in the December 1961 issue
>> of *Kiroku Eiga, *entitled "Looking Back on 1961--Trends in the World of
>> Documentary and Educational Cinema," the moderator Noda Shinkichi noted
>> that, "According to the records of the Japan Film Education Association,
>> there were 837 film shorts made last year, including educational,
>> documentary, and PR films…and already 439 in the first half of this year…
>> …becoming, in terms of quantity, a kind of boom." He connects this
>> phenomenon to "the aftereffects of the policies of economic growth" and to
>> "the mood of consumption." Again, in the same journal's August 1963 issue,
>> one can see figures indicating the number of short films produced each year
>> as 1018 for 1961 and 1163 for 1962. Whichever is more accurate, such
>> figures simultaneously speak of the numerical vitality and, paradoxically,
>> the economic downturn in the industry. This vitality rapidly rising in step
>> with the Japanese economic revival in the late 1950s, the appearance of new
>> filmmakers, and a "kind of boom" coupled with recession--all these elements
>> within the turbulent context of those "documentary" filmmakers clearly
>> attest to one thing. What is visible here is none other than the state of
>> the general film industry centered on fiction film.
>>
>> The prosperity of ordinary dramatic films reached its postwar Japanese
>> peak between 1958 and 1960. This is indicated by the fact that the "film
>> population" (the total tickets sold in all the theaters) set a record in
>> 1958 as well as by statistics indicating that 1961 saw a peak in the number
>> of both theaters and Japanese films produced. This increase in quantity
>> marked the decisive start of competition among the six major
>> studios--Shochiku, Toho, Daici, Shin Toho, Toei, and Nikkatsu, which
>> resumed production in 1954--and was spurred by a policy begun in the
>> mid-50s of each studio releasing films in double bills. The start in 1960
>> of "Toei Two" by Toei--which itself began releasing two films a
>> week--represented the extreme limit of this expansion in volume.
>>
>> What must be noted is that the filmmakers who later became the center of
>> 1960s Japanese cinema appeared one after another as a result of the
>> essential changes that accompanied this kind of power through numbers. The
>> following is a list of those filmmakers who helped form this new essence,
>> placed in order according to their debut year:
>>
>> 1956: Nakahira Ko, Suzuki Seijun (Nikkatsu)
>>
>> 1957: Masumura Yasuzo (Daichi); Sawajima Tadashi (Toei); Kurahara
>> Koreyoshi (Nikkatsu); Ishii Teruo (Shin Toho)
>>
>> 1958: Okamoto Kihachi, Sugawa Eizo (Toho); Tanaka Tokuzo (Daichi);
>> Imamura Shohei, Masuda Toshio (Nikkatsu)
>>
>> 1959: Oshima Nagisa (Shochiku); Kudo Eiichi (Toei)
>>
>> 1960: Yoshida Yoshishige, Shinoda Masahiro, Tamura Tsutomu, Morikawa
>> Hidetaro, Takahashi Osamu (Shochiku); Ikehiro Kazuo (Daichi)
>>
>> 1961: Onchi Hideo (Toho); Yamashita Kosaku, Fukusaku Kinji (Toei);
>> Yamagiwa Eizo (Shin Toho)
>>
>> While I do not have any space here to describe through the films
>> themselves what kind of "new essence" these filmmakers shaped, it should be
>> clear to anyone's eyes that this was a season marked by a large
>> generational shift in the Japanese film world. The lead-off man was
>> Masamura Yasuzo, who took up a position challenging previous Japanese
>> cinema and revealed an allegiance to figures like Nakahira Ko, Sawajima
>> Tadashi, and Imamura Shohei. To accompany the activities of these
>> directors, there also was a generational shift among actors at each studio,
>> with young audiences cheering the Nikkatsu youth action films of Ishihara
>> Yujiro, the Toei films starring Nakamura Kinnosuke that introduced a modern
>> sensibility to the period film, and the "new sensualist" samurai films at
>> Daici featuring Ichikawa Raizo and Katsu Shintaro. Within this trend,
>> Oshima Nagisa, a member of the next generation, became active by
>> criticizing Masumura Yasuzo and others, forming with his colleagues at
>> Shochiku what was to be called the "Nouvelle Vague" (New Wave) of Japanese
>> cinema.
