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Filmmaking
and the Way to the Village
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1973
/ B&W / 16mm / 54 min/Japanese with English subtitles
Production Company: Ogawa Productions
Staff: Fukuda Katsuhiko (Director, Editing, Sound), Asanuma
Yukikazu (Adviser), Iizuka Toshio (Producer), Kawakami Koichi (Photography),
Nakano Chihiro (Assistant Editor)
Hara Tadashi (Camera Assistant )
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This is an unreleased film about Ogawa Productions by the late Fukuda
Katsuhiko. It was apparently made to introduce audiences to the collective
that had captured their imaginations, and to allow assistant director
Fukuda make a practice film. It offers a snapshot that freezes a pivotal
moment in Ogawa Production's history, just as they were finishing
Heta Village in 1973 and immediately before their departure
from Sanrizuka for Yamagata (although Fukuda himself would quit the
collective to remain in Sanrizuka and make his own documentaries).
This is an interesting period in the history of Ogawa Productions.
Their abandonment of the violent spectacle of the demonstrations for
the daily life of the doomed village was nearly complete. This new
approach to documentary filmmaking made Ogawa Productions stand out
in an era where much of the film world was debating the nature of
a "movement cinema." Ogawa Productions demonstrated a conceptualization
of cinema that aspired to collective decision-making and an unusual
degree of partnership with their subjects. As a document of this process,
this film raises fascinating questions about authorship in documentary
cinema, and the elaborate tensions between direction and collaboration.
[Abé Mark Nornes]
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COPYRIGHT:Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
Organizing Committee |
