[KineJapan] on Haneda Sumiko

Markus Nornes nornes at umich.edu
Wed Jan 13 23:11:34 EST 2021


And here is a very good interview with Haneda's partner and producer, Kudo
Mitsuru:

https://www.yidff.jp/docbox/10/box10-2-e.html

I don't have a PDF of the Haneda interview in English, but I have an old
computer file with text that appears somewhat corrupted. Still, I'll paste
it below. I'm sure you could get the original from interlibrary loan.
“Documentarists
of Japan Series: Haneda Sumiko,” Documentary Box (September 1992): 9-13.

Markus

Interview with Haneda Sumiko



Haneda Sumiko is Japan's most outstanding woman filmmaker. Haneda discusses
her entry into Iwanami Productions, which coincides with a radically new
kind of documentary method that came out of Iwanami. Though little is known
about these films outside of Japan, their utterly candid, spontaneous style
films predates direct cinema and cinéma verité by nearly a decade. Haneda
also talks about her career as an independent filmmaker following her
retirement from Iwanami, including her newly completed film, *Kabukiyakusha
Kataoka Nizaemon (Kabuki Actor Nizaemon Kataoka), *which is about one of
Japan's premiere Kabuki actors. She describes this as a "private
film"--private because it was never intended to be shown to audience! She
simply admired Nizaemon so much that she wanted to make this visual record
to give it to him. This, combined with its eight hours running time, makes
it quite unique in the history of cinema. The following has been excerpted
from a conversation in a Tokyo coffee shop, summer 1992.



By Abé Mark Nornes

I joined Iwanami Productions after it was formed in 1950. For the first
three years or so I worked as a book editor. At that time, concentrating
solely on film production was not economically viable for the company, so
they branched out into publishing as well. So as a result, I only actually
got involved in actual filmmaking in 1953 or thereabouts. At first I wrote
scenarios and scripts and the like, then worked as an assistant director,
and finally became a director. I was involved in the making of about 80
films for Iwanami Productions. There are somewhere I only did the scenario,
others where I edited, others where I did all the work… There's not much I
didn't do. I worked at Iwanami Productions until I was 55 years old, then
became an independent.

Out of the films I worked on at Iwanami, I think the most interesting are
those made during those first formative years of the company: *Kyoshitsu no
kodomotachi (Children in the Classroom, *1954), which I worked on as an
assistant director to Hani, and *Mura no fujin gakkyu (Village Women's
Classroom,* 1957*), *my first work as a director. As anyone who has seen *Mura
no fujin gakkyu *can tell, the Japan of that time was extremely poor. All
the rural farming villages were rather like the one shown in the film. But
about ten years after that, Japan's economy started to grow at a rapid
rate, and the condition of the villages changed dramatically. Following
this economic growth, most films produced by companies tended to become PR
showcases for those companies. For me, that wasn't very interesting work.
I'm thankful that most of my work was involved with productions about
traditional Japanese culture and arts, as opposed to a PR film for a
company or some other thing that like.

There are probably some people who will take offense at what I'm about to
say, and for that I apologize, but documentary films made in Japan before
Iwanami started producing simply weren't all that interesting. The
technique and methodology of the people making these films wasn't much
different from drama… For example, if you say "Pour tea" here, the camera
is set up, the director says "All right, pour the tea", and it's filmed
this way. If you say "Make a phone call", then you make a phone call. If
you think about it, this method of filming really isn't any different from
a dramatic performance. Even though the subject being filmed is not a
drama, the methodology being used isn't much different from that used for a
drama. So, if I may say so, there were many boring films being made.

