Send me an email or leave a comment if you are interested (panel abstract below).

Media paratexts: magazine cover shoots, television promos, interviews,
Rotten Tomato aggregates, Roger Ebert tweets, theatrical trailers,
leaked photos, gossip mags, Happy Meal toys, soundtrack music videos,
official websites, DVD box sets, SNL parodies.

Media paratexts, as conceptualized by Jonathan Gray, are the materials
that surround a media text (e.g. a film or TV show), but they are more
than marketing campaigns and bonus features; “they create texts, they
manage them, and they fill them with many of the meanings that we
associate with them” (Gray 2010, 06). Paratexts bind the target text
by way of repetitive explanation or contextualization (howsoever
homologous or seemingly polysemous), enveloping target spectators
within an info-sphere of predetermined, “correct” meanings and
interpretations. Through the process of creating packaged meaning in
media packaging, paratexts “tell us how producers or distributors
would prefer for us to interpret a text, which audience demographics
they feel they are addressing, and how they want us to make sense of
their character and plots” (72). Although many paratexts are created
and repurposed by spectators themselves—fans and detractors
alike—those produced within and approved by the industry do the most
work to align texts with safe images and interpretations designed for
successful mass marketing. Safe, of course, refers to meanings shaped
by and molded to dominant social norms, ideologies, and power
structures; constructs that do not challenge patterns of normative
social dominance and are as such those most profitable for the
industry.

Analysis of paratexts, as Gray suggests, allows us insight to the
mechanics of industry created sociocultural demographics—the
manufacture and maintenance of group taste derived from the illusion
of tailored market niches. This panel is concerned with the
particular intersection of marketing paratexts and gender. First and
foremost, our panel acknowledges the tremendous economic power female
audiences possess. Their economic potential is of great interest to
media industries and we see evidence of increased efforts to target
female audiences and their economic capital. From media remixes of
“Girl Power” and the postfeminist sexuality of popstars (Beyoncé, Lady
Gaga, Katy Perry) and chick flicks (Sex and the City, Bridesmaids) to
the Twilight franchise and the rise of tween primetime programming
(the CW lineup, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance) female
audiences are rapidly outnumbering and outpurchasing their male
counterparts thanks to the proliferation of media specifically
targeting their presumed needs and desires.

We ask: How do paratexts conceptualize and shape female audiences?
What do paratexts reveal about contemporary constructs of gender?
How do paratexts imagine or create gendered tastes and desires? What
role do female audiences have in the maintenance or rejection of these
constructs? What are female audiences buying into (or not) and how?

Sources
Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Seperately: Promos, Spoilers, and
Other Media Paratexts. New York and London: New York University Press.

Shochiku's Shinekon Picadilly Theater

The Shochiku Shinjuku Picadilly is probably the poshist theater I have ever been to; and I thought that the nothing was going to top:

1) the lavish Hollywood/Studio City personal usher and live lecture/film introduction (in lieu of trailers and ads) combo.

2) Nicaragua/Managua’s recliner chairs (in stadium seating) and dial-up concession butlers: delivery right to your chair at any time during the film.

That said, I didn’t actually watch a film there, so I have no idea what happens once you pass through the glossy white doors (although according to the website, there are apparently blankets). Next time. What I can say is that what the Picadilly has over the other two is style.

The Shinjuku Picadilly is, unsurprisingly, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district: a fashion-conscious area now three to four times removed from current youth trends. It is also something of a theater district, with more known theaters (from multiplexes to art theaters and one-screen cafes) per capita than any other Tokyo district. I believe that the geographical and commercial neighborhood of theaters is an important context that reveals a significant amount about, not necessarily the actual demographics of their clientele, but their desired clientele. In other words, the theater’s image. The Picadilly is in a heavily populated tourist haven, shopping district, and commuter nightmare–with 3,398,006 people entering and exiting Shinjuku’s 200+ exits per day, it is still the busiest train station in the world. However, I would argue that the theater is just off the beaten tourist path. The front of the buildling faces Yasukuni-dori, a street without direct connection to the station, and the back abuts a rabbit warren of upscale boutiques and restaurants with significantly less English language representation than those closer to the station. Moreover, this neighborhood is on the sparse East JR exit, which is also a bus and parking lot access; to the casual tourist, the scene definitely feels like you got out at the Wrong Exit. What this suggests to me is that the theater is positioned to attract high-end ZARA and Marui window shoppers of a distinctly domestic variety. Now, having been inside the theater, my assumptions ring true.

Shinjuku Piccadilly Ground Floor: Entrance

Is it a theater or a day spa?!

The theater shares first floor space with a Muji (not pictured), a high-end home goods and clothing retail chain. Muji is, to me at least, an incredibly ironic idea. The name itself, meaning “no brand” is the company’s concept: minimalist design free of brand labeling. In an extremely brand-conscious city, the company may seem somewhat subversive. True to their mission statement, everything sold at Muji is simple: everything comes in a solid brown, white, clear, or black color scheme (and those colors aren’t mixed in a single product), and nothing has a company logo on it (except the shopping bags). However, the company has effectively branded this color scheme and label-less design to the extent that a brown, blank notebook or a white wicker laundry basket is pretty much instantly recognizable as a Muji product. And when that product is in a bag with the Muji brand name on it, it is, of course, even more recognizable. Moreover, Muji goods are Not Cheap. The company is the psuedo-consumerist rebellion equivalent of Converse shoes. Ultimately, it’s hip.

Which is what makes Muji the perfect companion for the Shinjuku Picadilly.

Waiting area and concession counter.

Even though those are promotional photos, the theater really is that clean and that sparkling white. Frankly, it’s lavish. I mean, lavish in a completely sterile, modern way. Screen culture permeates the layout, from the ticket counters and marquee displays to the mini screens playing trailers that are inset into the walls and columns.

