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

jacline MORICEAU jmthfrsa at gmail.com
Fri Apr 17 03:51:53 EDT 2020


Hi Markus

Thank you very much Markus

Best regards

Jacline

Le mer. 15 avr. 2020 à 11:07, Roger Macy via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> a écrit :

> Hi, Mathieu and Markus,
> I'm looking at the printed YIDFF booklet, pp14-20 and the article doesn't
> have any references at the end, or footnotes. But, at pp64-67, there's a
> chronolgy of 60s documentaries, if that's of any help.
> best,
> Roger
>
> On Wednesday, 15 April 2020, 04:16:00 BST, Markus Nornes via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>
> 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
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>
> _______________________________________________
> 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*
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>
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