Last Updated on Wednesday, 12 January 2011 15:42

International Symposium

"Transitions in Japanese screen practice in late 19th and early 20th century"

 

December 4, 2010

Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna 

 

This symposium examines the transition of the visual performing arts of the Japanese screen practice from the 19th century to the establishment of a standardized movie industry in the 1920s.

Most Japanese film histories, from Japanese and non-Japanese scholars alike, describe the development of Japanese cinema along a teleological model which emphasizes “natural” developments such as the progress from silent to sound film, from b&w to color, short to feature length film, cinema of attractions (Gunning) to film art, etc. This model suppresses discontinuities and gaps and smoothes out the inconsistencies that are innate to every history. This is especially evident with regard to the period before the institutionalization of cinema in industrial (standardization of production, distribution and exhibition of films) and spatial (movie theatres) terms. The view of “early cinema” as the “primitive” phase of an evolutionary development of film as an art form and the understanding of laterna magica, chrono-photography, praxinoscope and a multitude of other visual devises of the 19th century merely as “pre-cinematic” is typical for the a posteriori periodization inherent to the teleological model of film history. Such a reductionist approach results in an a-historical view that must be abandoned in favor of a multi-perspective approach that does not try to impose order on the chaos of early film, but that explores the plurality of the “screen practice” (Musser) from a “cinepanoptic” (Gaudreault) viewpoint.

In the case of Japan this is all the more necessary in order to understand the complex interaction of imported technology (magic lantern, cinematic device) and indigenous practices (the interweaving of visual and oral traditions, e.g. in utsushie and gentô, influences from Japanese literature and theatre etc.). They fused which resulted in a distinguished new form of entertainment that was markedly different from the forms that had developed in Europe or North America. Only the introduction of sound film led to a convergence of Japanese and Western film history.

Aim of the symposium is to explore from multiple perspectives the complex interaction between imported technology and indigenous traditions and its impact on Japanese screen practice and to contribute to a better understanding of Japan’s visual culture in late 19th and early 20th century. Furthermore the symposium seeks to enhance the exchange with Waseda University, the major center for pre-cinema and early cinema studies in Japan.

PROGRAM

10:00	Greeting address Sepp Linhart (Vienna University)
10:15	Kusahara Machiko (Waseda University): “Gentō is powerful – The impact of the “Western” magic lantern in late 19th and early 20th century Japan”
11:15	Magic Lantern demonstration
11:30	Usui Michiko (Waseda University): “Utsushi-e (Japanese magic lantern) as a medium for narration”
12:30	Lunch break
14:00	Roland Domenig (Vienna University): “The quest for legitimacy – between fairground shack and Grand Theatre. The arrival of Living Pictures in Japan”
15:00	Film: abridged version of Kaitō Samimaro (Koishi Eiichi, 1928) from the compilation Nippon – Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan (1932);  introduced by Mariann Lewinsky (University Zurich)
15:30	Coffee break
16:00	Komatsu Hiroshi (Waseda University): “In the mirror of the kyūgeki film ― A morph of the movie star Onoe Matsunosuke”
17:00	Ogawa Sawako (Waseda University): “The presence of rensageki (‘chain drama’) within Japanese early film and other performing arts”
18:00	Discussion

 

 

 

ABSTRACTS

 

Kusahara Machiko (Waseda University)

Gentō is powerful – The impact of the “Western” magic lantern in late 19th and early 20th century Japan

The magic lantern was re-introduced to Japan during the second half of the 19th century through various routes. While the authorities used it in school education as a serious “modern” medium, showmen soon figured out that it was, in fact, “Western utsushi-e”. Thus modern and educational contents mingled with ghost stories and funny pictures. However, gentō was destined to become a medium of propaganda. When the cinema became the main medium during the Russo-Japanese War, gentō did not disappear, as is often believed. It was instead used in local schools and family houses which the moving image would still take some time to reach.

Usui Michiko (Waseda University) 

Utsushi-e (Japanese magic lantern) as a medium for narration

My presentation will explore the characteristics of utsushi-e as a medium of narration or storytelling. Utsushi-e is a Japanese-style magic lantern invented in the early 19th century. It is said that a painter of dyed figures from the city of Edo, Miyakoya Toraku (Kameya Kumakichi), showed utsushi-e in a rakugo theatre at Kagurazaka in 1803 by modeling it on imported Western magic lanterns. The subjects were often taken from traditional katari-mono storytelling, as exemplified in such genres as religious ballads or war tales accompanied by biwa or shamisen, sekkyōbushi or jōruri dramatic narratives, and rakugo or kōdan verbal storytelling entertainment.  

 

Roland Domenig (University of Vienna) 

The quest for legitimacy – between fairground stall and Grand Theatre. The arrival of Living Pictures in Japan 

This paper examines the visual representations of the first screenings of moving pictures in Tōkyō and scrutinizes their accuracy. I will show that the pictures published in contemporary newspapers and magazines do not depict the reality of the first screenings of Vitascope and Cinématographe, but must rather be seen as signs of the struggle for legitimization of the new media film vis-à-vis the established forms of popular entertainment such as Kabuki theatre and highbrow cultural imports from the West. Concentrating on the Kinkikan in Kanda and the Denkikan in Asakusa I will also think about the specific characteristics of the early exhibition spaces of moving pictures in Tōkyō.  

 

Komatsu Hiroshi (Waseda University) 

In the mirror of the kyūgeki film – A morph of the movie star Onoe Matsunosuke

Onoe Matsunosuke (1892–1926) was a big star of the Japanese screen from 1909 to 1926. Though most of his films are no longer extant today, his acting style looks quite peculiar in the surviving prints. If the concept of the movie star of that period is not different from that of today, what makes it so peculiar? Even though most of his films do not survive now and the surviving fragments of his films are not often seen, his name and his iconography are well-known to Japanese people today. His presence became a myth of early Japanese cinema.
Onoe Matsunosuke’s name was linked to the kyūgeki film, an indigenous type of Japanese cinema before 1923. This type of cinema developed into the jidaigeki film after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, but the peculiarity of the movie star in the earlier type of cinema was diminished in the realistic representation for the new audience of Japanese cinema who required the kind of movie stars similar to William S. Hart, a star of the Western genre in American cinema.
Looking at a morph of the movie star will help us understand the essence of the kyūgeki film, a type of Japanese cinema in this very obscure period.

 

Ogawa Sawako (Waseda University) 

The presence of “chain drama” within Japanese early film and other performing arts 

Japanese early films have a strong connection with the traditional performing arts like kabuki, kōdan, naniwabushi, and also with the contemporary performing arts like shinpageki, shingeki, as well as popular songs. Japanese film inherited this tradition from the former and at the same time was linked with the latter in its style, acting and narrative. On the other hand, new forms appeared such as “chain drama”, or rensageki, which included film sequences filmed on location into the plays. It is mostly categorized as shinpa film, and became one of the peculiarities of Japanese silent film. This paper examines the relationship between shinpa film, contemporary performing arts and the main characteristics of chain drama using original scripts in the collection of the Theater Museum at Waseda University. After a brief overview of the history of chain drama I will analyze one of the most famous shinpa films, Poisoned Grass (Dokuso, 1917). I will take a look at the chain drama version and compare the various uses of its theatrical elements. With regard to popular song and its melodramatic effect on shinpa film, I will investigate Katyusha using the original script and sound source.