The concession counter sells:

The ticketing process is fairly standard with the practices of the large contempo theaters around town. Tickets are available for reservation online and are available for printout at either the counters or the self-service machines.

Ticketing

Purchasing a ticket also means purchasing a specific seat, like most theaters here. The agent shows you on a seating chart (for the particular screen) and indicates what rows and seats are still free. What is not obvious, because it goes unsaid, is that the “available” seats are limited to seats that are also free on both sides. This is a service by the theater to remove the undesirable awkwardness of sitting next to a stranger. However, if the theater is particularly full, for example if Harry Potter is still in its first month, they fill every seat possible.

Ticket prices:

Specials:

3D Prices:

As a “shinekon” (a cinema complex), the theater has, by definition, more than six screens. In fact, it has 10.

Picadilly Layout.

Actually, it has 13.
The “Platinum Seats” and “Platinum Rooms” are on the 5th floor, adjacent to the “Platinum Cafe.” For the record, my kitchen is now also called the Platinum Cafe.

The Platinum Seats are in a 22 seat mini theater. The seats themselves are designer ottoman recliners, coupled together in pairs. Platinum seat moviegoers may order anything off the menu downstairs, or may choose from a special menu including sorbet, maccha, and cocktails. The seats are ¥5,000 ($60) per person.
(To be honest, the pictures of the room bear a remarkable similarity to my experience in Nicaragua, which only set me back $8.)

Platinum seats are paired together.

Platinum Rooms are private rooms for two, and there are two of them.

Platinum Room

Platinum Room

At ¥30,000 ($357) per room, the Platinum Rooms also come with a special menu. Their website recommends a bottle of Don Perignon Rose for ¥100,000 ($1,189) and perhaps a cup of kopi luwak for ¥50,000 ($594) because, I guess, who doesn’t want to watch Iron Man II while sipping on “coffee made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet…then passed through its digestive tract” (Wikipedia).

Aside from the Platinum Rooms, which are obviously very expensive short-term hotel rooms, this theater is made for a lady clientele. This doesn’t mean that fellahs don’t go to the theater, too. In fact, there were a number of men on the day I went, which was, notably, a “first day of the month” discount day. That said, most of the fellahs there, young or old, were there with a lady, young or old (and not always in accordance). I will need to go back on a day that doesn’t have such a drastic discount for all in order to assess who is actually showing up to pay ¥1,800.

Regardless of who may or may not be buying tickets (and needless to say the reality might not be so heteronormative), the theater is most assuredly going after a particular perception/construction of gender.

1) It’s not an accident that the interior looks like a day spa. I was joking a little before, but not really. According to the theater’s “concept” behind the architectural layout (redesigned in 2008) the building and its interiors represent a fusion between art, fashion, and entertainment.

2) This is the theater website’s calendar:

It’s an interactive calendar; click on the date and you will link to that day’s schedule. The gold star icon reminds the browser that (in this case) Wednesday, Dec 1st is the first day of the month and is therefore a special discount day. The pink high heel signifies Ladies Day. Although there are a variety of discounts at the theater (see above), the calendar specifically draws attention to Ladies Day, even though it is every Wednesday. If the first day discount didn’t happen on a Wednesday, the calendar would sport four pink high heels instead of three. The marketing design behind the site clearly wants to remind visitors that Ladies get discounts, meaning “Ladies come to the theater!!”

3) The website’s color scheme is primarily orange and white, which I think is safe to characterize as gender neutral. There are few splashes of color, however. The “Members Card” button, which takes you to a page that explains how the Member’s Card point system will change, is not orange or white. It is pink. It is the same shade of pink as the high heeled shoe that signifies the Ladies Day discount. It is not a mental leap to suggest that the use of pink here creates a link between Members and Ladies.

4) The button underneath the Member’s Card info also contains a splash of pink:

This button is for the Autumn Special Present Campaign. This really is the nail in the coffin:

If you watch more than one of the three Autumn Campaign films, you have the chance to win a prize (determined by lottery). If you watch all three films, you a guaranteed to get one of the “good” prizes (although these include concession stand food and drink prizes). The major good prizes include a trip for two to Kyoto (one winner total), a viewing in a Picadilly Premium Room (two winners), a really nice cassarole dish (three winners), a White Musk set from the Body Shop (ten winners), and a box of premium tea (ten winners). It’s extremely obvious who these prizes target, but let’s also take a look at the three films selected for the Autumn Campaign.

Conclusion: The Shinjuku Picadilly marketing department is after a very particular audience.

Visual analysis, I missed you.

Alas (and hurrah?) it is a seedy underbelly no more; or, at least it won’t be for much longer.
Either way, this development is a little bit troublesome.

The dissertation chapter I am currently working on, by which I mean I will start writing it any day now, begins with a short case study of the Asakusa Rokku Theater District (now Rokku Broadway), as a means of introducing my analysis of theaters and exhibition venues as gendered spaces. From there, it’s just a short hop, skip, and jump to analyzing marketing paratexts and their role in gender construction, genre construction, and Female Filmmaker construction.

Although I suspect it is a little problematic to suggest a one-hundred year historical bridge between the Asakusa Theater Street in the early 1900s with the Rokku Broadway of 2010, it is also, to my mind at least, a convenient way to summarize the shifts in spectator demographics and film genre production that lead to the collapse of the Japanese studio system, the concurrent investment in pink film and art theaters, the later introduction of cinema complexes, and then the recent revival of the domestic film industry and studio houses. Unlike the components of my last chapter, I intend for this section to be short, but I do have a tendency to get carried away.

A little bit of history:
The Asakusa Rokku entertainment district is the home of Japan’s first movie theaters. To split hairs a little, this distinction is dependent on one’s definition of “theater.” To wit, public audiences first witnessed the spectres of the Lumiere Bros. cinematographe films–among them L’Arrivée d’un Train en Gare and Baignade en Mer–at the Nanchi Embujo Kabuki Theatre in Osaka’s Nanchi geisha-laden entertainment district.

