Cinema Year Book of Japan 1938 (1938)

NUMBER OF FILMS PRODUCED IN JAPAN ^93^ ^935^ ^936^ © TALKIE SOUND SILENT TALKIE SOUND SILENT TALKIE SOUND SILENT TALKIE SOUND SILENT 61 40 298 133 133 178 300 121 137 365 50 159 scenario-writers and directors. It is a matter for congratulation, indeed, that art and business seem to have found each other more compatible during 1937. Contrary to generalizations previously accepted, there has been a marked tendency for artistically successful films to prove at the same time commercially successful. Not at such a great speed as one might wish ; nevertheless, as 1937 shows, the tendency is growing unmistakably and rapidly in the right direction. As notable exam • pies of the artistic harvest of 1937 we shall mention below a few productions. Their common forte is, in short, the persistent search for realism. hirst comes Sobo (Ihese People, Nikkatsu, released in February). It is adapted from a novel by a young author, latsuzo Ishikawa, scenario by Bunjin Kurata, and directed by Ilisatora Kumagai. In the course of its filming, the camera was actually carried into the midst of an asylum for emigrants to Brazil. The story is about a group of poverty-stricken peasants who are forced to leave their hemes for a distant foreign land. While depicting the mass life of an emigration asylum, the picture portrays individual types in a very vivid manner, making a strong appeal to the spectator by its unusual theme anti its sturdy realism. Similar observations may be made on Hadaka no A/achi (The Naked Street, Nikkatsu, released in May) and Ai-en Kyd ( 1 he Valley of Love and Sorrow, Shinko, released in July). The former is based on a play by Yutaka Mafune, young playwright, scenario by Yasutaro Yagi, and directed by Tcmu Uchida, the director of a 1936 hit, Jinsei Gekijo ( I he theatre of Life). It deals with the fate of the petite bourgeoisie who, pieyed upon by usurers, go the unescap. ble way of destitution and hopelessness. And their life is observed closely from strictly economic and materialistic angles. The latter is an adaptation of a story by a popular novelist, Matsutaro Kawaguchi. Consequently, in the plot and in its general effect, it is not free from unnatural sentimentalism and melodramatic expediency. Such shortcomings, however, are more than made up for by the skill of the scenario-writer, Yoshikata Ycda, and director, Kenjj Mizoguchi, who show no hesitancy in exposing true slices of hard and unbearable life while dealing, within the given frame of the story, with the character and psychology of the dramatis personae and the life of the lower classes. Another equally meritorious work of realism is Kagiri-naki Zenshin (Forward Forever, Nikkatsu, released in November), story by Yasujiro Ozu, scenario by Yasutaro Yagi, and directed by Tomu Uchida. It is a picture of the tragic life of the poor, needy, glo< my and hopeless, with which the original writer, Yasujiro Ozu, in his capacity as a Shochiku director, has long been familiar. One of the characters, an old salary man, goes insane from the mere anticipation and fear of losing his petty job on the ground of his old age. I he sufferings of the same sort of life are treated from a different point of view in Kaze 710 nakci no 16