When Iwanami Productions was started, the industry itself needed a newness,
a freshness. The founder of Iwanami Books, Iwanami Shigeo, wanted to
contribute not only to the publishing world but to the film world as well.
That continuing on in the tradition of working and living closely with his
documentary subjects, a tradition established by Ogawa Productions' and
their asso­ciation with Sanrizuka and Yamagata's Magino Village. Although
based on just Aga ni ikiru, it is difficult to make a judgment on Sato, he
is

desire was the beginning of Iwanami Productions. There were many young
staff members, but the one who really stood out was Hani Susumu. Both he
and Kobayashi Isamu, who was a senior executive for both Iwanami Books and
Iwanami Productions, had been recruited from Kyodo News Services. The
people working at Iwanami Productions were so new that there wasn't even a
single person with film experience! Although the directors and execs were
people who were career filmmakers, all of the new staff members knew
nothing about movies. Hani and I were the same. At first, Hani and I worked
as editors of a book series called *Shashin Bunko Photo Libra* . As the
amount of work involving film gradually increased, Hani soon moved over to
the film division. I was still editing books when Hani recruited me to be
the assistant director on *Kyoshitsu no kodomotachi.*

Hani started work on *Kyoshitsu no kodomotachi *right around the time
Arriflex cameras began to be used, and he used an Arriflex with a
telescopic lens attached to it. He did this because if the camera is close,
the subject being filmed tends to get nervous and excited, but if filmed
from a distance, the camera is not as threatening and the subject can be
filmed in a more natural state. We used this method for *Kyoshitsu no
kodomotachi, *filming the children with a camera we brought into the
classroom with us. We were able to film the children as they were, acting
naturally. That kind of naturalness, that kind of lack of artificiality had
not been seen in Japanese documentaries before. Of course, there was a
naturalness in news films, but it was only people running around screaming
about some major event… It's only natural for people to ignore a camera at
a time like that, but never before had anyone captured people living out
their ordinary lives naturally, without any staging, on camera. At the
time, everyone was like that. British documentaries, indeed, any
documentary, were made that way. Since we had studied British
documentaries, that was the only methodology we had. This is why Hani chose
a totally different method to work by. The reason he was able to do it was
because since the company was young, there was still a sense of adventure
and experimentation, and also because Hani occupied a special place in the
company, they basically gave him carte blanche. It was the unspoken rule in
the Japanese film world of the time that deviating from standard form would
not be allowed. In other words, there was a set opinion, a set rule, about
what a "film" was and how it should be made. If a person didn't follow that
rule, he was called "incompetent", "unskilled", "worthless", "useless", or
something similar. Since most directors were afraid of such comments and
reviews, and would be boycotted by their staff from doing so, they were
never able to experiment. But because of Hani's position he was able to get
away with it. Still, when *Kyoshitsu no kodomotachi *was being filmed,
everyone was saying things like, "If it's filmed like that there's no way
to cut it.” In the end, though, it turned out to be a great film.
*Kyoshitsunokodomotachi *caused quite a sensation, and even received a good
review in *Kinema Junpo. *It became the stepping stone for Hani’s career.

Although I'd seen movies, I never thought they were very interesting, so
the idea of making movies hadn't occurred to me. I mean, I hadn't been a
fan of the movies when I was a little girl or anything, so I hadn't felt
any attraction towards movies; I wasn't really pulled toward films in any
way. But when I was working with Hani, I thought, "Hey, this is
interesting.” I also thought that I didn't want to make movies like those
that had been made in the past--a "filmed image", that is, something
staged. I wanted to use what I had learned through working with Hani in *Mura
no fujin gakkyu. *That's why I went to a village where there was nothing,
talked with the women who would be the organizers of the women's classroom
for the village, and really made such a classroom. We started out working
as organizers. Then we made such a group with the mothers of the village,
and stayed alongside them, filming them as they/we studied. That's why even
though the finished product is short, we stayed in that farming village for
two months. It was because of such contact and interaction that we were
able to capture that particular image. Since then, I've made it my policy
that whenever I make a film, I try to build up a sincere attitude of mutual
trust with the people I'm going to film. Of course, real documentarists
always try to do so, and probably take such an attitude for granted. But,
then and now, there are plenty of people who don't work that way.