When I say “spectre,” I’m not just referring to the now fairly cliché metaphor that projected cinema is an ethereal vision of the past (and often the dead), but also to the peculiar technique employed by the Osaka projectionists. They used the imported, instruction manual-less cinematographe machine as they would the domestic gentou e device (magic lantern), placing the the projector behind the screen. Unsurprisingly (to us obnoxiously canny 21st century technophiles), the screen (a white linen sheet) completely obscured the images. To circumvent the apparent design flaw, the exhibitors did not circumvent the screen setup, but instead created an ad hoc industry profession. During the screening, a man with a bucket would pour water over the projection sheet and then sweep the water throughout the screen with a brush. The damp cloth would allow some light through, rendering the pictures somewhat visible from the front. According to audience member Okuda Saichiro, this peculiar, but innovative, technique gave the pictures a “very fine brilliance” thanks to the “dew formed by the water.” Spectres of the spectre of cinema dancing in an aura of refracted light.

Perhaps my friend at Canon and his colleagues can take heart that troubles in translation and localization for globally exporting and importing technology have been around for a very long time.

Despite technical difficulties, the spectacle of moving images was, of course, a hit. The Cinematographe, followed rapidly by Edison’s Vitascope, made its way from Osaka to Tokyo via exhibition tents along the way, a theatrical setting in and of itself. Once in the capital, exhibitioners rented kabuki and noh theaters for their screenings (by this time with the projector behind the audience, not the screen).

An illustration of the Vitascope showing at the Kinkikan Kabuki Theatre. The audience comprised of men, women, and children is clearly divided into classed seating.

That all said, in 1903, Japan’s very first theater constructed solely for the purpose of showing films opened it’s doors in the Asakusa Rokku entertainment district on Chinsekai (strange or curious world) Street.

The Denkikan in 1915

Model of the Denkikan at the Edo-Tokyo Museum

The Denkikan–lit meaning: electricity hall–was not just a theater, however. It was designed as a full misemono [1] electrical experience. Upon entering, patrons were enjoined by a ‘house explainer’ to place their fingers into an aquarium of water coursing with a mild current so that they could experience this new marvel of science in an embodied (and hazardous) way. Next they were guided through an examination of their skeletal structure using an X-Ray machine imported straight from the Chicago World’s Fair. Who says cinema is bad for you?

The movie hall itself contained 240 seats, all sold at a set price (as compared to the classed seating found in the kabuki and noh theaters) indicating film was For The People. Indeed, it was Favored By The People: by 1915, the theater accommodated an audience of 900. The projectors ran on currents from a kerosene generator, installed out back to reduce environmental hazard and noxious fumes. As you can see in the model above, the building’s outer façade hosted inset mounted display mantels for larger-than-life painted poster boards that advertised the daily programs. Dynamic programs largely consisted of imports–chock full of exotic novelty–or domestic productions from the Yoshizawa Company.

By the 1910s, The Denkikan’s Chinsekai Street became “Theater Street”–a solid block of movie theatres.

Illustrated map of Asakusa. At the heart of the district is the Rokku Chinsekai Theatre Street, a solid block of movie theatres beginning with the construction of the Denkikan.

Colorful banners and billboards exploding with large kanji characters and elaborate depictions of cinematic scenes lined the street on either side. Barkers called out from entrances and dolled-up young women waited to escort male patrons into the dark theaters. Moviegoers–students, children, sailors, housewives, lovers, seniors, politicians, foreigners, farmers, writers, mobo and moga (the fashionable “modern boys and girls”), you name it–ambled from venue to venue, enjoying misemono displays between shows in an extravaganza of constant and fluid entertainment that was the essence of the Asakusa carnival.

The Asakusa Rokku Theater Street was for everybody.

Skipping ahead to the post-war period, the Asakusa Theater Street transformed in step with both the changing film industry as well as the economic restructure and redistricting of Tokyo. The Rokku was no longer a place for everybody: the district adapted to a distinctly working class (or in many cases not working at all) clientele, and a male one at that. Asakusa had been a place of historic bawdiness to be sure, but the tenor changed from carnivalesque to seedy, with questionable underpinnings in organized illegal networks.

Today, the Asakusa Theater Street is now the Asakusa Rokku Broadway. The element of the misemono is all but gone, replaced by gambling dens, televised horse race halls, strip clubs, and a lot of soft core porno houses. The street itself is just as crowded as ever, but the throng takes the visage of homogeneity: working class, middle-aged-and-up men.

At least, that was what I was going to write in my chapter introduction.

When I visited the district in May of 2009, that was exactly what the street looked like. At the time, not only was I the only visibly marked foreigner on the street–a shock considering that the major tourist trap/attraction of Senso-ji is but four blocks away–I was also one of the only women: a combo that elicited a number of protracted stares. In particular, Porno House Row (my term)–a string of pink theaters fronted by rows of explicit posters and sandwich boards–truly roused the feminist bile and discouraged any personal desire to loiter. This is precisely why my friend came with me this time: to act as a buffer between me, my camera, and my note taking and the sea of somewhat unfriendly patriarchy.

The demographic hasn’t really changed…

Dudes hanging out in front of a horse race hall.

Dudes hanging out at the retro theater.

Dudes hanging out on the street.

…but the Asakusa Rokku Broadway is getting a face lift!

Under Construction

Under Construction

One strip club and one pink theater remain, as do the pachinko parlors and the horse race halls, but the string of pink theaters and shocking billboards are completely gone. In just one year. It sort of boggles the mind.

What’s going up in their place? The Asakusa Art Marathon Project.

According to the website’s exceedingly stereotypical rhetoric, the Asakusa area is a site of rich cultural heritage and the birthplace of many of Tokyo’s (read Japan’s) theatrical and artistic treasures. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, the area suffered significant structural loss and fell into decline. However, the Sensoji temple has maintained a status of siginificant importance and respect, noteworthy as a place of massive tourist appeal. And so, to look forward to the future and to reclaim the distinction of the past, Asakusa’s getting cleaned up.

