[KineJapan] Tsuburaya film found

[Roger Macy]

What I failed also to mention was that the discovery was notall mine.

I identified its place in the Japanese filmography and that it was “lost”,and also its fleeting history at the Japan Society of the UK.However, it was Tony Fletcher, who tipped me off that he’d seen a Japanesemusical folk film in his trawls of the BFI archives. That conversation was inthe interval of a screening evening at the Cinema Museum here in London.

Roger


    On Wednesday, 7 July 2021, 15:46:38 BST, Roger Macy via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:  
 
  
Thank you all for your warm comments.

Just looking at those images on my laptop in the library, I can see thatHaghefilm have done a great job in copying. That’s a clearer image than Irecall from the projection copy in the BFI archives.

Those clips have a substantial fraction of all the special effects of Tsuburayain this film, at the beginning of his career. The one at the end, although nodoubt, of low visual impact compared with modern day special effects, isinteresting, as I read it, that the special effect portrays the heavenlyintervention that is in the minds of the (fictional) emperor and his men.Persuaded, in their group hysteria that Kaguya is being transported back to themoon, they fail to spot her and her lover, the woodcutter and his wife allescaping for a life on Earth in the flesh.

The contemporary Japanese reviews I have read, which were anything butflattering, fail to mention that. I feel they were more influenced than theyadmitted by the wayward but highly memorable music of Miyagi Michio, which goeswith the special effects, as the chorus concludes rousingly and repeatedly, ‘Kaguya– shōten!”.

Even more mysterious, the english-language rolling caption thatintroduces the surviving edit, commissioned by the Gaimushō for exhibitionabroad, emphasizes that non-standard conclusion of Taketori monogatari.

So, I conclude with a question: what musical films can you think of infilm history, whose music was directed by a blind musician (not just featuringblind musicians). Answers need not be confined to Japanese examples.

Roger


    On Wednesday, 7 July 2021, 15:05:55 BST, Adrian- Restoration Asia via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:  
 
 
Indeed a great discovery and my warmest congratulations to Roger.

  

As I have often said, “it’s not necessarily lost, we just have to continue the search……”.

  

Best,

  

Adrian Wood

  

  

  

From: KineJapan On Behalf Of Maria Jose Gonzalez via KineJapan
Sent: 07 July 2021 22:57
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Cc: Maria Jose Gonzalez <tkarsavina at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] Tsuburaya film found

  

What a remarkable find!

Congratulations Roger!

NHK had a wonderful clip of the film:

  

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210707/k10013124901000.html?fbclid=IwAR1zRKp-FpTLHXjWITGvFOKg5aURdClZVlgLX1OQcv99ZuCy88fSHl_kUCk

  

On Wednesday, 7 July 2021, 10:27:24 PM GMT+9, Jasper Sharp via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote: 

  

  

Great to see Roger getting credit for this - the BFI certainly wasn't aware of it before his thorough research turned it up!

  

  

  

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From: KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: 07 July 2021 12:40
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Cc: Gerow Aaron <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
Subject: [KineJapan] Tsuburaya film found 

 

This news was announced today: 

  

An abridged version of the 1935 film Princess Kaguya, photographed by Tsuburaya Eiji (famed for Godzilla and Ultraman) and directed by Tanaka Yoshitsugu at JO Studio, was discovered in the UK by Roger Macy (familiar to us all at KineJapan. It is a 33 minute version of a 75 minute film which was prepared for the London Japan Society in 1936. 

  

https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2199268/full/

  

It will be shown at the Tsuburaya retro at the NFAJ in September.

  

Aaron Gerow
Professor
Film and Media Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures

Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Yale University

320 York Street, Room 108
PO Box 208201
New Haven, CT 06520-8201
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu

website: www.aarongerow.com

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

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