[KineJapan] Use of memoir in film histories

[Bernardi, Joanne]

This is a an intriguing subject for so many reasons--thanks, Anne, for sharing insight to your research. It got me thinking about the many forms that can fit under the generous umbrella of the term “memoir,”  as you also point out. The first two film directors that come to mind that might be relevant to your question are Itami Jūzō (with his various “[X] no nikki” books and “Making of” films: he clearly enjoyed sharing his work process), and then for major studio directors, Ozu Yasujirō. Thinking about the possible differences between these two alone raises questions: Itami’s purpose was to share the process with the broadest audience possible (both by way of print publication and the “Making of” format ), but Ozu’s published “nikki” are so different by comparison, if we factor in motivation, purpose, and intent. Straying from the role of director, I can think of individuals who published about their work process, with intriguing differences: cameraman Miyagawa Kazuo’s Kyameraman ichidai and a couple of books by screenwriter Yoda Yoshikata.

Ozu, Miyagawa, Yoda—these are all people who lived, worked, and are arguably still strongly identified with 1950s canonical works, but Itami is a notable exception.

All the best to everyone for a better year (or better proximity at least) in 2021.

Joanne


Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2020 19:28:02 -0800
From: Anne McKnight <annekmcknight at gmail.com<mailto:annekmcknight at gmail.com>>
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: [KineJapan] Use of memoir in film histories


Greetings all, and happiest of holidays~

I am reading a handful of memoirs of female documentarists at the moment?by women who all debuted in the early 1950s, and wrote memoirs late in life. I think this mode of writing (memoir) used to be common, but I can?t remember many male directors doing so once you get into the nouvelle vague era (?shima Nagisa would be an exception here, with his multiple volumes of memoir; also, Wakamatsu K?ji).

This just struck me as interesting, given the awareness of this generation of historical meta-narratives and one?s place in it?war, the Sh?wa era, etc. And memoirs are  common in literary figures of the time, seen pegged to ?large? histories. ( My Sh?wa by Yasuoka Sh?tar? is one such highly crafted memoir, discussed by Kendall Heitzman in his recent book).

In the case of the female directors?Nakamura Rinko, Okano Kaoruko, Haneda Sumiko, and Atsugi Taka?all of them did write and publish, and all stressed the micro-politics of labor relation on the set and in the companies they worked for.  (Basically all the postwar doc directors employed at studios except for Tokieda Toshie, and not Tanaka Kinuyo or Sakane Takuzo). The science film directors? memoirs is the niche I am especially interested in. Though Haneda branched out and Okano ultimately quit, and Nakamura went freelance after a number of years, the science film is extensively covered in each memoir as a privileged stage or pivot.

So, I am wondering what elements to take into consideration if they might be called a small cluster, a sub-genre, when reading them as they articulate the relation between life and work ?time of debut, position in the industry, wartime experience (related to debut and corporate role), gender, other media and genres of self-expression available overall and to each person. (Literary critic Hibi Yoshitaka has a nice phrase ?the distributed self? [or ?I", I can?t remember, but you get the point]). Basically, why they all waited to write and publish memoirs, when the male nouvelle directors seemed to opt out of the genre and to take up a different array of ?I?-media in real time.

Beginning with the nouvelle vague people (and slightly earlier, in at least one interesting account I can think of), the concepts of humanism were challenged, and the debates on subjectivity and filmmaking put forth a number of ways of thinking about the role of critique, complicating ?naive? readings of individual action and relation with institutions. They had many critiques of ?expression.? TV, of course, would made put first-person critiques accessible in the 1950s. On top of that, all kinds of essays and zadankai and taidans contain elements one could consider memoir-like (with all of the performativities specific to these venues, which are probably different in a memoir).  The emphasis on life experience how it is narrated, figured, vis-a-vis one?s relation to various histories (labor, production, etc.) is what I guess I am trying to frame.

I would be very curious for any thoughts about this genre of memoir and its obsolescence, or major ones I might have forgotten, whether independent or in the studio system (like Kurosawa Akira).

Thanks!

Anne



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