[KineJapan] Use of memoir in film histories

[Markus Nornes]

It's so interesting that you share your thoughts on the autobiography just
as I am reading, with great admiration, Obama's new book. Anne, you're
raising such provocative questions. They really got me thinking. It makes
me want to pull out the autobiographies on my shelves, but they are all out
of reach at my office. I did find a few scattered examples here at home,
they inspired some scattered thoughts.

The first thing I notice is that they are all by men, and I think plenty of
male filmmakers, producers, actors and even subtitlers have written
memoirs. I can think of memoirs by screenwriters and other kinds of staff
members, and many of these might fit a subgenre of "My work with _[*fill in
the director]*___" books.

Two of the memoirs here at hand are proper accountings of one's life: *My
Life as a Filmmaker* by Yamamoto Satsuo (recently translated into English
by Chia-ning Chang) and Mochinaga Tadahiito's *Animeshon Nitchu Koryuki.* I'm
struck by the nuance with which they narrate their lives against the drama
of modern Japanese history. And in retrospect, I have the sense that if
there is one thing that really marks off a generation of memoirists it's
the spectacular disruption of WWII. And even within that, it's hardly one
generation. Some writers were adults and established professionals; others
tell the story of the war from the child's perspective.

One thought: perhaps you're noticing the new wave era as a break simply
because one starts contemplating a memoir while facing the end of life.
It's a time in life when there's more to look back on, and looking forward
 is becoming increasingly disconcerting. What's more, society positions you
less as a "productive member" than a keeper of wisdom and keys to the past.
I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where the kids from Springfield and
Shelbyville go to war when Grandpa sits down next to a tree saying, "Ah,
some things never change...", and Milhouse points, "Hey everybody, an old
man talking!" and the kids gather 'round for his story. These
autobiographies tug at our curiosity about the past in similar ways.

But isn't one reason why we don't have many autobiographies from post-60s
filmmakers that it's a bit presumptuous to write one before a certain age?
Filmmakers in their 20s, 30s and 40s probably haven't lived enough. If they
were born in the 60s, they're beginning to consider it.

Another thought: there seems to be a unique structure to some number of
film autobios. Because of the gargantuan effort a film requires, it's as
though their lives are clocked film by film. Two of the autobiographies I
found today take this as their structure: Shinoda Masahiro's *Watakushi ga
Ikita Futatsu no "Nihon" *and Kore-eda's *Eiga o Torinagara Kangaeta Koto. *I
think there are quite a few of these and they strike me as cheating.
Writing a proper memoire looks like hard work. At the same time, I wonder
if the gender issues Anne points us to aren't at the heart of this.

And one last thought: there are strong substitutes to the autobiography in
the film world. Anne points to *zadankai* and even the *hyoron-shu*, but
there's also the book-length interview. I'm working on a biography of
Adachi Masao now, and am thoroughly impressed by Hirasawa Go's *Eiga/Kakumei.
*Here you have a brilliant interlocutor who knows his political, social and
film history back and forth, so the subject doesn't need to simply or talk
down and the book becomes something of an autobiography—at least so close
that writing a "proper" autobiography would be a waste of time.

And as I wrote that, one other thing comes to mind. Since the 90s, it seems
to me another kind of substitute appeared. Many independent
filmmakers—narrative, but especially documentary—publish books in
conjunction with their new films. It's not simply because it's possible,
but hawking books in the lobby is one way to supplement the meager revenue
of indie filmmaking. A foot of one of my bookshelves is lined with such
books by Funahashi Atsushi and Soda Kazuhiro. I wonder if these books will
interfere with the writing of "proper" memoirs when they reach that certain
age.

This is all very fascinating. Anne, I hope you write something up about
this. I'm very curious, as always, about your perspective!

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 Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 11:33 AM Zahlten, Alexander via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Hi Anne,
>
>
>
> What a great topic! My immediate thought on the “obsolescence” of this
> genre/subgenre is along the lines of what you mention – it really comes
> down to what one bills as a memoir (though it is probably exactly relevant
> if the ones producing it understand the work in that way).
>
>
>
> Can you say a bit more about your focus on nouvelle vague? Since it is
> arguably is a tiny part of the mainstream film industry, looking beyond it
> (and the immediate definition of memoir)will show up more (as you’re
> already doing with Haneda, Atsugi, etc.); there are the industry figures
> like Okura Mitsugi (apparently full of fabrications) or Toei’s Okawa
> Hiroshi, or even Uchida Masaru (of Shonen Magajin, important for the early
> manga-animation tie-ups); later on pink film’s Hamano Sachi or Nishihara
> Giichi (see Kim Icreverzi’s excellent thesis for more on the former; the
> latter is a kind of interview/memoir mashup) are some examples.
> Scriptwriters are quite active as well (e.g. Katsura Chiho, in a kind of
> memoir/essay hybrid, similar to Yamagiwa Eizo). I assume there are quite a
> few written by actors/actresses.
>
>
>
> It’s difficult to say without actually doing a systematic count, but my
> sense would also, as you already say, be that generally there is a
> generational cut-off point after which these publications become less
> common – I’m less certain it has to do with specific discourses circulating
> in the “high-culture” end of the film industry, maybe that is also
> symptomatic of broader shifts? I don’t have a good explanation though.
>
>
>
> Apologies for the haphazard reply – again, a terrific topic, I hope you
> decide to write on this!
>
> Alex
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Anne
> McKnight via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Reply-To: *Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Date: *Friday, December 25, 2020 at 22:28
> *To: *Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Cc: *Anne McKnight <annekmcknight at gmail.com>
> *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 (Ōshima Nagisa would be an exception here, with his multiple
> volumes of memoir; also, Wakamatsu Kōji).
>
>
>
> This just struck me as interesting, given the awareness of this generation
> of historical meta-narratives and one’s place in it—war, the Shōwa era,
> etc. And memoirs are  common in literary figures of the time, seen pegged
> to “large” histories. ( *My Shōwa* by Yasuoka Shōtarō 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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