This, of course, presents some serious issues about what it means to “clean up” a place, especially when that process involves a transformation of class. Not a real transformation, of course, but a hedging out of the unsavory through enforced displacement. The poor are pushed further to the margins of Tokyo as places deemed historically and culturally valuable–really a value priced by tourism draws–are made sparkly and new. The current work by the featured artist of the Art Marathon, Funakoshi Rie, should illustrate a pretty good idea of the desired class aesthetic:

On the other hand, considering the gender dynamics of the transformation, I’m not really that inspired to invest in a class critique. Suck it up, sexism? I do, however, ask the simple question: where’s it going to go next?

To be honest, I was shocked by the transformation. I just couldn’t quite get my mind around it, particularly since I had just been in the neighborhood so recently. Fortunately, I have helpful and smart friends who provide interesting perspectives. Grandland told me about the recent sweeps and reconstruction projects in nearby Akihabara, a district known for a similar set of seedy, red light characteristics that draw, instead, younger generations of male consumers with money to burn. Like Asakusa, Akiba is also going through some government enforced reimagining, not the least of which are actual, thorough sweeps of the many manga and novelty shops to ensure a recent ban on child pornography, and the as-of-last-week finished Atre department store (with no manga or anime ties) that now buffers the train station on one side. Sean lent a valuable assist with the important framework of last year’s Olympic bid: so many of the reconstruction projects around Tokyo are slated to finish precisely in time with the 2016 Olympics (a bid that they did not ultimately get). Given the city wide “clean up” that haunted the 1964 Olympics, it is not unreasonable to attribute the campaigns to a massive political maneuvering of olympic proportions.

How does any of this pertain to female filmmakers? Well, that’s my secret.

My just-got-a-little-more-complicated secret.

[1] Misemono were the lifeblood of the Edo then Meiji period Asakusa entertainment district. Literally meaning ‘things to show’, misemono were displays of oddities and novelties, often crude and vulgar, that were short-term entertainment enterprises. The turnover rate, as with most novelties, was high, with most exhibits lasting only days. Misemono artists were essentially commercial buskers, skilled in the creation of spectacle, who traded on the curiosity and attraction of the new and bizarre—hence the faddish attention span—similar to carnival tent acts, though much smaller in scale and more individually operated. Misemono acts included anything and everything, ranging from such standard fare as imported novelties, monkey performances, snake dances, juggling and acrobatics, to eating feats, one-man sumo shows, archery performed using one’s feet, religious relics, and exotic medicinal remedies. The environment in Asakusa was decidedly carnivalesque.

Illustration of a ‘mermaid’ misemono exhibit.

Since August, I have been busily (hectically, insanely) typing away at my first dissertation chapter. I am quite happy to report that at 56 pages, 84 cited sources, and 64 end notes, my chapter on case studies of Japanese female directors from the 1930s to the 1980s is out of my hands and off to the adviser! Although there are revisions in my future, it is time to start thinking about chapter two: female reception and gendered marketing strategies. Well, it is almost time. In truth, the chapter was out the door in early October and I have been spending the rest of the month on holiday in the U.S., visiting my partner and relaxing. Breaks are important! So is seeing one’s spouse!

Heck, since I mentioned it, I might as well talk about it briefly. Why not. My first chapter addresses why it is that, in the history of Japanese cinema, the number of women making films is so remarkably slim. Most Japanese Film scholars know that it is and the paltry participation is often noted as an aside by film historians. However, I wanted to know precisely what the conditions were that prohibited women from entering the film industry. (UNSURPRISING DISCLOSURE: patriarchy) In my chapter, I take a slightly ethnographic/biographical approach and describe the experiences of four women in the industry – Sakane Tazuko, Tanaka Kinuyo, Takano Etsuko, and Haneda Sumiko – to reveal the social and personal conditions that made it difficult (or really just impossible) for women to make films in Japan (until now). Additionally, or even more importantly, my analysis of their experiences focuses on how we scholars, critics, and spectators think and talk about women in the film industry. This is a twofold methodology that both attends to a historical record of social and personal conditions of hardship in addition to taking a long, hard look at how we (scholars, critics, spectators) are complicit in patriarchal projects of power and exclusion. Yeehaw.

For those interested in the works by these women, only Tanaka and Haneda have extant films. Tanaka’s Koibumi is available on amazon.co.jp and Haneda’s documentaries are probably only really available internationally on festival circuits or by special archive lending. Sorry. I’m sad, too.

Since I plan on revising the chapter into an article later in the year, I will refrain from posting any excerpts here, but I will update in the future if the article is accepted for publication. The powers that be already advised that I edit out a chunk of the section on the Bad Scholarship of female directors to date (particularly on Tanaka Kinuyo), so I might stick the excisions up here.

Although I am taking a break from the historical approach (ugh, I am SO not a historian or library archive enthusiast), I will have to return to history when I address how a diminishing female spectatorship attributed to the decline of the Japanese studio system and how rekindled attention to their interests brought the industry back (!!!!) in chapter two. It is a dicey and probably polemic argument, but one that I’m more than happy to muscle through if only to suggest critical lines of inquiry prompting us to question which Japanese films are on exhibitions dockets and why. As my undergraduate adviser said when I asked her why she started to move away from the canon in her film class, “Sometimes I just get tired of putting up with consuming misogyny.” To some extent, this is part of my argument in my recent article and it’s a position I’m not going to back down from any time soon. I like analyzing film criticism and scholarship almost as much as I like analyzing film. Maybe sometimes more.

