A Foreigner's Cinematic Dream of Japan by Iris Haukamp

Author:Iris Haukamp [Haukamp, Iris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature, Humorous, Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 1230001682748
Publisher: Blue Violet Press LLC
Published: 2017-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5.11 The old underscoring the new.

The lively tune accompanying the following sequence, almost one-minute-long, of tall modern buildings and more neon signs seen through the car window stops as they enter the lobby of their hotel, suggestively named ‘Hotel Europe’. The piece of music – characterized by a woman’s high-pitched, warbling voice, a chorus, a male singer using a traditional style, all accompanied by traditional instruments such as flutes or drums – seems to corroborate my previous statement about the old underscoring the young regarding the iconography of modern Tokyo. However, this particular song is a very interesting instance of varying notions of authenticity: it sounds strange and hence ‘traditional’ to foreign ears and likely to overseas audiences. The tune is not one of Yamada Kōsaku’s compositions,3 and the use of this specific piece, Tōkyō ondo, in a scene showcasing modern Tokyo is extremely fitting and, in that sense, ‘authentic’. In 1933, the Tōkyō ondo was a craze in Tokyo and beyond (Seidensticker 1990: 36–7). The genre is based on the bon odori, a group circle dance usually performed during the summer festivals in honour of the ancestors: a ‘kind of collective Japanese folk dance and song with indigenous rhythm emphasized by response refrain sung in chorus, ondo was reinvigorated with a new melody and lyrics in traditional style performed with basically Western orchestration which featured traditional drums and samisen’ (Mitsui 1997: 161). Sung by Kouta Katsutarō, ‘the first nationally famous folk-singing geisha’, and Mishima Issei, who was famed for his traditional vocal style, Tōkyō ondo is – crucially – a ‘new folk song’ (shin min’yō), explained by Hughes as ‘new pieces in a folksy mood’ (2008: 230; see also Hughes 2007: 293). In 1932, Nakayama Shinpei had composed its forerunner, Marunouchi ondo, with lyrics by Saijō Yaso, on commission to praise the modern attractions of Tokyo’s Marunouchi shopping district. When it was expanded in 1933 to encompass all of Tokyo, over 1.2. million copies were sold, a prime instance of modern mass culture and consumerism (Lancashire 2011: 63). Lyricist Saijō worked with Yamada on Fanck’s New Earth, which may explain the tune’s appearance in the film. For unaccustomed foreign ears the traditional elements overwhelm the modern, but the Japanese audiences certainly recognized the big hit of a few years earlier.

Nevertheless, in this collage-like sequence signifying Tokyo’s modernity, Fanck took a crucial visual misstep. In terms of an authentic, that is, a ‘truthful’ representation of Tokyo, it is unfortunate that Gerda’s first POV shot is of a large, blinking neon sign of the Hanshin Electric Railway (Hanshin Densha) linking Osaka and Kobe and the world’s first railway terminal department store Mikasaya, all located at Umeda Station in Osaka (Figure 5.12).

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