>>
>> It was not a coincidence that the name "Nouvelle Vague" was born among
>> journalistic circles in June 1960. The anti-Security Treaty demonstrations
>> involved a fundamental requestioning of the entire postwar course and were
>> clearly associated with the generational shift in the film world. A
>> straight line also connected them to the events leading up to the December
>> 1960 change from Educational Filmmaker's Association to Documentary
>> Producer's Association.
>>
>> As I mentioned earlier, the numerical expansion of postwar Japanese
>> cinema hit its peak in that year of 1960, but afterwards, "Toei Two"
>> significantly broke up the next year and Shin Toho went bankrupt in 1961.
>> This change intimates how quickly the momentum behind Japanese cinema
>> shifted downhill, projecting nothing but those shadows beginning to fall
>> upon the "studio system" of the major film companies.
>>
>> Within this, the classical division between documentary and fiction film
>> gradually began to lose its meaning. For instance, Hani Susumu, who was at
>> the center of 1950s documentary cinema, filmed his first dramatic motion
>> picture in 1960, *Bad Boys *("Furyo shonen"), a theatrical feature
>> evidently built on the basis of documentary modes of expression. Hani
>> pushed his way even further into the realm of fiction film after that. In
>> another example, Matsumoto Toshio took part in the filming of Oshima
>> Nagisa's first independent work after leaving Shochiku, *The Catch *("Shiiku,"
>> 1961), by cooperating on the screenplay. Yamagiwa Eizo then built on that
>> by producing a unique review in the January 1961 *Kiroku Eiga *that
>> discussed *The Catch *and Matsumoto's documentary *Nishijin *(1961) on
>> an equal basis. The exchanges between documentary and fiction film would
>> become more and more prominent as the sixties progressed.
>>
>> The "New Wave" of documentary film began rolling with the divorce from
>> the name "educational," but it soon ended up confronting a different
>> problem: the yoke of PR cinema. One could see articles relating to this
>> question in basically every issue of the monthly *Kiroku Eiga, *discussing
>> in very serious tones such topics as "PR Cinema and Our Creative Task" (the
>> title of a roundtable discussion in the July 1962 issue) and "The
>> Possibilities of PR Cinema" (the name of the January 1963 special issue).
>>
>> For example, in an article entitled "The 'Me' of 1962--How To Shoot PR
>> Films" (*Kiroku Eiga*(November 1962)), Mamiya Norio emphasized the
>> conception that "a PR film is ultimately a PR film and in no way involves
>> the essence of a filmmaker's activity." He also argued that:
>>
>> In order to make independent production ultimately the main issue and to
>> then concentrate one's life essence in that area, one must dare to confront
>> with all one's might a PR cinema that is limited.
>>
>> [IS THIS A CONTINUATION OF THE QUOTE] Firmly testing, one by one, the
>> experiments aligned with an artistic program valorizing the self
>> constitutes a major element in expanding the boundaries of PR cinema. In
>> broadening those limits, the experiments will bear another kind of fruit:
>> namely, conflict with the sponsor of a PR film that can itself become a
>> starting point leading to the artistic development of the self.
>>
>> Kuroki Kazuo, in the aforementioned "PR Cinema and Our Creative Task"
>> roundtable, also presumed that "PR films are not our goal--in the end it is
>> documentary as an art that is the issue." He then asked if it was best to
>> overlook publicity films as a "foothold for developing creative action,"
>> saying that, "Trying a different experiment in a chosen scene, no matter
>> how dull the film, is one of the methods of becoming an artist who can
>> twist a PR film into something that is his own." In an article entitled
>> "Where We Stand" (*Kiroku Eiga *(December 1962)), Kuroki further
>> analyzed in the following way the relationship between documentary and PR
>> cinema based on his feelings as an artist:
>>
>> Documentary is weakened by PR cinema. And it is by thinking of PR films
>> as unrelated to documentary that documentary becomes even further estranged
>> and more debilitated.
>>
>> Moreover, to consciously renounce documentary film in a situation where
>> the majority of filmmakers are producing publicity films is equivalent to
>> deepening the crisis surrounding one's existence as an artist.