In the meantime, I just started revisions of a piece of writing from last year on the topic that started this whole dissertation thing: Girl’s Style cinema and the F1-sou. Again, I’m a little precious about my research and work at this point (especially since more and more people are starting to take note of Japanese woman directors–both a great thing and a scary thing for me professionally), but I’ll at least clarify: Girl’s Style cinema is a genre/brand created by TSUTAYA (the mega-monolithic Japanese media chain) and the F1-sou stands for the largest moviegoing demographic in Japan–women between the ages 20 and 34. Yikes, I can say no more! (However, my IUC compatriots will remember the seeds of this project from my graduation presentation)

One last note: the panel I organized (and am chairing) “Female Filmmakers in Asia” is part of the AAS (Association for Asian Studies) annual conference next year in Honolulu, Hawaii. Look for us there! I will be presenting on the marketing paratexts surrounding the films of Nishikawa Miwa and Ogigami Naoko (my fav) and my fellow participants have excellent projects on women in Asian industries. Exciting!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010. 7:00 p.m. 20th floor

Japan, 2009. 106 minutes
Directed and produced by Tomoko Kana
Executive Producer Hirokazu Kore-eda

From their website:

Filmmaker Tomoko Kana spent three years traveling with renowned cinematographer Yukio Minami, capturing indelible images of the lives of these islanders, from daily rituals to elaborate festivals and customs that have been passed down through generations, as the threat to their beloved homelands accelerates. At the current rate the world’s oceans will rise a foot in this century, overcoming coastal defenses and creating “climate refugees” who must abandon their communities and move inland, away from the path of destruction.

Director Tomoko Kana worked at NHK as a news producer, and began directing award-winning independent documentaries with difficult themes, giving voice to the victims of Japan’s wartime aggression. Her 2001 documentary, “Mardiyem,” focused on Indonesian sex slaves of the Japanese Army during WWII. Her 2004 documentary “From the Land of Bitter Tears,” is a portrayal of Chinese who suffer from the chemical weapons disposed of by the Japanese military. Kana won the 2007 Sundance/ NHK International Filmmakers Award for her first narrative screenplay, “Two By the River,” which she is working on now.

The film comes out in Japanese theatres on July 10th.

It is annoying to feel like I am never in Tokyo at the right time.

The tribute highlighted both her work as “Japan’s Representative Actress” (so says the National Film Center) and her directorial work, with screenings of many of her early silent films and all six of the films she directed later in life.

Tanaka Kinuyo (1909-1977) had a rather extensive film career. She was involved in over 250 productions (both cinema and television dramas), with acting roles in at least 248 films. She debuted at age 14 in Genroku Onna (Nomura, 1924) and 79 films later starred in Japan’s first full length talkie, Madam to nyobo/ The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine (Gosho, 1931). She worked with Ozu, Naruse, Gosho, Shimazu, Kurosawa (Akira of course), and most famously with Mizoguchi, with whom she had a romantic relationship. Recognizable titles include Daigaku wa detakereda/ I Graduated, But… (Ozu, 1929), Munekata kyoudai/ The Munekata Sisters (Ozu, 1950), Saikaku ichidai onna/ The Life of Oharu (Mizoguchi, 1952), Ugetsu monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953), Sanshô dayû/ Legend of Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954), Akahige/ Red Beard (Kurosawa, 1965), and Sandakan hachibanshokan bohkyo/ Sandakan 8 (Kumai, 1974).

Tanaka also helped establish the National Film Center in Tokyo–Japan’s only public archive and cinema studies collection. Many of the objects on permanent display at the center were donated personally by Tanaka to the center and the NFC’s first three newsletters are solely dedicated to articles on Tanaka herself.

In 1985, in honor of her considerable legacy, her cousin, director Kobayashi Masaki, founded the Tanaka Kinuyo Prize for outstanding actresses in association with the Mainichi Film Concours.

In Mizoguchi's Joyû Sumako no koi / Love of the Actress Sumako (1941)

I am, however as one may suppose, more interested in Tanaka’s contributions as a film director, rather than as a film actress.

Most likely due to her romantic affair with Mizoguchi Kenji, Tanaka secured permission and funding to make six films during the course of her career.

• Koibumi / Love Letter (1953), nominated for Grand Prize of the Festival at Cannes
• Tsuki wa noborinu (1955), screenplay by Ozu
• Chibusa yo eien nare (1995)
• Ruten no ôhi / The Wandering Princess (1960)
• Onna bakari no yoru / Girls of the Night (1961)
• Ogin sama / Love Under the Crucifix (1962)

I am particularly dissappointed that I missed the screenings of Tanaka’s films because I have been trying to exhaust my resources (to no avail) for the opportunity ever since I started my research on female film directors two years ago. At the time, I was studying at the International University Center for Japanese Language in Yokohama and was fortunate enough to catch a special showing of Koibumi (a Mizoguichi-esque melodrama) at the Kawasaki City Museum (a nice screening resource for film students, btw). Unfortunately, the trouble with seeing film in a theatre is the inability to pause or rewind. My notes assure me that there is an absolutely fantastic shot of a couple parting at a train station, shot from within the train and from the subjectivity of the woman leaving, not the man left behind. Be that as it may, internet commerce has made my personal experience in old school film studies obsolete; Koibumi is now available on DVD at amazon.jp.

Tanaka directing Koibumi / Love Letter (1953).

There is some considerable misconception regarding Tanaka’s status as a female film director, both on the internet and in the media surrounding the 100 year tribute. That is, Tanaka is touted as Japan’s first female film director. This is categorically not true. As convenient as it may be to credit this notable personage with the distinction, the first female director –so far as I have been able to discover– is Sakane Tazuko (坂根田鶴子).

I’m not sure why precisely Tanaka is favored as the first female director. It may very well be to pay additional honor to her, but I’m rather sure that this is neither historically justifiable nor even just okay. One the one hand, this effectively erases the efforts made by Sakane or other women who came before her as remarkable women who somehow were able to have access to the necessary equipment and were able to learn the skills required to make film in a tightly controlled men’s field. On the other, not really opposing, hand, awarding Tanaka with the appellation is somewhat embarrassing: she made her first film in 1953. Compare that to France’s Alice Guy who made her first film in 1896.

