The symposium was a companion piece to the BFi season entitled Japanese Gems (which runs from now until the end of the month). However, these films are also part of a traveling film festival called A Wreath for Madame Kuwakita.
Madame Kuwakita was evidently a huge figure in the West's discovery of Japanese film, working tirelessly as an intermediary between the Japanese studios and government and the western film festivals through which we discovered directors suck as Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi.
The Symposium itself featured a number of critical luminaries :
- Tony Rayns, who programmes festivals and writes about Asian Film.
- Alexander Jacoby, a British film critic who has worked out of Tokyo.
- Jasper Sharp, one of the editors of the Japanese film website Mindnight Eye.
- Kazuhiro Soda, an up and coming Japanese documentary maker who works out of Brooklyn.
- Tadao Sato, an eminent Japanese film critic.
The first session was devoted to Japanese cinema before and after Kurosawa. Kurosawa is an important figure in the history of Japanese cinema as he was the first Japanese director to gain widespread critical acclaim in the west with his victory at the Veniuce Film Festival in 1951. This session revolved around the extent to which Japanese film might have become influenced by this sudden Western interest.
Apparently the Japanese film industry began with a camera left behind by someone who exhibited a Lumiere Cinematograph. Early flms were sword fights on stages but after a while a deliberate decision was made to work in an art house style. Hence the likes of Ozu and Mizoguchi working as salaried directors in studios rather than as free-wheeling auteurs. Sadly, hardly any of Japan's pre-war cinema survives following the massive destruction of World War II and there was some discussion as to whether or not Japanese cinema changed after the West discovered it. In particular it was suggested that Mizoguchi might have moved towards shorter scenes because of a desire to ape the Hollywood style. However, the conclusion was more that the West has become more interested and more accepting of Japanese cinema so while our interest in it has grown, Japanese film moves along its own arc. Indeed, to this day, Japanese films are made not for export but for domestic consumption, the acid test of profitability being the home market.
An amusing note about this session was that it was largely dominated by Tadao Sato. Sato appeared with not one but two translators, one to translate English into Japanese and another to translate Japanese into English. Sato would speek for 10-15 minutes at a time with his translator scribbling furiously and occasionally looking emploringly at him. This was quite a surreal experience as it meant that I spent a large chunk of my saturday being spoken at in Japanese. Alexander Jacoby (who chaired the first session) had a tough time cutting in and letting others speak but he did eventually manage it.
The second session dealt more with contemporary Japanese cinema and was, arguably, a more productive discussion. The talk revolved around the death of the Japanese film industry, and apparently things there are not good. The studio system, which has long dominated Japanese film, is in the process of imploding as less and less Japanese people go to the cinema (the only film guaranteed to be a hit is one of Studio Ghibli's Miyazaki films). Apparently young film-makers are also turning their backs upon the studio system and more and more of them (including Soda) are going indie and making films themselves. Indeed, Soda's Campaign (which I have not seen but I have ordered on DVD) found an audience in Japan because Soda was ableto get it noticed in the West. Much consternation was also voiced about the rise of genre films (this was the BFI after all). The consensus seemed to be that these were frequently formulaic and derivative and did a lot to obscure "proper" Japanese cinema behind endless ghost stories and battling anime beauties.
One of the best things about this second session was Tony Rayns. Rayns is very much an old school critic. There was no "if you like that kind of thing about him", he would describe directors as hacks and other critics as villains. His faith in his judgment was absolute and anyone who did not agree with him was clearly wrong.
Another great contributor was Jasper Sharp who refused to accept the idea that because Japan's move further and further towards genre film-making and away from auteur-based cinema (or social as opposed to event-based film making as one audience member put it bizarrely) was necessarily a bad thing. He rightly pointed out that Godzilla did more for Japanese film than Rashomon ever did and pointed out that there are still really exciting films being made in Japan. The issue is whether or not we ever get to see them as Western producers are still obssessed with horror films. A member of the audience also raised a point that I have heard said about South Korean cinema and that is that Japanese producers demand far too much money for foreign distribution rights. In effect they demand so much that unless you're certain to fill a huge cinema every night, there's no point in buying the films at all. It was pointed out by Kazuhiro Soda that this was a product of Japan's inward looking film industry. If all that matters is how much money your film makes at home then why bother putting in the work to sort out foreign distribution deals? just demand huge amounts of money and that way you won't have to work. Which is quite an assertion to make given the Japanese reputation for hard work
As an aside, I have written quite a bit about Japanese cinema recently. In particular, you might enjoy reading my reviews of Yokihi and Akasen Chitai (the latter of which Rayns correctly identified as one of Mizoguchi's finest works) as well as Mizoguchi's Uwasa No Onna and Chikamatsu Monogatari, which contains some links to previous Ozu reviews I have also had published.
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