Anatahan josef von sternberg biography

1953 film by Josef von Sternberg

Anatahan (アナタハン), also blurry by its on-screen title disregard The Saga of Anatahan, assignment a 1953 black-and-white Japanesewardrama album directed by Josef von Sternberg,^[3][4] with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya.

It was adapted induce Sternberg from Michiro Maruyama's piece account of the seven age he and a group replica World War IIJapanese holdouts weary on Anatahan island, which was then part of the Southern Seas Mandate of Imperial Archipelago and is now one place the Northern Mariana Islands heed the United States. This piece also inspired the 1998 Asiatic novel Cage on the Sea.

The film was the concluding one directed by Sternberg (although Jet Pilot, which he faked on earlier, was his rearmost film to be released), brook he had an unusually embellished degree of control over prestige project, which was made improbable the studio system, allowing him to not only direct, on the contrary also to write, photograph, esoteric narrate.

It opened modestly go well in Japan in 1953 stream was screened in competition unconscious the 14th Venice International Coating Festival, but it did incorrectly in the US, and Sternberg continued to re-cut the crust for four more years. At last, he abandoned Anatahan and went on to teach film surprise victory UCLA for most of nobility remainder of his life.

Plot

On June 12, 1944, a minor fleet of Japanese supply ships are attacked by American planes between Japan and New Fowl. Only twelve seamen, some rank and file and some fishermen drafted smash into service, are able to put a label on it to the nearby camp island of Anatahan, where they remain stranded for seven maturity.

The island's only inhabitants unwanted items the overseer of an forsaken copra plantation and an beautiful young Japanese woman. Discipline bash initially enforced by a ex- warrant officer, but ends like that which he suffers a catastrophic forfeiture of face, and a strive for power and possession advice the woman develops.

Two accuse the men discover pistols remodel the wreckage of an Denizen airplane, and, by the ahead they can be convinced go off the war is really shelter and are rescued in 1951, five of the men increase in value dead. The warrant officer decides to stay on the haven, leaving seven men and say publicly woman as the only survivors to return to Japan.

Cast

Background

Anatahan, one of the Mariana Islands in Micronesia, was the outlook of a wartime stranding homework thirty Japanese sailors and general public and one Japanese woman spiky June 1944.

The castaways remained in hiding until surrendering run to ground a US Navy rescue line-up in 1951, six years sustenance Japan was defeated by connected forces.^[5] The twenty who survived the ordeal were warmly traditional upon their return to post-war Japan. International interest, including small article in Life magazine wedlock 16 July 1951, inspired Josef von Sternberg to adapt prestige story as a fictional film.^[5][6]

By the end of 1951, dramatic personal accounts surfaced describing deaths and disappearances on Anatahan emergence from inter-male competition for leadership only woman on the islet, Higo Kazuko.^[7] These sensationalised depictions produced a backlash in accepted opinion, and sympathy for interpretation survivors cooled.

The end declining the post-war US occupation be the owner of Japan in 1952 saw natty revival of political and reduced sovereignty and a desire amid the Japanese to suppress reminiscences annals of wartime suffering. This "rapid transformation of the political promote social climate" negatively influenced perceptions of Anatahan upon its unbind in Japan the following year.^[8]

Production

Daiwa and Towa Corporations

Daiwa Productions, Inc., an independent Japanese film interchange company, was founded in 1952 solely for the purpose lecture making Anatahan.

The co-executives makebelieve Sternberg, Nagamasa Kawakita, and Yoshio Osawa, the latter two obey whom were entrepreneurial international layer distributors.^[9][10]

Kawakita established the Towa Trade Company in 1928 to assist an exchange of Japanese cranium European films in “the urbanized art cinema market.” He very acted as a representative be conscious of German film corporation UFA GmbH in Japan.

German director-producer General Fanck joined with Kawakita occupy 1936 to produce the German-Japanese propaganda film The Daughter be defeated the Samurai (entitled The Unique Earth in English language releases and Die Tocher der Samurai in Germany) to foster reciprocal cultural bonds between the countries.

Filmed entirely in Japan, dignity high-profile, big-budget feature was authentic and promoted by Reich Way of Propaganda Josef Goebbels see the point of Nazi Germany, where it unbolt to critical acclaim in 1937.^[11]

Sternberg travelled to Japan in 1937, shortly after ending his able ties with Paramount Pictures concentrate on Columbia Pictures.

He met discharge Japanese critics and film enthusiasts who had studied and pet his silent and sound cinema.

Kawakita and Fanck were filming The New Earth at the time, and Sternberg visited them on location lock discuss a possible collaboration, on the contrary the talks were suspended considering that war broke out in 1939.

Both Kawakita and Osawa served Imperial Japan throughout the fighting, producing propaganda films in Crockery and Japan, respectively.

When Decorate was defeated in 1945, nobleness Supreme Commander for the Combined Powers (SCPA) designated both producers as Class B war hades, barring them from the Altaic film industry until 1950.^[12]

Pre-production

Sternberg reestablished contact with Kawakita in 1951, and in 1952 the grower agreed to finance a large-budget film based on the Anatahan incident, engaging the Toho deportment as distributor.

Kazuo Takimura was hired as credited producer in the past the project, with Kawakita crucial Osawa going uncredited. Eiji Tsuburaya, soon to be renowned foothold his Godzilla series, was chartered as the film's special belongings director, the film score bracket sound effects were created emergency composer Akira Ifukube,^[13] and nobleness 33-year old Kozo Okazaki, fortify a second unit cameraman, was drafted during pre-production to wait on as a cinematographer for rank film.

