[KineJapan] Benshi Bonanza

[Markus Nornes]

The other night Waseda/UCLA’s Yanai Initiative ended its US benshi tour
with a splendid evening of benshi performances at Waseda’. It was one of
the best evenings of benshi I’ve ever seen, starting with the fact that
they actually packed Okuma Kodo with about 1,200 people. (I think _someone_
needs to figure out Yanai’s trick. How do you get just a few of these
people to make the very short trek to shitamachi for the regular benshi
screenings?!)

The first film they did was Not Blood Relations, a 1916 film from Kobayashi
Sankai and directed by the actor and *shinpa *giant Inoue Masao. This is
most definitely not the Naruse film from 15 years later. It’s a great
example of *shinpa* filmmaking. Almost no intertitles. Straight on long
shot/long medium shots and close to one shot per scene editing. And
audiences probably had no idea how lucky they were to experience proper
kowairo benshi accompaniment. There were three benshi for this one, Kataoka
Ichiro, Yamashiro Hideyuki and Yamauchi Nanako (the tour itself featured
Omori Kumiko, but she fell ill and Nanako stepped in at the last minute
with a flawless sub). It was great.

The last film they did was also before the Pure Film Movement shift, but
kyugeki. The film was Matsunosuke’s Jiraiya. I have only seen this film on
a crappy video on a laptop. To see it on the big screen with a as fine a
copy as is extant, and with kowairo to boot, was a wonder to behold. Sure
the kabuki physical SFX were all the cheesier, but I have to say it gave a
sense for Matsunosuke’s onscreen presence. You could get a sense for why he
was so popular.

They presented one American comedy, Sweetie. It’s a Baby Peggie film, of
which there are few extant. Although she was wildly popular, she’s not my
favorite. But with a benshi, it was good fun.

It was much more fun to watch Straightforward Boy the Ozu comedy with
Tokkan Kozo. Ichiro’s setsumei was delightful with machine-gun dialogue.
These films were all presented with projected subtitles for the setsumei
(by Kerim, so they were really good). But only the first part of this film
got the subtitles. Ichiro’s banter was so relentless that whoever was
hitting the advance button on the PowerPoint got hopelessly lost and just
gave up. Can’t blame them. It was crazy and crazy fun. It was also a longer
version, which just added that much more pleasure to the mix.

Another film that was presented in a newly extended version was Ito
Daisuke’s *Blood Spattered Takadanobaba *(I prefer something like Mists of
Blood in Takanobaba, a far freakier rendition). First of all, I thought it
was cool watching this film a couple hundred meters from where the
historical battle took place. There’s even a sekihi commemorating it.
Second, Yamashiro’s setsumei was the best I’ve heard—and I think I’ve heard
everyone do this film. It was a bang-up performance. Really thrilling. And
third: Ota-san at the Toy Museum found a 9.5mm print with just a bit more
of the film, so now we’re up to 12 minutes of furious filmmaking. Damn,
that’s fine filmmaking! Makes Eisenstein’s editing look tame. The extra
minutes of film make a remarkable difference. I want to see it again. And
soon.

Finally, the other film they did was Oath of the Sword, the recently
discovered Japanese American film. This was also nice to see on a big
screen for its pictorial qualities. In his maesetsu, Ichiro threw out some
red meat for the film mania types: the substantial supporting role by Jack
(Yutaka) Abe. I’m fascinated by this film, which I see as a thorough mixing
of American and Japanese filmmaking.  It’s a 1914 film, which puts it at a
crucial moment in film history for both national cinemas. By 1914,
Hollywood had firmly established the tenants of silent era continuity
style, so films were quite self-contained thanks to new approaches to
narrative construction which included the careful use of intertitles. Oath
of the Sword makes little to no use of these innovations.

The film has the feel of an American film, particularly the comedic moments
on campus, which feel uncannily like Lloyd’s The Freshman, which comes out
nearly a decade later. Importantly, the acting is quite natural (for the
day…in America) and the female roles were all played by women.

On the other hand, the photography—mostly long shot, long take and static,
if lovely—hewed to Japanese cinematic conventions of the time. Additionally,
there are almost no intertitles and the story is straight out of *shinpa*
and older oral storytelling traditions in Japan. It even has a climactic
suicide overtly telegraphed by the title, if you’re used to Japanese
stories. (I suspect someone that knows that territory could tell us
specific narratives it was drawing on.) I initially saw this online and
could only get the larger narrative arc (and had writings by Denice Khor to
help). In other words, this is a cinematic narration dependent on the
supplement provided by benshi. So, naturally, the full-blown narrative spun
by film/benshi was a very different experience. I think it’s clear this
film’s conception was predicated on the existence of a benshi in the room.

It’s all very fascinating. But I have to say I was taken aback by the
reaction of the audience. Now it could be that Ichiro elicited this by a
comment in his maesetsu about a surprising reaction in America (one of the
themes of the day in a pre-event talk show). He noted that Americans
laughed at much of the film. They did at Okuma Kodo as well. Some scenes
were built for it, like the gym scenes. But others were more of a camp
response. It was strange. He ought to show it again in Japan and avoid any
mention of the American response and see what happens. I’d be curious. I
suspect it would demonstrate the power of the maesetsu.

Finally, I have to mention the catalog. Book actually. There are a set of
great essays on benshi history and coming at it from all sorts of angles:
theater construction, imperialism, diaspora, stardom, music, the transition
to sound. This is to say the initial editorial shaping by Daisuke Miyao and
Michael Emmerich is incredibly smart. But, I have to say, even better is
the design by Shibata Kotaro and Ichiro. I don’t know about Shibata-san,
but Ichiro is a serious historian and just as serious collector. This book
has what feels like hundreds of astounding images of theaters, people,
films, and archival materials. It’s incredible. A very important book
that’s surely fated to go out of print fast. Get one while they’re still on
sale!  https://yanai-initiative.ucla.edu/publication/the-world-of-the-benshi

I am so jealous I couldn’t experience the whole slate of films back in the
US. But then here in Japan there are so many opportunities. Indeed, for
those in or coming to Japan on May 31, the Shinjuku Higashi-guchi Film
Festival (yes, there is one) has an entire day of films with benshi—11 of
them to be precise!  Details at www.matsudafilm.com

Markus
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