>>
>> Such statements truly relate how the filmmakers fought against the "yoke"
>> of PR cinema. It was then only natural that the criticism concerning
>> particular works would also place their focus on that struggle.
>>
>> For instance, Fujiwara Tomoko wrote the following about Kuroki Kazuo's PR
>> film, *Japan on 10 Dollars a Day *("Nihon 10 doru ryoko"):
>>
>> One can say that *Japan on 10 Dollars a Day *resembles an escape from a
>> sewer, a film that creates an effective way out of the fight amid sewage
>> with PR cinema. After seeing this film, one is possessed for a while by the
>> thought that as far as PR films are concerned, the question is not one of
>> knowing that an exit "exists," but of having to do all one can to pry one
>> open. When that happens, one can possibly see a new position in the present
>> struggle, a mode of action that less complains about sinking up to one's
>> waist in the stench and filth of sewage, than tries to open up an exit.
>> ("Short Film Reviews," *Kiroku Eiga *(May 1963)).
>>
>> Fujiwara Tomoko also lauded in the following way Tsuchimoto Noriaki's *An
>> Engineer's Assistant *by emphasizing that it was a PR film for Japan National
>> Rail's "safe driving" campaign:
>>
>> The film thoroughly pursues in a full frontal attack the theme of "safe
>> driving" which the sponsor provided through elements chosen by the
>> filmmaker: the steam engine workers. This result is that the truth of the
>> situation is forced to the surface through these intense images.
>>
>> The filmmaker does not do anything like chip his teeth by recklessly
>> biting into the situation. His intention flows deep beneath the surface. As
>> Japan Rail demands, he affirmatively films the work of the engineers
>> fulfilling their duty, yet all the while frontally pressing in on the image
>> of them tackling the problem of safe driving. To this degree, the image
>> that surfaces in reverse possesses tremendous persuasive power. ("Short
>> Film Reviews," *Kiroku Eiga *(June 1963)).
>>
>> The phrase "resistance within the industry" comes to mind when I look at
>> these articles. The term was used at the time--that is, around 1962­63--by
>> Ogawa Toru and others when reviewing fiction films. It refers to the
>> phenomenon of directors who, compelled to follow studio plans, produced
>> popular entertainment films like *chanbara *(samurai films), melodramas,
>> or gangster films, but still managed to express ideas opposed to the system
>> in a form that people who were likely to understand could understand.
>> Clearly many documentary filmmakers also troubled over how to effect what
>> we could call a "resistance within PR cinema."
>>
>> There was of course criticism against this. Sasaki Mamoru, for example,
>> building on his experience as a free-lance assistant director, pointed out
>> in his "Sasaki Mamoru's Theory of PR Cinema" *(Kiroku Eiga *(July 1963))
>> that the discussions of PR films in that journal all ended up falling into
>> the same pattern: "PR film = sponsored film = publicity film = troubles for
>> the filmmaker." He questioned whether the definition of PR cinema was at
>> all clear in this formula, countering that
>>
>> To offer my albeit obvious definition of a PR film, it is "film where the
>> film itself is not a commodity." That is the decisive difference between PR
>> cinema and other genres like fiction, educational, and instructional film.
>> To put it plainly, while one has to sell the film itself in all forms of
>> cinema other than PR cinema, with publicity films, one doesn't necessarily
>> have to sell the film itself.
>>
>> As the criticism of this soon pointed out, as long as Sasaki Mamoru's
>> theory only discussed the economic aspect of PR films, it also did not
>> provide a definition of the genre. But the economic aspect was what he
>> was emphasizing in his definition, and by doing so, he clarified the
>> struggle with the bonds of PR cinema as one in which one had to grit one's
>> teeth and complete the film the sponsor wanted.
>>
>> Amid all this the Documentary Producer's Association split up in February
>> 1964, the journal *Kiroku Eiga *continuing until March when it too
>> stopped publication. The upshot was that the cause for the breakup lay in a
>> clash between the association members, who were broadening their
>> intellectual activities through the journal, and the Japanese Communist
>> Party, a conflict that had existed since the 1960 anti-Security Treaty
>> movement and had erupted all at once at that point. In May 1964, the former
>> members of *Kiroku Eiga *formed a new "Image Arts Society" ("Eizo
>> Geijutsu no Kai") and began publishing the journal *Eizo Geijutsu *("Image
>> Arts") in December.