The closest bit of justification I have seen is sketchy and nonsensical. Between 1930 and 1939, Sakane helped make 15 films (and between 1930 and 1949 she edited 8), but the operative word seems to be “helped.” Except for one film, Hatsusugata (1936), Sakane generally acted as an assistant director or a second director (often for Mizoguchi who, dare I say it, may have been something of a ladies’ man). The reasoning, then, is that because she only made one film as the primary director, she is not really the first female director. I call bunk. If longevity is really that important, let us say instead that Tanaka Kinuyo is the first female director in Japan to make more than one film.

Kinuyo won Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival for her role as a karayuki-san in Sandakan 8.

Sakane Tazuko (1904‐1975 ) was born in Kyoto. After a brief marriage to a doctor, she met Mizoguchi Kenji through an association of her father. Impressed by her earnest character, Mizoguchi made Sakane a film archivist and record keeper, perhaps something like a script girl. In order to fit into the male dominated world of cinema, Sakane cut her hair short and donned menswear. Under Mizoguchi’s guidance, she learned to edit and assist in direction, becoming a second director and eventually made her own picture Hatsusugata at the age of 32. I have never seen her film, but I would very much like to. The movie is, apparently, about the intricacies of relationships between men and women. What I wouldn’t give to see what a divorced woman struggling to make a name for herself in the film industry in 1936 has to say about male female relations. Sadly, because she was sorely harassed during the making of the film (for being a woman director) she returned to working with Mizoguchi as an assistant director. However, she went to Manchuria for three years during the war and made 10 films (only one of which still survives) documenting the conditions there. She returned back to Japan and failed, once again, to get a foothold in the industry as a director, just as Tanaka hit her stride as a major film star.

There is not a lot of other information readily available on Sakane, although there is apparently some archived at the Museum of Kyoto, which is far away from me (relatively). Since I’m not really a film historian, it’s not my project to document Sakane in great detail, but there’s a good article there for someone in Kyoto. Or maybe I should just splurge on a shinkansen ticket and a couple nights in a ryokan. This annoys me somewhat since two years ago I was actually at the Museum of Kyoto browsing their film exhibit, I just didn’t know what to look for. Fellow grad students: know before you go.

Also far away from my home in Tokyo is the Tanaka Kinuyo Museum down in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Another shinkansen, another ryokan? Well, perhaps the current dissertation, first. I’ve got plenty of ladies to work on up here in Tokyo.

Tanaka Kinuyo Bunkakan

The PIA Film Festival (PiaFF) is Japan’s domestic independent film festival and is a formative event for many of Japan’s new generation of filmmakers. I’ve been talking about going to this event FOR YEARS, but I’ve never been able to go because I’ve never been in Tokyo in July. June, yes. August, yes. July, never.

Anyhow, I finally have the opportunity to attend this event, which, by this point, feels a little like fulfilling a childhood dream (if my childhood includes five years ago). I might be a jaded old curmudgeon, but my hearts all a flutter when it comes to film festivals.

Moreover, the festival officially opens with the premiere of – drum roll – Ogigami’s Toilet! Kismet!
I’m off to buy my advance ticket today!

Ogigami’s film is, of course, not in the competition since she is an established director already. It would seem that the only female director in the running is Tazaki Megumi, a Waseda University graduate who won the Grand Prix prize at the Tokyo Student Film Festival for her student film Highland. Her PiaFF entry Anna to nikai no heya (~My Second Floor Room With Anna, アンナと二階の部屋) seems to be about malaise in a loveless relationship, which is not so promising, but we shall see!

I’m surprised that there is only one female film director in the running. In the past few years, PiaFF has been a stage for up and coming female directors, often featuring several films by women in the competition. This is, understandably, one of the reasons the festival is so exciting on a personal level. However, PiaFF will be a good foundation for comparison for (what I anticipate even more) next year’s Momo Matsuri (a domestic film festival specifically for female directors) in March.

On a side note, I was surprised to see that Wakamastu Koji’s film Caterpillar (キャタピラー) was selected as the Festival eve highlight (not to mention that the festival includes a retrospective of his exploitation pink films throughout the week). I guess it’s not *so* surprising considering the film picked up awards at the Berlin festival earlier this year.

Caterpillar is generating quite a bit of hub bub for it’s “shocking” depictions of war time depravity both on the front and back at home in Japan. Part of a revisionist movement to counter war period nostalgia that has heretofore glorified/strategically erased Japan’s war crimes in Asia during the Pacific War, the film features explicit scenes of torture and rape, mutilation and abject shame. However “stunning” the imagery may be, I’m going to give this a pass. I don’t really need to see yet another attempt to work out social and historical anxiety through the bodies of women. I have my own recent troubles of gendered troubles to work through in the here and now; I don’t need to be “entertained” (more accurately feel vicitmized) by watching historical reenactment of violence and objectification on the big screen. No thank you.

Toilet. Yes, Toilet. Or, トイレット, if that helps the medicine go down.

(Most of the trailer is in English, so go ahead a click!)

Ogigami is one of my favorite directors, so I heartily recommend that if you haven’t seen Kamome Shokudo, you do, and if you haven’t seen Megane, you do. And then when Toilet comes out, it is entirely likely that you should watch that, too.

I make this suggestion with the caveat that I am far more enamored of moving images than I am of moving plot, so if you’re looking for a melodrama of the human condition or a laugh out loud roller coaster through whatever, try elsewhere. This is not to say that there isn’t an emotive quality to her films (or ….plot…I guess), but it’s of a 分かる分かる感 (a feeling of understanding/you just get it) nature, as the Japanese reviewers of movies by female film directors are fond of saying these days.

One of these days I’ll get around to that ineffable 分かる分かる感, but I’m saving it for the dissertation.

