ciné-club “SHASHIN KYOKU" Essay Series Vo.1: Pauline à la plage

In March 1963, François Truffaut, director of the film, visited Japan with Alain Delon, Marie Laforêt, Albert Lamorisse, director, and Serge Bourguignon, director, at the French Film Festival organized by “Unifrance Film” in Tokyo. I was still a student at the time, but I was assigned to act as Truffaut's interpreter, and we spent a whole week together. It was the first time for me to speak French with a French person in earnest, so I was very clumsy in everything I said. One day, a journalist came to Truffaut for an interview. He was a fluent French-speaking journalist, and he was so impatient with my poor and slow interpretation that he finally started to ask Truffaut questions in French himself. However, Truffaut pretended not to understand a word of the journalist's French. Then he said, “What is he talking about?Let him speak in Japanese, and let you translate for me,” to me, who was standing by with a pitiful expression on my face. Still, when the journalist spoke proudly in French to Truffaut, he turned to me and said, “I don't know what he's trying to say, so you listen to him in Japanese." It was clear that Truffaut's mean-spirited attitude toward the journalist was nothing more than an attempt to save the poor interpreter, who had been unwillingly disrespected by the journalist and was now in a stupor, and I was moved by the expression of his inflected compassion. From that moment on, I decided to devote my life to the person and work of François Truffaut.

The above is a transcription of page 244 of “New edition of Dear My Friends, Dear Films <A Record of My Nouvelle Vague>” by Koichi Yamada, published by “Hanashi no Tokush” on December 10, 1985. The reason it is a “New edition” is that the additions were made in response to François Truffaut's death on October 21, 1984. Koichi Yamada lived in Paris from 1963 to 1967, and was a contributor to “Les Cahiers du cinéma” magazine. Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, and others who wrote film criticism for “Les Cahiers du cinéma” started the “Nouvelle Vague,” a movement to renew cinema. Mr. Yamada is a valuable witness who saw the “Nouvelle Vague” in the midst of the “Nouvelle Vague” movement. Most importantly, Mr. Yamada was a close friend of François Truffaut, and he translated Truffaut's books such as “Les Films de ma vie” and “Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock” and wrote a biography “Truffaut, A Cinematic Life”. Most of the Japanese books on Truffaut are written by him.

I used to run a ciné-club called “Shashin KyoKu / 映画侠区” in Osaka for several years starting in August 2006. This was a group that used VHS and DVDs, including pirated copies, and sometimes 16mm film prints, to watch films of any nationality, age, or genre that had never been released in Japan, or that had not been released for so long that no one had seen them. The reason for reading “Eiga / 映画 / Films” as “Shashin” is that “Eiga” has long been called “Katsudo Shashin / 活動写真 / Moving Pictures,” and because of this influence, people working in studios have long referred to “Eiga” itself as "Shashin". The name “KyoKu / 侠区” was adopted from the literary coterie magazine “Kyo-Ku / 凶区” in which novelist Mieko Kanai, who was well versed in movies, participated. In doing so, the character for “Kyo / 凶,” meaning bad luck, was changed to the character for “Kyo/侠,” meaning “chivalrous person/Yakuza ". This meant a place where “Yakuza” cinéphile who wanted to watch foreign films without Japanese subtitles could gather. Initially, screenings were held in a rental space operated by “PLANET studyo plus one,” a film archive in Nakazaki-cho, Osaka City. "PLANET studyo plus one" has a screening room on the 2nd floor of the building where ‘cafe Taiyo no To/Tower of the Sun’ is located on the 1st floor. And at that time, the 3rd floor was a space for rent. We used to watch movies in this place while drinking and eating. Most of the films were triple features, and after all the films were viewed, all the participants would split all the expenses. So there was no profit for me at all. After that, we had moved to an Izakaya/Japanese style pub near Hankyu Umeda Station for further banquet.

In June 2007, I was hoping that one of our esteemed film critics would see the comedy "Сердца четырёх" by a Soviet director named Konstantin Yudin, which I screened at the “Shashin KyoKu / 映画侠区”. The film, which I named “Yonin no Omowaku / 四人の思惑” because of its English title, “Four Hearts,” and the content of its story, was so similar to the American Romantic comedes or Screwball comedes of the 1930s, despite being a Soviet film. These were the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Preston Sturges, Leo McCarey, Frank Capra, and others. It was unusual to see a large Soviet city in the film, and it was an interesting one, completely destroying the image of Soviet cinema.

So, who should see it?

Of the three major film critics, Sadao Yamane is basically a specialist in Japanese cinema. Shigehiko Hasumi has retired as president of the University of Tokyo, so I don't know where to send the DVD. Then, what about Koichi Yamada...? At the time, Mr. Yamada was giving a lecture on History of Cinema at Gakushuin University.

Ah, all I have to do is send the DVDs to Gakushuin University...

That said, it is not so easy. There was a terrible rumor that If we do anything that might upset him, Mr. Yamada will send us a "Letter of Insulation / Zetsuen-Jyo / 絶縁状". Through their talk shows, Mr. Hasumi and Mr. Yamane had somewhat of an image of their human nature, but Mr. Yamada was a bit of a mystery to me because he never appeared in public. I was even surprised that he was lecturing at Gakushuin University in the first place. Later, I found out that he had taken the job as part of his rehabilitation after recovering from an illness.

I began the dreaded task of writing a letter to François Truffaut's close friend, Koichi Yamada, so as not to upset him. I wrote the letter politely, too politely, so as not to cause any misunderstanding. So first, I made a sentence in WORD, and then I wrote a clean draft with a fountain pen. After I finished that draft, everything but the “KI-Go / 季語,” I began to worry about what to do with the “KI-Go / 季語”? "KI-Go / 季語" are words or sentences that are written at the beginning of a relatively polite and courteous letter in Japan to evoke an image of the season. Thus, the reader sees the “KI-Go / 季語” first. I needed to be successful with "KI-Go / 季語". I did not want a response, but I wanted the reader to see “Yonin no Omowaku / 四人の思惑” anyway, so I had to make the “KI-Go / 季語” something special. After three days of thinking, I came up with the following “KI-Go / 季語” for June.

The season of hydrangeas has arrived, as seen in bloom at the beginning of “Pauline à la plage”.

"Pauline à la plage" is a 1983 film by Éric Rohmer, one of the filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague, and was the first Rohmer film to come to Japan.

Now, three months later, I received a letter from Mr. Yamada, which I was not expecting. I was excited, but I knew it might be a letter of anger. I opened the sealed envelope with trepidation, unfolded the folded letter paper, and began to read. The first sentence of the letter was as follows.

Three months have already passed since the hydrangea season, just like the one in the first part of “Pauline à la plage”. My apologies.

Thus, I learned a great deal about the History of Cinema, or rather “Cinema” itself, through my correspondence with Mr. Koichi Yamada. Antoine Doinel, the 12-year-old boy in François Truffaut's 1959 film “Les Quatre cents coups,” whose only pleasure was watching movies, was one of my few friends as a bullied child, along with James "Jim" Stark in "Rebel Without a Cause". I experienced the Miracle of exchanging a letter back and forth with the best friend of the director of that film. I am indeed a Lucky Man.

Next essay: Rebel Without a Cause

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©Mitsuhiro Toda@Screenwriter Group Aquariusera