[KineJapan] Hasumi's Ozu book

Mon Nov 27 14:05:10 EST 2023

Congratulations again, Ryan!
And I really appreciate the Forward by Aaron, too!
I will definitely use this in my grad seminar on Ozu and Film Studies in Winter/Spring!

Best,
Daisuke

Daisuke Miyao
Professor and Hajime Mori Chair in Japanese Language and Literature
Director of Film Studies
University of California, San Diego
________________________________
From: KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Mathieu Capel via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2023 7:59 PM
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Cc: Mathieu Capel <mathieucapel at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] Hasumi's Ozu book

Dear Ryan,

You must be right, and I genuinely thought some months ago that maybe Cahiers du cinéma would reissue the book on this occasion (even dreamed of a new version with the added three chapters), but they prefered to reissue a book by Jean-Michel Frodon instead, what is definitely a good idea but, as shameful as it is, I haven't read yet - as Stephen Sarrazin suggests, one can think that he quotes Hasumi in it, so my former post must have been wrong about publications in France this year. My bad!
NB : Schrader's book was translated to French some years ago, and I still can remember that the person in charge told me it was a welcome contradiction to Hasumi's views.

Best,
Mathieu Capel

Le lun. 27 nov. 2023 à 12:30, Ryan Cook via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> a écrit :
I imagine that the relatively weak influence of the French translation, at least today, is in part a product of the fact that it has long been out of print? I referred to the French here and there to see how that translation team tackled certain things, but it was not that easy to get my hands on it.

Ryan

On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 5:18 PM stephen sarrazin <stephensarra at hotmail.com<mailto:stephensarra at hotmail.com>> wrote:
Ryan,
Mathieu Capel is correct about his remark concerning the influence Hasumi’s book, in French, had at the time or since on Ozu scholarship in France. I remember clearly its release, one title among Cahiers’s Auteurs collection (several of which would warrant an English translation as well), and being interviewed about it back then.
I’d venture that Hasumi’s essays in Trafic did not make a noticeable impact either, although Frodon and Mathieu in particular championed him.
As for Schrader being castigated by Hasumi, well one again thinks of Yeats’ Second Coming; this titan of a writer- director was not the only one Hasumi felt compelled to chasten…
Still, would love to hear your blurb story!
And look forward to the book and discovering the new chapters!
All best,
St.S
Tokyo

On Nov 27, 2023, at 11:51, Ryan Cook via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:

I’m not sure if I should comment publicly about this, Markus. Haha

On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 4:48 PM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:
At least Jean-Michel and Bernard wrote very nice, even useful, blurbs. Schrader, in contrast, phoned it in. But then he surely hates the book, if he got past the first section that castigates him. I know from an awkward conversation that he stands proudly on the position he staked out in Transcendental Cinema!

Ryan, how did the Schrader blurb come about? I'm curious.

Markus

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On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 11:42 AM Ryan Cook via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:

Thanks very much for the gracious endorsements and interest in this translation (a product of a lot of time spent at home during the pandemic...).

Mathieu: yes, this is based on the definitive edition and includes the three chapters that were added in 2003 (there is also a Chinese translation). The new English edition does include the interview with Atsuta that appears as an appendix in the Japanese. (There is a French translation of this interview that appeared somewhere at some point long ago, but it is completely rearranged and hardly resembles the original.) Unfortunately we were not able to print the interview with Yukiko Inoue that also appears in the Japanese edition due to what I understood would be a strict word limit. I also decided against asking Hasumi to write a foreword for this reason, though in retrospect I wonder if we couldn't have stretched the word limit since we seem to have blown through it anyway. Maybe we can find another venue for Hasumi to comment in English on the occasion of the translation, which comes just about 20 years after he last expanded the book, on its 20th anniversary (and the Ozu centenary).

Ryan Cook (the translator)
Honolulu

On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 4:25 PM Mathieu Capel via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:
This English version is long overdue, needless to say, since the book was only translated to French and Korean, if I am not wrong (all apologies if I am).
Actually, there are some embarrassing mistakes in the French translation, even though it was reviewed by Hasumi himself (and, according to French speaking Japanese friends, it is far from good, to what I would agree to some extent...). And if I were to add an ironical kind of mixed-feelings remark, despite what Frodon and Eisenschitz says, I am pessimistic somehow how far Hasumi's view has changed in depth the way French viewers see Ozu's films: if you check the literature that was published this year related to the 60th/120th birthday events, I can't remember one quote of Hasumi's text, and most texts etc. seem to rely upon the same old clichés...
Anyway, is Ryan's version based on the Japanese definite edition ? Even Cahiers du cinéma Publishing, who don't seem to care so much about the book actually, have apparently not a single clue that there are three chapters missing in the French version (the interviews at the end of the original book were also scrapped from the Cahiers du cinéma translation).

Best regards,

Mathieu Capel
Tokyo

Le lun. 27 nov. 2023 à 10:58, Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> a écrit :
Erice wrote a lovely blurb for the cover.

Markus

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Markus Nornes
Professor of Asian Cinema
Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design

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On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 10:50 AM LCE via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:
This is indeed a difficult book in Japanese, as are all of Hasumi-sensei's essays about film. In the description of the author, they omitted his close ties to Spanish director Víctor Erice (the two men communicate in French). I have been with them in Japan.

I'm rooking forward to this translation when it appears in March. Thanks for the notice.

On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 6:53 PM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:
We get so few translations in American film studies, it feels like a grand occasion when a classic like this appears:

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520396722/directed-by-yasujiro-ozu?fbclid=IwAR2dmRTnFeQhALbmMCromyUU-BVXWlFXXadXuSFJVDOmRvq1iR5R6mKcgnY<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520396722/directed-by-yasujiro-ozu?fbclid=IwAR2dmRTnFeQhALbmMCromyUU-BVXWlFXXadXuSFJVDOmRvq1iR5R6mKcgnY__;!!Mih3wA!EGSWr4Ab9Q6ET463HuSWFk1PZMLeQ-eB9PbHGSYEkomT0K1Bm88pPRvC_TKpbLetE-rUq1QC3nw521zzjC99TPNa6Q$>

As anyone who has cracked this book knows, it was a bear to translate. Kudos to Ryan!

Markus
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