Both *Kyoshitsu nokodomotachi *and *Mura no fujin gakkyu *were films
planned by the Ministry of Education. As a result, the finished films were
put into audio-visual libraries around the country. In those days, the
American occupation forces, stressing the need for AV education, had made
AV libraries in every prefecture in the country. All the films made under
the Ministry of Education were placed in those libraries and screened at
schools and the like, most likely as part of "social education". For
example, there were movements similar to that of the "women's classroom"
across the country. Then, the people in these movements would see *Mura no
fujin gakkyu, *learn from it, and say, "Let's start a women's classroom in
our own village or whatever". In one sense, that was one result of the
democratic educational ideas introduced into post-war Japan by the
Americans. (Of course, Japanese education has changed a lot since then.)
While there are indeed many streams in the Japanese women's movement, the
"women's classroom" is not what you would call feminism, but rather a
movement that builds up and is built up slowly, changing and being changed
by its primary members, the rural farming women. It's not a women's labor
movement, it's not feminism, it's just one way that has changed Japanese
women (and shows how much they have changed).

Before the war, Japanese law stipulated that any feature film had to be
screened with an educational film. As a result, there were quite a few
educational films being produced. In that field, there were two or three
women direc­tors. When I started working in the film industry, I guess
there were still only three or so. We never worked together, though. The
director of the then-famous *Shinkuu no sekai *(*The World of Vacuum,*
 1953), Nakamura Rinko, was our senior. I believe she made many scientific
films. Also, there was Tokieda Toshie (still active today). Tokieda and I
were Iwanami Productions' two women directors.

A lot of unique directors have come out of Iwanami Productions. At first,
Kuroki Kazuo was also at Iwanami. He always worked on a grand scale. Even
if it was an industrial PR film, most people would be small and quiet about
it, but he always big and exaggerated, like this: BAM! (spreads out arms
wide and laughs). There were times when he went over budget and crashed,
but at any rate, he always worked on a big scale. That's why, even if they
were sometimes a little strange, he always made works that were appealing.
He was always using new images, or at least those that weren't so old that
they were clichéd. There isn't anyone else who shot images like him. On one
level, Kuroki's works are modernist.

Around then, there was a group called "Ao no Kai" (The Blue Group), made up
of Kuroki, Higashi Yoichi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Ogawa Shinsuke, and others,
bold directors who had broken out of Iwanami. Theirs was a group of
rebellious spirit, whose mantra was "Let's do our own thing, let's make out
own work". I was always more reserved, so I was never asked to join the Ao
no Kai.

However, even Iwanami hasn't made many documentaries; documentaries, that
is, in the true sense of the word. They've made plenty of PR films, though.
When making a documentary, the filmmaker's independence--his or her ability
to do what he or she wants--is important, but a filmmaker can't just say "I
want to make this", and then go off and make it. The company says to the
film company, "We want you to make this", then Iwanami says "OK, we'll give
this to Mr. So-and-so to do.” That's how films are made. In the end, I
started to make the films I wanted to make only after I became a
freelancer. Out of the films I made at Iwanami, the one I can say I wanted
to make was a short (43 min.) production called *Usuzumi no Sakura *(*The
Cherry Tree with Grey Blossoms, *1977). This was completely my work, one
that didn't cost much. I'm very fortunate that my husband (Kudo Mitsuru) is
a film producer. Of course, the com­pany is so small that his desk is just
about all there is to it, but he still helps me produce my work.

Also, his connections with developers and studios and the like help me in
my work as well. Among the works I've made since I became a free­lancer,
there is *Hayachine no fu* (*Ode to Mt. Hayachine, *1982). This film,
filmed in the mountains of Japan's Iwate Prefecture, shows the lifestyle of
the people who live there, as well as the traditional *kagura *(sacred
Shinto dance) that is still performed there. This film runs about *185
*minutes.
Then, there's *AKIKO--aru dansaa no shozo *(*AKIKO-A Portrait of a Dancer, *
1985), a documentary about a modern dancer. *Chihosei rojin no sekai *(*How
to Care for the Senile, *1986) and *Anshin shite oiru tame ni *(*Getting
Old With a Sense of Security, *1990) are two works which focus of the
problems of Japan's elderly population. When I was working on *Hayachine
no fu, *the people of the village gave their full cooperation, and even
helped us raise money for the production. Of course, we put out most of the
money ourselves, but they helped us as well. The same with AKIKO-Akiko
Kanda herself helped cover the filming expenses to a certain extent. *Chihosei
rojin no sekai *was an independent production done under Iwanami
Productions, who hired me as director. While working on *Anshin shite oiru
tame ni, I *ran out of money, but fortunately there was someone to help me
who loaned me the money I needed. Of course, I'm going to pay that person
back as soon as the film gets out. Even though I never have any money,
whenever I decide to start a project, I always holler and scream and raise
a fuss, and someone will come out and help me… That's the feeling I've
always had, and still have.

