[KineJapan] on Haneda Sumiko

[Asian Docs]

thanks everyone!

On Thu, 14 Jan 2021, 13:11 Markus Nornes via KineJapan, <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20210114/7a8052d3/attachment-0001.html>