Production News
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| Sapporo [Access Sapporo] | 28-30 October 1999 |
| Koriyama [Big Pallet Fukushima] | 18-19 November 1999 |
| Tokyo [TEPIA] | 1-3 December 1999 |
| Nagoya [Nagoya SME Promotion Hall] | 16-17 November 1999 |
| Osaka [My Dome Osaka] | 1-3 February 2000 |
| Hiroshima [Melpark Hiroshima] | 16-17 November 1999 |
| Kita-Kyushu [Kita-Kyushu International Conference Hall] | 16-17 November 1999 |
Urban Connections will be opening exhibits and screening demos of Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema in three of the venues: Kita-Kyushu, Tokyo and Osaka. This will be a great opportunity for you to come and see for yourselves a number of masterpieces of Japanese silent period cinema revived on computer, and we greatly look forward to seeing you at the venues (Please see the MMCA homepage for further information on access to the venues, details of the exhibitions and multimedia assistance projects).
Reiko Ehara
As we enter into October, we have reached the final stage in production of Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema. The most difficult area in constructing the database for the DVD-ROM has been arranging all the materials we have available into digital format. Although convenient tools have been developed in order to digitize the text information in the materials, the final product involves a great amount of human effort, with the immense challenge of checking in detail over 12,000 pieces of individual data. The DVD-ROM is of course also a bilingual product which necessitates the investigation of Japanese character readings of film names and people's names so that they can be accurately represented by the roman characters used in English. I am not sure we have ever before had to search as exhaustively through kanji dictionaries and biographical dictionaries as we have on this project. Some of the kanji from the silent film era are no longer in conventional use today and have had to be reproduced specially in order to be displayed on today's computer screens.
Not all of our work has been this laborious. We have come across some very interesting and enjoyable materials from the time silent films were being shown. For example, we have seen surprisingly harsh criticism leveled at some of the films. Some of these printed barbs include "This film has no entertainment value whatsoever" and "This film is not so much boring as pathetic." Perhaps these statements reflect the great expectations reserved for the then-fledgling medium of film.
The next step will be the programming of the digitized material we have gathered. Before the finished product is shipped we will run operation checks and conduct an overall review focusing on both content and functionality. We will continue this work until the final product-a convenient digital medium which one can use to discover the burning passion of the people involved with film at its inception and the individual masterpieces of silent cinema-is completed.
Reiko Ehara
We have currently been receiving a number of inquiries and orders for Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema from people overseas who have accessed our homepage. Some of the inquiries have come from those with specialist knowledge of silent film, and I can feel that there is a great deal of interest toward Japanese film.
Matsuda Film Productions over the years has also screened silent films with benshi accompaniment outside of Japan, with many successful performances having been undertaken in the United States (including New York, Los Angeles and Berkeley), the Netherlands, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil. I have also heard that at some of the performances, the films have been so captivating that audiences forget that the benshi Sawato Midori is actually narrating in Japanese. The benshi narration not only adds further vigor to the marvelous images on screen, but would also seem to leave a moving impression on audiences that goes beyond the barriers of language and culture.
What exactly is it that attracts overseas audiences to Japanese silent film? Some say that silent film allows them to gain an insight into a society and way of life that does not exist in modern Japan. Others have said that they have been pleasantly surprised to discover that comedies, such as Kodakara Sodo (Kid Commotion), were also produced in Japan. Indeed, the "old" Japan depicted in silent film serves not merely as a doorway to the past, but can also be savored on a more personal level. And this is where lies the power of film.
Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema is a bilingual English-Japanese product. The process of putting together the English version has involved a number of challenging tasks, especially in researching the readings of people's names and film titles to allow for romanization, and in translating kabuki-style language and Japanese word play. However if the final product can serve as a useful reference for overseas fans and researchers of Japanese films, that our efforts will not have gone to waste. And we will be overjoyed if Masterpieces comes to be recognized as the definitive reference on Japanese silent film. Naturally it is also our strong desire that many people here in Japan can also come to learn about their domestic silent film heritage. The reason why is that in Japanese silent film there is too much of value to be simply forgotten.
Reiko Ehara
A look at the homepage of Matsuda Film Productions will tell you that the katsuben talkie videos, "The Great Movie Series of Apollon," have been discontinued. This series of videos were sold in VHS format to be enjoyed in the home, and comprised 15 masterpieces of Japanese silent film, including Orochi (Serpent), Taki no Shiraito (The Water Magician), Sunae Shibari (Spell of the Sand Painting) and Orizuru Osen (The Downfall of Osen). Those who find this of interest should by all means visit the Matsuda homepage. In Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema, we will be storing two-minute clips from 45 of the major works in silent film. The footage chosen for these clips are the highlight scenes from the films, and I am sure that once you see these remastered versions, you will be very keen on viewing the films in their entirety.
However, it is not possible to view all the films stored on Masterpieces in their entirety, because although they are genuinely outstanding films, for many of them, only one or two minute fragments of footage remain in existence. While digitizing the films of which only portions remain and storing them on the DVD-ROM is a worthwhile notion, when we consider the inferior quality of the film reels themselves, surely swift measures to repair and preserve these old movies becomes an absolute necessity.
When people think of old films, we naturally come to the conclusion that the picture quality resembles looking out of a window that is being spattered with rain, but the reason for this is that the film has been scratched and damaged. Indeed, there cannot have been any problem with the original film itself. There are also people who think that these rain-spattered pictures lend a certain distinctiveness to old films, but did the director and cameramen consider this when they were shooting them? Indeed, the acclaim at the time points to the "innovate camerawork" and "filming techniques so beautiful as to take your breath away." This is why we want to reproduce these films on DVD-ROM to recapture the beauty of the filming all those years ago.