In Japan, industries have plenty of money, but no one puts much out for
documentaries. This means that all of the people doing documentaries are
working under the same conditions. In the first place, there's no money
allocated for cultural activities or anything like that. The Japanese
Agency for Cultural Affairs percentage of the national budget amounts to a
mere *0.06%. I *hear in France, it's 0.6%--which means that Japan's
allocation is I /1p that of Frances. That means that as a nation, we don't
put much out for film. Recently, the "Japan Arts Fund" has been created.
But the money from that fund is being spread out all over the place--for
operas, for this, for that, and so on… They give financial assistance to
filmmakers as well, but usually around 25 million yen (approx.
US$200,000), when
productions can go over 100 million yen (US$800,000). And that's only for
those works which have passed their paperwork gauntlet, you realize.
Getting approval for funds to be released for a film is all well and good,
but the money isn't given out before a film is made; it's given out only
after a film is completed and has been released. But if there's anything
that can be said to cause problems from the beginning when attempting to
make a film, it's lack of funds. While working on my current project, I
received financial assistance from the Japan Arts Fund. To make that
film *(Kabukiyakusha
Kataoka Nizaemon), *we worked hard at collecting funds for four years while
we filmed. Finally, last year, we applied, and received 25 million yen.
There are some documentaries you could make and get by with only 50-70
million yen, but with production costs and all, you really need closer to
100 million yen or you just won't make it. It would probably help quite a
bit if you could receive that 25 million yen right at the start, but it
doesn't work that way. Kind of funny, isn't it?

It would have been nice if during the Occupation, the Americans had made
some kind of system to keep promoting cultural activities. Japanese aren't
too good at making a system like that. We still haven't made one. Back
then, we probably didn't think we'd become as rich as we are now. But, for
whatever reasons, we have become rich. It would be nice if the wealthier
corporations would use their wealth to support cultural activities, but
their attitude is "If we put out this money, what will the benefit be for
us and our company?" That's the value system that's at the base of their
decisions whether to give out money or not. It's pointless even to try and
say something like, "If your company uses that money to support these
[cultural activities], it will improve your compa­ny's image". Of course,
there are companies and foundations which are established and assist
cultural works. Even so, those foundations want to know-in detail -where
their money's going, how it's being used, what you're going to do with it,
and if you don't play by their rules, you don't get any money.

I'd like to mention that while at first glance it seems like a good idea
for there to be national support of cultural activities, there is also the
fear that in some cases the nations simple involvement might place
restrictions on artists' freedom. You could say that just because there is
no money from the national budget involved that Japanese documentarists
have freedom of action. That's because they work where there's nothing.

I really feel that there aren't many Japanese documentarists who can say
that they've been able to make the documentaries they really wanted to
make. That's because, except for the feature film industry, corporations
are able to order films to fit their specifications. That's why in Japan,
documentarists like Tsuchimoto and Ogawa are very rare. Even so, they and
people like them aren't able to make a living just off of movies. Because
they have trouble supporting themselves, their wives work, their assistants
campaign for funds… Among documentarists, there isn't one person who can
feed himself from documentaries alone. We're all very poor. That's why in
this wealthy modern Japan, there isn't anyone out there saying "I want to
become a documentary filmmaker.” The only thing they see is that they won't
be able to make it "big". This is a job that you have to love doing, or you
won't be able to do it.

