Private Reality

The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, 2020

The documentary mode has not had the recognition it deserves in the western historiography of Japanese cinema [...]

Arts, 2019

This article seeks to cast light on some of Hani Susumu’s theoretical and practical contributions to post-war Japanese documentaries. The article will also show how he created a documentary school at Iwanami Eiga based on authors’ closeness to the filmed object. This is crucial in order to understand the tendencies that developed in non-fiction films from the late 1950s. Hani’s influence can be seen in the leaders of militant cinema, Tsuchimoto Noriaki and Ogawa Shinsuke, who were trained at Iwanami Eiga. However, some of his theoretical writings, together with his documentary films Hōryūji (1958) and Gunka Ken 2 (1962), reveal how his singular subjective realism is applied to unusual shooting objects, landscapes. This article assesses this lesser-known aspect of Hani’s work and its links to certain developments in Japanese documentary films led by other filmmakers, such as Teshigahara Hiroshi and Adachi Masao, which have not yet been addressed.

Arts, 2019

In his work, the filmmaker Shindō Kaneto sought to employ various, often seemingly incongruous, cinematic styles that complicate the notions of fiction and documentary film. This paper first examines his ‘semi-documentary’ films that often deal with the everyday life of common people by means of an enhanced realist approach. Second, attention is paid to the fusion of documentary and drama when reenacting historical events, as well as the subsequent recycling of these images in a ‘quasi-documentary’ fashion. Finally, I uncover a trend towards ‘meta-documentary’ that takes issue with the act of filmmaking itself. I argue that Shindō’s often self-referential work challenges the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction while engaging in a self-reflective criticism of cinema as a medium.

Cinergie – Il Cinema E Le Altre Arti, 2020

This paper explores the last three documentaries made by Japanese filmmaker Sato Makoto before his early death in 2007. Self and Others (2000), Memories of Agano (2004), and Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said (2005). They are not only a prime example of his uniqueness in the recent history of Japanese cinema, but also a triptych that, albeit in retrospect, could put Sato on the international documentary map and give him the rightful place in the history of cinema. This is at least one of the goals of this essay. These works also reflect and partially crystallize some of the main developments undertaken by Japanese documentary in the last fifty years. In addition, I analyze how Sato was also a very "international" documentarian: Curious and aware of what was going on in the documentary scene around the world and always open to exploring and charting new territories, as he was also a theorist who authored some very important volumes on nonfiction cinema, his last movies have an essayistic and experimental quality that bears a close affinity to the works of Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha. Matteo Boscarol is a Japan-based film writer for the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto and an occasional film festival consultant. He has written extensively on Japanese and Asian cinema, Butoh, edited volumes on Tsukamoto Shin'ya and Miyazaki Hayao, and he is currently researching on documentary in East and Southeast Asia.

Journal of Screenwriting, 2020

During the heyday of the studio system in Japan in the 1950s, Mizuki Yōko (1910–2003) was one of Japan’s most prominent and celebrated screenwriters. Despite screenwriting being a markedly homosocial profession, Mizuki forged a remarkable career as a freelance writer, working both for major studios and independent productions. Her collaboration with directors such as Naruse Mikio and, above all, Imai Tadashi resulted in a string of critically acclaimed films. While Imai’s films were lauded by contemporary critics, his approach to directing has subsequently been regarded, especially by western scholars, as somewhat impersonal and his sympathies too leftist. Conversely, these social issue (shakaiha) films, often based on original screenplays by Mizuki, scrupulously displayed the anxieties and ambiguities of the post-war era when the social fabric of Japan was radically reconfigured as its people embraced the newly imported values of democracy and consumerism. In this article, I examine the contributions of Mizuki to the oft-neglected oeuvre of Imai and social issue film in particular. I argue that besides pointing at the capacity and bounds of narrative cinema to engage with timely and sensitive social topics, Mizuki’s working methods underline a screenwriter’s awareness of her own agency in filmmaking.

2020

This paper explores the last three documentaries made by Japanese filmmaker Sato Makoto before his early death in 2007. Self and Others (2000), Memories of Agano (2004), and Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said (2005). They are not only a prime example of his uniqueness in the recent history of Japanese cinema, but also a triptych that, albeit in retrospect, could put Sato on the international documentary map and give him the rightful place in the history of cinema. This is at least one of the goals of this essay. These works also reflect and partially crystallize some of the main developments undertaken by Japanese documentary in the last fifty years. In addition, I analyze how Sato was also a very “international” documentarian: Curious and aware of what was going on in the documentary scene around the world and always open to exploring and charting new territories, as he was also a theorist who authored some very important volumes on nonfiction cinema, his last movies have an ess...

Cinema Journal, 2018