For me, what is refreshing about an Ogigami picture is, quite frankly, the picture.

Megane, 2007

People in the movie industry (and I’m referring to Hollywood here) like to say they are in the business of making stories. It’s fairly common to hear producers, directors, actors etc. talk about how they are telling stories of real lives, storytelling through fiction, or justify the perpetuation of the blah blah humanistic element of their profession by claiming that there are still a lot of stories that just aren’t being told. For me, however, as a spectator, I’m not really sure that this is true. It might be how we tell the story of our movie going experiences, but I’m not convinced that, at least personally, the whole reason I’m sitting down to a movie is just to submit to a good yarn. In fact, it’s really really not. Costumes, sets, stunts, lighting, sweeping helicopter shots, bullet time, Nicole Kidman, explosions, yes. Story…not so much. While I realize that this is grad film studies 101, I just need to work through this and get it out of my system.

Kamome Shokudo, 2006

1) Although I’m more inclined to agree that there are a number of stories yet to be told, I think this is a dicey way of skirting the real issue which is that the movies have a history of priviledging only a certain kind of story featuring a certain kind of people. Really, this is less an issue of storytelling and more an issue of representation. After all, I believe what people mean by this (even if they don’t know it consciously!) is a recognition of the predominance of white, upper-middle class, heteronormative characters (often men) and settings in which the outcome of conflict complies to social norms and values while simultaneously affirming said social norms and values. They do not, say, mean a divergence from Aristotelian form or even a revision of the idea that within the film something dramatic happens and then conflict, unlike in most of our lives, is resolved. Really, what the issue of representation boils down to is a complacency regarding the same basic story (be it romance, tragedy, coming of age, a rise to success, etc) with a desire for different packaging.*

2) Storytelling in movies is formulaic. I’m sure this is a tired position for many, but that doesn’t make it any less true and it doesn’t mean it goes without saying. What I am not saying is that within story archetypes there isn’t to some degree a variety of ideas, but what I am saying is that the overarching structures that house those ideas are by and large repetitive. What I am also not saying is that the (perhaps inevitable) conformity to archetypes is in any way bad. In fact, to the contrary, I think that for most people it is quite comforting and satisfying, especially since the resolution of known conflict is a problem solving apparatus that is, to many I guess, soothing. Sticking it to the boss man feels awesome, sacrificing yourself to save humanity is the right thing to do, and getting married makes you less lonely. Problems, solved! Unless, of course, you *are* the boss man, you aren’t an eccentric millionaire or astronaut, and the state you live in won’t legally let you get married. Be that as it may, when a film is built around plot that does not conform to known story conventions – say the film is about an idea, an object, an emotion, or the passing of time – the film is no longer a “story” in the shared sense of movie spectatorship; it seems more like strange art (hooray for art!). With all that said, although our desire for the knowable story certainly should be investigated (and is), what I question here instead is the “oh, that was a good story” reaction many people express. The story is, actually, the same story you’ve seen time and time again, it’s just that it looks and then feels different. Rather, the reaction that a film’s story was “bad” probably has less to do with the story itself and has more to do with how the story was told. Or, in the case of a film, how it was shown.

Megane, 2007

3) My apologies to screenwriters (although you know you are really writing dialogue and not story so it’s almost unrelated), but story itself does not have much bearing on whether or not a film will be well received (unless the story grossly violates the known and safe story archetypes, Lars von Trier). I can’t tell if that’s an inflammatory statement or just blasé, but just in case I’ll cite two recent popular films. Avatar and Iron Man are not “great” stories. They aren’t even good stories. They are pretty lame. The former has been much attacked for its simultaneously noncommittal and outdated politics as well as it’s contrived and contradictory message, but in light of the current point, the story is just dumb and boring. It is the kind of film that you can fall asleep three times during, wake up, and still know what’s going on. I am speaking from personal experience. Iron Man, likewise, is so unoriginal it’s almost not even a story so much as a three-link chain reaction: cause, event, event. You could fast-forward through a large majority of the film except it would be a pity to lose so much Robert Downey Jr. screen time.
Having said so, that doesn’t mean that these movies aren’t enjoyable or even that they are bad, except that I’m going to commit to a stance that Avatar is a bad film. I’m going to go out on a very short limb here and state that to some small degree, what makes them enjoyable is in part due to their very boring, predictable, and lame stories. More to the point, they are stories that we know so well we can sleep through them. Avatar is Dances With Wolves in space (white guy encounters “native” peoples, falls in love with princess, has a change of heart, and becomes the new awesome leader). Iron Man is…an origin story of a comic book hero (some event triggers a transformation and he’ll have to fight a bad guy and save a girl). The familiarity of the plot, combined with the vapid two-dimensional character construction (hellooooo Twilight), even facilitates viewer projection and identification to the extent that as we fill in the empty spaces of the characters and stories by heart, we are actually reliving our own rehearsed stories. This is the idea of “relatable” that my students are constantly going on about and I’m constantly correcting their grammar on.

I’m going to argue that what’s different and why people still love these movies (narcissistic self-identification aside) is because the visuals are AMAZING.**

Yoshino's Barbershop, 2004

The simple point that I keep coming back to is that we watch movies. We watch them. And, while this is the most basic foundation of film theory, criticism, and the whole act of sitting through a film, it seems like it is all too often forgotten. There are far too many conversations, classroom or casual, that revolve around the qualities of a film’s plot. Analysis of representation (sexuality, gender, race, class) is important, yes. Analysis of film context (industry, stars, politics, etc) is important, yes. Analysis of spectatorship and the psychological, economical, personal, and emotional act of movie going is important, yes. Analysis of themes, motifs, and message is…interesting, ya okay whatev. Sometimes. But, seriously, if you are talking about a film and you aren’t talking about the imagery (mise en scene, composition, lighting, hues, camera movement and placement, etc) and how it’s put together (editing) as the core of your analytical approach, what is the point?