We at Urban Connections would like in good time to address the challenges of repairing and preserving these films digitally. Until then, we hope that you will enjoy the digest of films which will be available to you on Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema.
Reiko Ehara
In the era prior to the birth of television,
it was cinema that blossomed as a public pastime. When I spoke
with Matsuo Fumindo, one of the great child actors of silent
film, he backed this up, telling me that "two or three films
were produced every week." Daily schedules would revolve
around all-night filming followed the next day by early morning
on-location shoots. And this alone explains why it was such a
vibrant era.
A variety of films were made during the silent era in order to
cope with such great demand. Genres included comedy, tragedy,
the love story and adventure. Reading the stories and commentaries
of films stored on Masterpieces of the Japanese Silent Cinema,
you will first be surprised at such a wide array of content.
Then, you will come to realize that they all have one characteristic,
which is that many of the films center around the theme of poverty.
Such films tend to develop with poverty as the cause of tragedy,
or the determining factor in the film's course.
When I spoke to the benshi Sawato Midori, she explained that
what she pays particular attention to when providing narration
to silent films is adding explanations which enable the viewer
to understand things that are unfamiliar to modern audiences.
A simple example would be that modern audiences are unlikely
to know the tadon, or charcoal briquette, which was used as a
household item in the past, but Ms. Sawato indicates that another
example is poverty. Certainly it may well be difficult for modern
audiences, who live in a prosperous era in which goods are readily
available, to understand properly the pain of the father in Sono
Yo no Tsuma (The Wife That Night) who turns to stealing as he
is unable to pay the hospital costs for his ill child, or in
contrast the funniness of Kodakara Sodo (Kid Commotion), which
depicts a family overcoming poverty as they bring up their children.
We can see, then, that accurately conveying the film's content
to the audience and calling on their emotions is where the benshi's
strength lies.
Watching silent films not only allows you to discover the poverty
element contained in the stories, but also many other elements
forgotten in the modern age. In creating Masterpieces of the
Japanese Silent Cinema, we will not only be storing onto the
DVD-ROM as great an abundance of information as possible, but
also hope to evoke the spirit of the times depicted in the films
themselves.
Reiko Ehara
In order to collect some data for Masterpieces of the Japanese Silent Cinema, I recently paid a visit to the home of film director Yoshimura Kozaburo to conduct an interview.
Yoshimura was born in 1911, and is 87 years old. He has filmed a number of masterpieces, including Anjoke no Butokai (The Ball at the Anjo House), Ashizuri Misaki (Cape Ashizuri) and Chijo (On Earth), and in 1976 received the Medal with Purple Ribbon for services to the arts. He provides us with a valuable insight into Japanese film history because he is a living witness to the atmosphere in studios during the period of transition from silent film to talkies. Yoshimura spoke to me on a wide range of topics, from the content of films during that era and the differences between Japanese and overseas films, to his memories of Kamata Studio in the mid-1920s. I have a particularly deep interest in the directors and stars who were prominent in those days, and our conversation continued long after the scheduled interview time. During the conversation Yoshimura would say with deep emotion, "Ah, that was a such a long time ago." The three or so years beginning from 1937 are said to have marked the main era for producing silent films in Japan. The images to be stored on the "Masterpieces" DVD-ROM are also from films made over 60 years ago, so I realized that they are indeed products of a bygone era.
A few days later I visited a company to confirm the quality of the images to be revived on DVD-ROM. Sitting in a room furnished with state-of-the-art equipment, I watched as the 1931 produced film Oatsurae Jirokichi Koshi (Jirokichi The Rat) appeared before me on a monitor. Although the original film reel was damaged in places, as a digitally remastered image with benshi accompaniment it was vividly brought back to life. And rather than evoking the old, the film sparked off thoughts of the new.
Although there are a great number of Japanese silent films, there are unfortunately few people who know about them. And these superb images will not be left to lie as remnants of yesteryear, but will be digitally remastered and brought to you as products of the modern world. In the monthly Production News, I will continue to inform you of the discoveries I make and the interesting items I come across during the production of "Masterpieces." See you next time!
Reiko Ehara
"This film is beautiful. When was it made?"
"Ah, that's Tsumasaburo Bando, isn't it? He was quite an
idol."
"I never knew that there was such a variety of silent films."
The Tokyo International Book Fair held at Tokyo Big Site from 22 April to 25 April included an exhibition of a prototype of the Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema database. Above are some of the comments received from visitors who viewed parts of these movies shown on a personal computer installed at the exhibit. Visitors to our booth ranged from people in their 60s and over who had actually seen silent films when they were first released to video lovers in their teens. I think what attracted so many people was simply the strength of the superior contents-the world of Japanese silent film.
The DVD-ROM database Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema is currently being edited in preparation for its scheduled release in December of this year. The feeling I get when I read material on silent films is the thrilling sense of expectation toward this new media called cinema felt by the people who were involved in the art at its inception. Today, those of us working on the DVD-ROM database have the same kind of expectations toward this new media called DVD. The large data capacity of the DVD is perfectly suited to storing video images. It takes two or three CD-ROMs to hold the amount of live video information that can be stored on a single DVD.
Each month, we will post updates on this page regarding the progress of this exciting project, which brings back to life Japanese silent films and the storytelling techniques of benshi narrators via the new digital media of DVD. We invite you to join us on this fascinating journey.
Reiko Ehara