>>
>> Along with the year 1960, 1964 can also probably be considered a major
>> turning point in postwar Japanese history for various reasons. Needless to
>> say, it was the year both the Tokaido Shinkansen (bullet train) began
>> running and the year the Tokyo Olympics were held, a moment in which was
>> condensed all the vigor of so-called "high economic growth."
>>
>> The documentary film world seemingly doubled this periodization
>> perfectly, with 1960 seeing the movement from "educational" to
>> "documentary" film, and 1964 the shift from "documentary" film to "image
>> art." This change can possibly suggest many things. If one places emphasis
>> on the fact that the Image Arts Society formed as a result of the battle
>> with the Japanese Communist Party, then it is at least possible to see here
>> a turnabout from the path of classical leftism. The dilemma surrounding the
>> production of PR films also arose from a situation stained with the ideas
>> of the old left. One can then think that, in a contrary fashion, they were
>> able to break free of that dilemma precisely by taking up the name "image
>> art."
>>
>> A group called "Film Independent" was also
>>
>> organized in 1964. Made up of members like Iimura Takahiko, Obayashi
>> Nobuhiko, Takabayashi Yoichi, Kanesaka Kenji, and Adachi Masao, it
>> overlapped in many areas with the Image Arts Society, and from that point
>> on its activities ran parallel to those of the other group. Although, of
>> course, strictly speaking it was not an assembly of documentary filmmakers,
>> its interests were also preoccupied with documentary and one can sense in
>> the word "independent," which signified factors like "independent
>> production" and "independent exhibition" as well as the Old Left notion of
>> "independence," a movement that pointed to a breakaway from the fixation
>> with PR films.
>>
>> One can also see a major turnaround in the world of fiction films around
>> 1964. As the strength of film was beginning its downhill slide, the
>> fundamental elements that had supported the industry up until that point
>> began to waver.
>>
>> There is no more appropriate example of this than the fact the mainstay
>> of Tool's production abruptly shifted from period films to *yakuza *gangster
>> films. Toei prospered as the "kingdom of the period film" during the 1950s,
>> the heyday of Japanese postwar cinema, going so far as to start "Toei Two."
>> But with the basic transfiguration of society, the rupture between the form
>> of the period film and the new customs deepened and the glory of Toei
>> quickly faded. What then appeared was the so-called "group conflict period
>> film," which added luster to the fascination of *chanbara*through its
>> intense realism but whose flowering proved short lived. In this context,
>> the series of *yakuza *films, seemingly a compromise between the period
>> film and the contemporary drama, became wildly popular as a sentimental
>> drama featuring gruesome sword fights. The power of Toei *yakuza *films
>> was soon disseminated to other studios and even the floundering Nikkatsu or
>> Daiei began making films with similar plots. Within this, the *yakuza *film
>> boom in the late 1960s helped realize the work of individualistic directors
>> at every studio, such as in the case of the singular filmic world of Suzuki
>> Seijun.
>>
>> At the same time, the "pink film" (soft core pornography) was flourishing
>> in another sector. These were films created by small independent production
>> companies that made sex their selling point. In 1963, when the term "pink
>> film" was coined, there were not even 20 of these films produced in a year,
>> but the number increased to about 60 in 1964, and then in 1965, jumped all
>> at once to nearly 200. With extremely low budgets and all-location
>> shooting, the "pink films" may have been inferior in terms of image
>> quality, but they appealed graphically to the desires of audiences with
>> powerful violence and provocative sexuality. In this sense, there is no
>> doubt that the explosive popularity of pink films had points in common with
>> the yakuza film boom.
>>
>> The influence of pink films was such that even the major studios were
>> forced to shoot films with bold sexual depictions, but one other facet must
>> be mentioned: the fact that this flourishing genre was produced completely
>> outside the "studio system." The significance of the prosperity of pink
>> films was matched by another institution similarly separated from the
>> "studio system": ATG (Nihon Art Theater Guild). Started in 1962 as a
>> distributor of only foreign films, it began distributing Japanese films in
>> 1963 and helped hatch a system distinct from that of the big five studios.