I’ve just finished *Kabukiyakusha Kataoka N'izaemon *(*Kabuki Actor
Nizaemon Kataoka*)*. *Even though Nizaemon is now 88 years old, and has
great difficulty seeing, he is still performing. I filmed Nizaemon for four
years. The work ended up being over eight hours long. There are lots of
works about kabuki. I imagined making a film of about, oh, two hours or so,
but I wasn't able to show his true ability, his magic, in that short time.
That's why it turned into an eight-hour film: I wanted to leave a record, I
wanted to make an image that would show the world that "Here, here is a
truly magnificent person!"

After this, I think I like to do a work on some Japanese picture scrolls,
ones that are about 300 years old. I've done a little filming of some
picture scrolls this year, but I'm still working… As far as Japanese
picture scrolls go, even 300 years old is pretty new. The majority of the
picture scrolls that are regarded as National Treasures are about 700 years
or so old. Even though the ones I'm filming haven't been designated
National Treasures yet, they are still important cultural relics. Picture
scrolls are something rare and unusual not only in Japanese art, but in
world art as well… I like to think they're like ancient movies.



*Selected Filmography*

Haneda Sumiko was born in 1925, and joined Iwanami Productions in 1950. She
made her debut as a director in 1957 with *Mura no fujin gakkyu (Village
Women's Classroom). *She later became a freelance director.



In 1977, her independently produced Usuzumi *no sakura (The Cherry Tree
with Grey *Blossoms), which was a year-round record of the thousand-year
old cherry tress on the upper banks of the Negishi River in Gifu
Prefecture, drew critical acclaim. Some of her major works include *Hayachine
no *fu *(Ode to Mt. Hayachine), AKIKO-aru dansaa no shozo (AKIKO­A Portrait
of a Dancer-), *and *Chihosei rojin no sekai (How to Care for the Senile).*
---

*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 Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 8:17 PM Anne McKnight via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> There is also another interview on line that Markus conducted. You can
> find it here <https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/90913>. It is
> a pretty good read.
> Her book 『映画と私』was lightly re-written and appears in paperback form as 『私の記錄映画人生』in
> 2014. Interestingly enough, a part of it is, again, included in volume 4 of
> the Satō Tadao multi-volume collection on documentaries.
>
> Not really related, but I have always thought her 『薄墨の桜』might make a
> lovely—and strange—pairing with Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s *Charisma*.
> There was a retrospective of her work @ the National Film Archive a couple
> years ago, so there is probably a pamphlet and some prose online that you
> might be interested in checking.
>
> Anne
>
>
> On Jan 9, 2021, at 17:25, Asian Docs via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Thank you Aaron, I didn’t know about the Tsuchimoto’s piece
>
> mb
>
> On Sun, 10 Jan 2021, 10:16 Gerow Aaron via KineJapan, <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Haneda-san herself has written a couple of books about her filmmaking.
>> Yale also has this exhibition catalog on her as part of a series of works
>> on Iwanami filmmakers:
>>
>> http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/9957554
>>
>> We also have this, which I think is a pamphlet that Tsuchimoto Noriaki
>> wrote on her:
>>
>> http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/14918721
>>
>> Eric Cazdyn discusses her in Flash of Capital.
>>
>> Also, the YIDFF catalogs of course have a number of pieces on her films,
>> but I can point out an interview Monma Takashi and I did with her producer,
>> Kudo Mitsuru, in Documentary Box:
>>
>> https://www.yidff.jp/docbox/10/box10-2-e.html
>>
>> Aaron Gerow
>>
>> 2021/01/09 午後7:32、Asian Docs via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu
>> >のメール:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Has anything been written about Haneda Sumiko and her role in documentary
>> and Japanese cinema, or anything at all about her movies, in academic
>> publications, papers, books, etc. ?
>>
>> I’m looking especially for anything written in English, Spanish or
>> French, but I’m interested in Japanese writings as well.
>>
>> Thank you in advance
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Matteo Boscarol
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