[KineJapan] History of admissions tickets for doc films in Tokyo

Fri Sep 22 21:13:22 EDT 2023

no problem

yes, that's me

Matteo

Il giorno sab 23 set 2023 alle ore 09:35 Anne via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> ha scritto:

> Thank you. This is super helpful!
> Thanks also for the translations, on line!
> Are you the person who lives near the "usuzumi no Sakura" tree?
>
> Anne
>
> On Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 16:50 matteoB via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Dear Anne,
>>
>> In the conversation and essay on Haneda published in 私のシネマライフ, Takano
>> states that the screening (自主上映) of Usuzumi no sakura was the first time
>> when the ticket for a documentary was charged the same amount of money as a
>> 劇映画
>>
>> I hope it helps
>>
>> Matteo
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 23 Sep 2023, 08:30 Anne via KineJapan, <
>> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, this is very helpful.  The essay is 1977, and Iwanami is still
>>> on the verge of being Haneda's employer, so I do imagine her context is
>>> that milieu.
>>>
>>> Iwanami Hall only opened in 1968, so it is possible that in 1971 she was
>>> mostly referring to its screenings? I wonder if looking back at Iwanami’s
>>> “Tomo” magazine could clear up some patterns about actual ticket prices, or
>>> rental fees, since it was the Hall itself that published it. To see if only
>>> established figures like Tsuchimoto with substantial audiences charged
>>> money, if tickets were given away, to and by whom, how much regular
>>> audiences actually paid, where Iwanami sat in the whole landscape. Related,
>>> how exceptional was this case of charging admission, and how exceptional
>>> was Takano Etsuko’s advocacy around it? Takano’s role as a
>>> programmer/advocate might actually be as important here...
>>>
>>> Haneda calls the screening a “one-woman show,” which is hard not to read
>>> as a statement of some sort, a bit like Saito Minako’s 『紅一点論』。The next
>>> anecdote in the essay flashes forward to her being written up (at last) by
>>> a major newspaper, and landing an essay in a textbook. She’s clearly on her
>>> way up and out, and into more inspiring working conditions (based on
>>> piecing things together from her other writings). The nature of the “flex”
>>> or historical claim—or whatever rhetorical genre this is, naming a turning
>>> point in the industry and not only her life—is what I am trying to figure
>>> out…
>>>
>>> There is some wiggle room in Haneda’s writing, e.g. “it was the general
>>> sentiment that documentaries don’t attract many people and so it was not
>>> part of the thinking (論外)” …i.e. it’s not inconceivable that money is taken
>>> (admissions charged) on some occasions, but I think she’s talking about
>>> tendencies, not absolutes, out of the event of her screening. But she does
>>> credit her film with turning the tide…
>>>
>>> It’s a tricky context, as first-person writing, as Haneda is
>>> self-reporting, of course, and positions herself as an outsider (not a
>>> “social documentarist” like Tsuchimoto)…Calling it a “one-woman show” which
>>> tends to reproduce all the isolation of critical conversations she was
>>> never part of, but also to redeem the isolation by this flash of
>>> recognition.
>>>
>>> I find it harder to assess these first-person accounts, in many ways, by
>>> the female filmmakers, because the gaps can be big and blurry, between
>>> empirical reality, perception at the time, perception later, and critical
>>> takes by people who are not the main subject. When memoir is most of what
>>> there is, the points of reference can be hard to suss out, as opposed to
>>> easily identifiable “ronsō,” debates, responses in taidans, and so on…
>>>
>>> Female filmmakers are rare presences in public discourse in the heady
>>> dialectically-oriented, clashing 60s, but in their memoirs they write
>>> frequently about some pretty bad stuff—e.g. not being allowed to go on the
>>> production team for dam films because “there are no bathrooms.” I am pretty
>>> sure I have read that more than once, and will have to dig it up. Always
>>> the bathrooms!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 22, 2023, at 3:15 PM, Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <
>>> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> This probably needs some provisos. Maybe she’s talking about indie
>>> documentaries after the 1960s, because documentaries had been enjoying
>>> theatrical releases since before the war. That was true even of Iwanami
>>> Eiga, where Haneda was working, which enjoyed big theatrical success with
>>> films like Sakuma Dam in the 1950s. Even one of Tsuchimoto’s TV docs was
>>> apparently given a theatrical release in the late 60s. I’d have to dig into
>>> the archive, but it seems Tsuchimoto’s own documentaries could have
>>> theatrical releases starting with Minamata Ikki in 1973.
>>>
>>> Aaron
>>>
>>> 9/22/23 午後4:53、Anne via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>のメール:
>>>
>>> Greetings~
>>>
>>> I’ve been reading occasional essays by Haneda Sumiko, and came across an
>>> interesting historical claim. It’s in an essay Haneda published on a
>>> chirashi for her Hōryūji film from 1971. It’s more about her slightly later
>>> film, *Usuzumi no sakura*.
>>>
>>> The historical note comes from the way that Haneda frames a screening of
>>> *Usuzumi* at Iwanami Hall, which happened with the support of
>>> Tsuchimoto Noriaki and Uno Chiyo (the fiction-writer who also wrote a novel
>>> about the same tree, published slightly earlier, and put Haneda in her
>>> novel, in a small cameo). Haneda writes that at that time, because
>>> documentary films didn’t tend to attract people, filmmakers basically
>>> crowd-sourced by collecting funds through “kompa.” But Takano Etsuko
>>> encouraged her to charge for tickets, basically saying “why would you let
>>> yourself work for free?” Haneda ended up charging 800円 for tickets, and the
>>> hall was packed, she writes. She says that basically (“it would not be
>>> excessive to say…”) the screening set a new precedent for doc films
>>> charging admissions. It also establishes a certain narrative of freelance
>>> legitimacy on her part, apart from Iwanami. Seven years later, an essay she
>>> wrote on *Usuzumi* would be anthologized in Kokugo textbooks; she would
>>> go freelance after this film and form her own company.
>>>
>>> Does this turning point ring any bells for those familiar with screening
>>> and exhibition practices in that era—in particular, the act of charging
>>> rather than seeking contributions for documentaries?
>>>
>>> Thanks for any info or anecdotes!
>>>
>>> Anne
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