>>
>> Needless to say this separation from the "studio system" signified
>> nothing less than the move towards independent production and distribution.
>> As if to give proof to this, one after the other many ambitious directors
>> asserted their independence from the studios as Yoshida Kiju (Yoshishige)
>> and Shinoda Masahiro followed Oshima Nagisa in leaving Shochiku and Imamura
>> Shohei broke away from Nikkatsu. To take up the case of Oshima among them,
>> he accomplished various cross-over activities outside the studio system by
>> producing such works as the television documentary *The Forgotten
>> Imperial Army *("Wasurerata kogun," 1963), the PR film A *Small
>> Adventure Trip *("Chiisana boken ryoko," 1964), and the documentary *The
>> Diary of Yunbogi *("Yunbogi no nikki," 1965).
>>
>> Between 1963 and 1964, one more feverish movement was swirling among
>> young documentarists. Within the Ao no Kai ("Blue Group"), a gathering of
>> friends who had all started out at Iwanami Productions, Kuroki Kazuo,
>> Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Higashi Yoichi, Ogawa Shinsuke, Akihama Satoshi, Iwasa
>> Hisaya, Ozu Koshiro, Kubota Yukio and others formed a research group and
>> launched from there a new movement for independent distribution and
>> production. Its productivity was dynamically represented by the filming in
>> 1965 of Tsuchimoto Noriaki's independent film *Chua Swee Lin, Exchange
>> Student *("Ryugakusei Chua Sui Rin") after he had completed the 1963 *Document:
>> On the Road *("Dokyumento rojo": a film aptly termed "the PR film that
>> transcends PR cinema"), by the filming between 1964 and 1965 of Kuroki
>> Kazuo's first dramatic film *Silence has No Wings *("Tobenai chinmoku")
>> with assistance from Ao no Kai members, and then by the start of production
>> of Ogawa Shinsuke's first film in 1965. While they had all originated at
>> Iwanami Productions, their filmmaking was clearly separated from that of PR
>> cinema.
>>
>> Nineteen sixty-five was the year Ichikawa Kon's Tokyo Olympics was
>> released, sparking the imbroglio over whether it was a "record" or "art"
>> and the widespread debate over films on the Olympics.
>>
>>
>>
>> 4
>>
>>
>>
>> Ogawa Shinsuke's *Sea of Youth--Four Correspondence Course Students *("Seinen
>> no umi--Yonnin no tsushin kyoikuseitachi," 1966), *The Oppressed
>> Students--A Record of the Struggle at Takasaki College of Economics *("Assatsu
>> no mori--Takasaki Keizai Daigaku Toso no kiroku," 1967), and *Report
>> from Haneda *("Gennin hokokusho--Haneda Toso no kiroku;' 1967)--that is,
>> his first three films--were all exhibited by the "Society for Organizing
>> Independent Exhibition." That society was a political action group centered
>> around students that was born amidst the filming of *Sea of Youth *and
>> which was involved at the production stage with *The Oppressed
>> Students. *This was not simply an accidental state of affairs, but was
>> no doubt something prompted by transformations in the contemporary context.
>> For as in the case of the aforementioned *Diary of Yunbogi *and *Chua
>> Swee Lin, Exchange Student *in 1965, *Sea of Youth *and Matsukawa
>> Yasuo's *The Satyrical Animal Scrolls *("Choju giga") in 1966, and Kasu
>> Sanpei's *Ghost World *("Onryoden") and Tokieda Toshie's *Land of the
>> Dawn *("Yoakemae no kuni") in 1967, movements for independent production
>> or distribution made a true comeback in the late 1960s.
>>
>> As a related development, the so-called Cnematheque movement was born in
>> various contexts, and developed a diversity of modes of independent
>> exhibition. For example, in May 1965 the Sogetsu Cinematheque held the
>> World Prewar Avant-Garde Film Festival and showed about 100 famous,
>> pioneering works from abroad, the variegated modes of cinematic
>> expression--including documentary--providing a stimulus for many. One
>> phenomenon that evinces the impact of this festival is the fact that
>> contemporary film journals began discussing Dziga Vertov alongside French *cinema
>> verite. *Following up on this in June the next year, the Sogetsu
>> Cinematheque opened a film festival that collected in one program numerous
>> American underground films. From that point an "underground boom" suddenly
>> made its appearance. Nineteen sixty-six also saw the inauguration of the
>> SOMETHING MISSING HERE
>>
>> It is precisely when the side being filmed possesses such a volition that
>> a documentary worth watching at becomes possible. Or, at the same time,
>> perhaps one should also say that it is precisely the unprecedented
>> cinematic volition on the side that is filming that can provide an impulse
>> for the side being filmed.