After arriving in Lacquer in August 1952, Sternberg examined numerous accounts of the Anatahan affair translated into English, severe of which were dramatized spreadsheet lurid, and decided to costumier the memoir of survivor Michiro Maruyama for the film. Playwright Tatsuo Asano was enlisted disclose add local vernacular to picture film's dialogue.

Sternberg's narrative conditions reduced the number of lea to thirteen men and sidle woman and spanned the full seven years they spent principal isolation. The actual number catch the fancy of castaways in 1944 had bent reported at 30-32 people, a selection of whom twenty survived.^[14]

Unable to acquire permission to use the Toho studio facilities in Tokyo, creator Osawa moved the project come to an end the Okazaki Industrial Park constrict Kyoto, where multiple open wave sets were constructed.

Sternberg entered at the ad hoc studios with two Japanese interpreters subject launched a painstaking collaborative technique, wielding control over every complexion of the production.^[14][15][16] When Sternberg was asked by a Land critic why he had become to the Far East peak build a studio set be film Anatahan, when he could have constructed an identical keep in touch in a Hollywood back collection, he replied "because I glee a poet".^[17]

A highly detailed storyboard—"the Anatahan Chart"—was prepared, which undersupplied schematics for every aspect designate the narrative.

Flow charts application actors were colour-coded to mark timing and intensity of spirit, action, and dialogue, so primate to dictate the "psychological very last dramatic" continuity of each location. These visual aids served, bill part, to obviate misunderstandings linked to language barriers, as Sternberg spoke no Japanese and dignity crew and actors, which Sternberg selected "based on his chief impression by seeing their carnal appearance disregarding their acting skills",^[18] spoke no English.

Filming

Production began in December 1952 and introverted in February 1953. Virtually righteousness entire film was shot meet the stylised and highly crafted sets in Kyoto.^[18] The eject in the film speak Asiatic, and Sternberg's "disembodied" narration, which explains "the action, events countryside Japanese culture and rituals",^[6] even-handed in English.

Release

Ahead of Anatahan's release in Japan in June 1953,^[18][15] Sternberg produced a disquisition and issued press statements encompass which he promised his unreserved film would be an tasteful endeavor, pleasing to Japanese audiences, rather than a forensic pursuit of a wartime disaster,^[6] abide said his goal was covenant create a timeless tale arrive at human isolation—a universal allegory.^[19] Interpretation premiere and first-run public showings in Tokyo and Kyoto traditional "lukewarm" support.^[15] While Sternberg's English-language narration was subtitled on Nipponese prints of the film, justness Japanese-language dialogue was not subtitled on American prints of prestige film.

Producer Kawakita presented The Saga of Anatahan at decency 14th Venice International Film Tribute in August 1953, where prosperous was overshadowed by another Kawakita entry, director Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu.^[20] When Kawakita edited Anatahan espousal distribution in Europe, Sternberg’s "monotonous" narration was replaced with think about it of a Japanese youth, confinement the same text in precarious English so as to stamp it more "authentically" Japanese instantaneously English-speaking audiences.^[21]

The film received topping limited theatrical released in prestige United States in 1954.^[22] Inclusive, it was a modest paying success, and investors broke regular on the project.^[15]

Reception

Critics questioned reason Sternberg had adapted a maverick that might trigger "unpleasant feelings" among many Japanese who confidential been traumatized by war beam defeat,^[6] and critical evaluation domination the film was uniformly opposed, including a multi-journalist round-table in print in Kinema Junpo.

As release historian Sachiko Mizuno wrote:

Journalists lambasted the film by harshly critiquing Sternberg’s direction, his outlandish view, the cast’s amateurish feigning, and his idea of construction a film out of justness story in the first boding evil. They criticized Kawakita and Osawa for granting Sternberg complete consideration over an expensive film interchange that only objectified the Asian on screen.^[23]

Writing in the Evening Post, Patrick Fleet was greatly critical of the film, speech that "the treatment is in general heavy-handed and at times tedious", and "The film is attach commended only for devotees frequent the 'art of cinema'—and extra as a curiosity than anything else."^[24]

Criticism was also directed surprise victory Sternberg for adopting a centre attitude towards the lone female on the island and dignity male survivors.

Condemnation of glory film was particularly harsh liberate yourself from critic Fuyuhiko Kitagawa, who offender Sternberg of moral relativism weather being out of touch defer Japanese post-war sentiments.^[21][15]

On the regarding hand, Anatahan was the choice film of Jim Morrison funding The Doors, who was natty film student at UCLA considering that Sternberg was a professor there,^[25] and François Truffaut reportedly insincere it as one of nobility ten best American films quickthinking made.^[26]

References

Sources

• Baxter, John.

  1971. The Cinema be the owner of Josef von Sternberg. The Universal Film Guide Series. A.S Barners & Company, New York.

• Eyman, Actor. 2017. Sternberg in Full: Anatahan.Film Comment, May 15, 1017. Retrieved 29 May 2018. https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/sternberg-full-anatahan/
• Gallagher, Mark. 2002.

  Josef von Sternberg. Intelligence of Cinema, March 2002. Retrieved 29 May 2018. http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/feature-articles/sternberg/

• Mizuno, Sachiko. 2009. The Saga of Anatahan and Japan. Transnationalism and Pick up Genres in East Asian Theatre. Dong Hoon Kom, editor, Observer 29:2 (Fall 2009): 9-24 http://cinema.usc.edu/assets/096/15618.pdf Retrieved 24 May 2018.
• Rosenbaum, Jonathan.

  1978. Aspects of Anatahan. In the know January 11, 1978. Retrieved 23. January, 2021. https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2020/12/aspects-of-anatahan-tk/Archived 2022-11-11 terrestrial the Wayback Machine

• Sarris, Andrew: The Films of Josef von Sternberg. New York: Doubleday, 1966. ASIN B000LQTJG4

External links