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a certain vague, spiritual shading, or an indication of a spiritual course. The characters of the film world of Japan, instead of being a species of animal life, are somewhat similar to a species of plant life. Through a magic alchemy compounded of a very delicate lyri¬ cal sense and taste with respect to Nature, the whole range of the animal and human existence has been transformed into a realm of plants. The present state of the Japanese cinema thus consists in the creation of a lyrical world in which everything that smacks of the human being has been obliterated.
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The contemporary arts of Japan are for the most part closely linked with those of Europe and America. But among these the Japanese cinema — together with the Sfimgeki (New Theatre school) — though it may show outward signs of a close connection, is nevertheless far apart in so far as substance is concerned. In the field of music and painting, a great many Europeans were engaged by our government during the Meiji era to teach these arts to the people of this country, while a countless number of our own painters and musicians have studied in Europe and America. In literature too we have maintained a direct and intimate relationship with the European and American world of letters, and our litterateurs have been able to acquaint themselves with the works of Western authors even though they remained at home. But no actor or stage director of the modern play of the West has ever been engaged here; nor has there been any instance wherein our own actors and technical stage directors have gone abroad to acquire a first-hand knowledge of such plays in a first-class theatre and returned with some basic techniques along this line. The movement of the modern play in Japan has thus been developed entirely under the leadership of men of letters, or with the aid of knowledge derived from literature.
When Ibsen’s plays were first presented in Japan, it was our literary scholars who did the coaching and a troupe of established Kabuki actors that performed them. Though the dramas that were translated into Japanese were obviously modern plays of western Europe, the actual nature of the performance itself — particularly the actor’s expressions, articulation, and histrionics, — bore hardly any marks of similarity to, was in fact dif¬ ferent from, that of western Europe. This condition still prevails today. No first-rate actor of Europe or America has yet appeared on the Japanese stage. Nor for that matter has the generality of Japanese theatre-goers witnessed a real Western play, especially the realistic technique of the modern play.
These historical circumstances have also affected the Japanese cinema of today. Our film directors and actors have, of course, seen American and European pictures here in Japan and been influenced by them. They have even employed certain effects that outwardly appear to be similar to those of foreign films. Nevertheless, the tradition
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