>>
>> Ogawa Shinsuke wrote the following in the same pamphlet:
>>
>> When we in the staff planted the camera in Sanrizuka and started filming,
>> we talked about trying to stick to the following points.
>>
>> First, to clearly place the camera on the side of the struggling farmers
>> so that if the authorities add pressure and the riot police inflict a
>> violent blow on the fighting farmers, the camera will receive it head on.
>> In that case, authority will then be directly conversing with the audience
>> through the screen.
>>
>> Second, to stop shooting in secret when filming was not going according
>> to plan. That meant avoiding using a long lens to film the subject when
>> they weren't looking or refraining from filming while hidden in the
>> shadows, and to instead play fair and bring the camera out in front and use
>> it to participate on the site of the farmer's battle.
>>
>> While the above points seem obvious and a rather small place to start
>> from, it was truly difficult for us in the staff not to yeild one step of
>> ground from even this site. This was certainly the starting point of our
>> struggle too.
>>
>> Of course the farmers started to "converse" with us from this point,
>> appearing before the camera with a single will, and adding the camera as a
>> wing of the Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League, as a messenger
>> from the scene of the struggle. The close relationship between us in the
>> staff and the farmers that was born during the period of photography now
>> exists in the form of a completed one hour and 40 minutes film, *Summer
>> in Narita.*
>>
>> At the time Ogawa Productions was putting out the "Sanrizuka" (Narita)
>> series and Tsuchimoto Noriaki's *Pre-Partisan *("Paruchizan zenshi,"
>> 1969), various forms of "fighting" documentaries were arriving from abroad.
>> In 1968, *Loin du Vietnam, *a film by Jean-Luc Godard and others, was
>> released and focused much attention on the French "cinema napalm." The next
>> year saw the exhibition of works like the "cinetracts"--also termed "bullet
>> films"--which recorded the May 1968 struggle in France, and the American
>> "Newsreel" films concerning Black Panther activities. Among these, the
>> "bullet films" were imported by Ogawa Productions in exchange for one of
>> its own films, announcing a new development in fighting documentary cinema.
>>
>> Within this context, terms such as "anti-war film," "cinema guerilla,"
>> and "image guerilla" were born, referring to films like Ogawa Shinsuke's *The
>> Oppressed Students *and *Summer in Narita, *Kuroki Zazuo's A *Cuban
>> Lover *("Kyuba no koibito"), Higashi Yoichi's *People *of *the Okinawa
>> Islands *("Okinawa Retto") and Group Vision's *Dead, Come and Cut *Off *My
>> Retreat *("Shisha yo, kitarite Waga tairo o tate"), all from 1969.
>>
>> From PR films to image guerilla. Perhaps this best symbolizes the course
>> of documentary film in the 1960s. The swirling chaos of the 1970s, then,
>> continued to ask how much more mature this vitality could become.
>> ---
>>
>> *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
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/105+S.+State+Street+Ann+Arbor,+MI+48109?entry=gmail&source=g>*
>> *Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/105+S.+State+Street+Ann+Arbor,+MI+48109?entry=gmail&source=g>-1285*
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 4:12 PM Esra Gokce Sahin via KineJapan <
>> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear KineJapan list members,
>>>
>>> Does any of you have a pdf copy of Yamane Sadao's essay "Changes in
>>> 1960s Documentary Cinema from PR films to Image Guerialla" by any change?
>>> It was a  publication of the Yamagata Film Festival (1993) in *Japanese
>>> Documentaries of the 1960s.*
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> Esra
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Esra-Gökçe Şahin, PhD
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> KineJapan mailing list
>>> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
>>> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> KineJapan mailing list
>> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
>> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan
>>
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan
>
-- 
---

*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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