This isn’t formalism, folks. This is film analysis.

Honestly, there aren’t a lot of stories that movies tell us, but there’s a whole lot to look at.

However polemical this stance may or may not be, this is why I tell my students, with about 75% sincerity, that plot doesn’t matter. The remaining 25% readily acknowledges that sitting through a film without the semblance of a plot whatsoever is…taxing, to say the least.

Pedagogy aside, personally, I’m in love with moving images. That’s the art of a film, the ticket to the other worldly experience even if it’s supposed to be *our* world, and the actors are there not to tell me a story, but to make me believe that world really exists (and sometimes it helps if they are easy on the eyes while doing so). It doesn’t have to be realistic or fantastical, but if there’s really nothing interesting to look at or an interesting way of seeing, I’m afraid it’s not a very good movie.

2 Cool, 2010

So, for Ogigami Naoko’s works, I’m not going to pretend that they tell a good story. I’m not really sure that they even tell a story. I don’t really care. If you were to ask me what one of her films is “about” -and how facile a question in light of the current argument, as if we should prejudge films by what they are “about!” – any summary would just feel inadequate and silly.

Like all great filmmakers who make films worth watching, Ogigami creates an experience – a sense of place, a sense of emotion, a sense of psychology – through imagery, sprinkled with a bit of sound.

So go watch an Ogigami film. Go look at it and listen to it. Love it, experience it, interact with it, and don’t expect it to tell you some kind of story.

*For the record, I’m on board with the need for diversified representation, I’m just trying to make a particular point here.

**In fact, by all interpersonal accounts, this seems to be the saving grace of Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Although everyone I’ve talked to has admitted that the story is weak and uninteresting (some say even flawed and annoying), everyone is blown away by the visuals and the Burton style.

This (new, I know) blog is on hiatus while I transition from my current home in Eugene, OR to my new home in Tokyo, Japan. The coming weeks will be hectic for me as I wrap up teaching responsibilities, an article, a conference presentation, and pack up my house before moving overseas.

Look for me again in April when I start a two-year stint as a Monbusho research scholar in Tokyo!

One.
Kinema Junpo, Japan’s premiere film journal, named Nishikawa Miwa’s newest film Dear Doctor (ディア•ドクター, 2009) (trailer here) as the Top Film of 2009.

The chirashi (flier) for the film.

This means that Nishikawa Miwa is now the first female director ever to receive the Kinema Junpo Best Film prize. Moreover, as the Kinema Junpo selection is usually a fairly good prediction for the Japanese Academy Awards, in all likelihood Nishikawa will be the first woman to win the Japanese Academy Award for Best Film. This is a big deal and there ought to be more people than just me freaking out about it. If this doesn’t seem noteworthy to you, I challenge you to list, off the top of your head, ten male directors from the whole pool of cinema you are familiar with regardless of national origin.
Now, do the same for female directors.
Now, do the same for Japanese female directors.

Ah, so you see, it’s a big deal.

Out of curiosity, was one of them Yoko Ono?

Two.
Intellect Ltd. (an “independent academic publisher” partner to the University of Chicago Press) released their Japan volume of the Directory of World Cinema online for a limited-time free download. This is not the first guidebook on Japanese Cinema, and despite my own misgivings about the utility of these guidebooks to begin with, will probably not be the last. It is also not the first guidebook, in all of its 301 pages, to completely omit female directors and their works. Hopefully, on this count, it will be the last.

The Directory of World Cinema: Japan is edited by John Berra, lecturer in film studies and author of Declarations of Independence: American Cinema and the Partiality of Independent Production (2008), a book I rather enjoyed, in all honesty. In his defense, he is not a specialist in Japanese cinema. (Then again, why was he editing a volume on Japanese cinema?) Be that as it may, the contributors are well known scholars (or hardworking grad students) studying Japanese Film. Moreover, at the risk of shooting my own future academic goals in the face, I would like to point out that many of them are 1) well versed in Japanese language and culture, 2) have probably (hopefully) spent some time in Japan, and 3) have access to the Internet. Accessibility should not be a problem. What I am explicitly saying is that there is absolutely no reason these contributors should be unaware of the many talented female directors producing quality, popular, critically acclaimed cinema in Japan. Unless, of course, they just never bothered to pay attention to them. Unless, of course, despite festival wins, media campaigns, and box office numbers, this guidebook is largely structured around directors and films well known outside of Japan in a kind of regurgitation of canny figures, conference presentation/dissertation darlings, and dvd sales. Unless, of course, no one cares.

Okay, I’m being a little unprofessional and a lot bitter. While I am, here, singling out a very specific publication, I am only doing so because of the inauspicious timing of its release. If the article I recently submitted for publication is, actually, published, I’ll link it as a reference to assert that the process of selection (and omission) as seen in The Directory of World Cinema: Japan is by no means unique. In the interest of my own dissertation on female directors in Japan and personal paranoia about being “scooped” (which sometimes feels more like wishful thinking given the total lack of interest in ladies behind the camera), I won’t reveal my list of directors outright. But I will say, and you can quote me on this, that there are plenty of women making cinema in Japan. And those were just my favorites.

Originally, I had conceptualized this blog as a kind of “brain dump” for my thoughts on cinema in general. Well, ideas and brainstorms not related to my own work. Dissertation related thoughts I would secret away and covet Gollum-esque in the hallowed bits of my Microsoft Word ™ file (for Mac). However, these recent events have prompted a change of heart, or maybe even a dose of much needed realism. I, in fact, should be actively talking publicly about Japanese female film directors and their works, precisely because if I don’t do it, there are precious little people out there who will. And, in the spirit of being “realistic,” it may very well be that no one even reads this blog. Even if they do, it is highly unlikely that other scholars (grad students or otherwise) will somehow adopt the same theoretical or even contextual framework I am using/creating. So far as I am concerned right now, the more people talking about women in the industry of film, the better.