Copyright

by

Yunfei Shang

2018

The Thesis Committee for Yunfei Shang

Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Thesis:

Japanese Wartime Film Production, Intra-Imperial Competition and

Political Resistance:

A Case Study of My Nightingale (dir. Shimazu Yasujirō, 1943)

APPROVED BY

SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Kirsten Cather Fischer, Supervisor

Shanti Kumar

Japanese Wartime Film Production, Intra-Imperial Competition and

Political Resistance:

A Case Study of My Nightingale (dir. Shimazu Yasujirō, 1943)

by

Yunfei Shang

Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin

August 2018 Abstract

Japanese Wartime Film Production, Intra-Imperial Competition and

Political Resistance:

A Case Study of My Nightingale (dir. Shimazu Yasujirō, 1943)

Yunfei Shang, M.A.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2018

Supervisor: Kirsten Cather Fischer

Abstract: A collaborative film made in 1943 by the Japanese studio Tōhō and the Manchukuo

Film Association, My Nightingale (Watashino Uguisu) seems to be a conventional nationalist propaganda film at first glance. The story between a Russian father and a Japanese daughter caters to the military slogan of ethnic harmonies in the puppet state Manchukuo, and the exotic landscape of Harbin also potentially attracts film-goers from the metropole. However, a careful investigation of its production background and the historical context under which it was situated, in addition to a close textual reading, demonstrates that the film is not only the result of tense intra-imperial competition among Manchukuo, Shanghai and the metropole, but even politically suspect in its messaging. The film was banned in both Japan and Manchukuo except a brief screening in

Shanghai in 1944, only to be rediscovered in 1984. As a coproduction that was made at the height of the Pacific War, its melancholy undertone and tragic ending not only made the censors vigilant but also rang the death knell of the Japanese empire and its holy imperial projects around East

Asia.

iv Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1 National Film Project and The Great East Asian Film Project --- the Dilemma between Cosmopolitanism and Japanese-ness ...... 3

Chapter 2 National Film Project and Criticism of Propaganda/National Policy Films Made by Former Shōshimin Film Directors ...... 11

Chapter 3 The Continental Film Alliance and Intra-Imperial Competition ...... 23

The Continental Film Alliance ...... 24

Harbin vs. Shanghai----The Intra-Imperial Competition ...... 30

Chapter 4 Textual Analysis: Opera and Propaganda Theme Song in My Nightingale---- Nostalgia, Ethnicity and Political Resistance ...... 36

Opera Performances: A Nostalgic Escape and Suspicious Motif ...... 37

Cinema Haunted by Opera ...... 40

Singing as Ethnic Marker ...... 45

Phantasmagoria and Mutual Implication: Subverting Delusion ...... 48

Afterword ...... 55

Bibliography ...... 57

v Introduction

“Film is the ammunition of the gun called war” (senso wa jū de ari, eiga wa sono tanmaru de aru) was a popular saying during Japan’s fifteen years’ war, beginning in 1931 with the

Manchurian Incident and ending in 1945 with WWII. Film was crucially important to war mobilization and propaganda. The Japanese imperialists, who believed the affective power of images could help transcend boundaries of ethnicity, language and ideologies and promulgate military spirit and war fever, thus spared no effort to construct an imperial film industry. From

1931 to 1945, this industry spread across the occupied areas including the formal colonies of Korea,

Taiwan and South East Asia, as well as mainland China. The conventional attitude nowadays toward those films made during wartime was that they were purely political products. They utilized coercive ideas to brainwash people and were deprived of any artistic or ideological value. In this way, wartime films tend to be ignored and even deliberately erased from film history and film studies. However, even if those propaganda films do not seem artistic or thoughtful enough from a contemporary standard, their reception and criticism at the time they were released are thought- provoking, particularly if we take into consideration the context of the historical and production conditions that made them possible.

My Nightingale (Watashino Uguisu) directed by Shimazu Yasujirō started shooting in 1943 at the peak of Pacific War when all kinds of resources were in shortage, and finished in 1944 with a Japanese defeat looming ahead. As a coproduction between Japanese Tōhō and Manchukuo Film

Association, it was made under Japanese military supervision and appears at first glance to be in accordance with the imperial spirit. However, in this paper, through an examination of a number of aspects, from its production context to its film style, I argue that the realization of the film reflects both rivalry and reconciliation among the various constituents involved in the Japanese

1 imperial film industry. In the first part, I introduce two overarching imperial film projects assisting

Japanese military propaganda under which My Nightingale was produced, namely the Great East

Asia Film Project (Daitōa Eiga) and the National Film (Kokumin Eiga) Project. The predominantly negative reviews towards the resulting national policy films made under the guidance of these two projects reflect the inherent dilemma of Japanese imperial film production, a phenomenon I will delve into in the second chapter. In the third part, in order to uncover the intra-imperial competition within the film enterprise, I introduce a film alliance established in 1942 on the occupied China continent, namely the Continental Film Alliance (Tairiku Eiga Renmei), which was established a year before My Nightingale was conceptualized. Although the Alliance was originally convened in order to compete with its metropole counterparts for film market and resources, the internal rivalry between its members resulted in its failure to a cohesive or influential organization. My

Nightingale was only made possible by taking advantage of the complicated situation within the

Alliance. The fourth and final part offers a close analysis of the film text with a focus on its musical elements, namely the opera performances and military theme song and interlude within the film. I argue that it was those elements that made My Nightingale an ideologically skeptical film that is representative of the struggle and resistance of many frustrated artists and activists during wartime.

2 Chapter 1 National Film Project and The Great East Asian Film Project --- the Dilemma between Cosmopolitanism and Japanese-ness

My Nightingale could fit into different wartime film categories stipulated by the military.

First, it is a “national policy film,” or Kokusaku Eiga. National policy film is an overarching terminology used during the fifteen years’ war from 1931 to 1945 to refer to any film made under military guidance that aimed at promulgating war spirit and mobilizing the masses during wartime.

It was often used interchangeably with “propaganda film”. My Nightingale is also a “Continental

Film,” or Tairiku Eiga, namely film situated on the occupied Chinese continent as an exotic colonial landscape that depicts the close relationship between Chinese and Japanese people. In addition, it is a coproduction between Japanese Tōhō and Manchukuo Film Association (Man’ei).

This made it a “Collaboration Film”, or Teikei Eiga, which refers to film made by a Japanese controlled colonial film company under the supervision and guidance of a film company from the metropole. It is this cooperative nature that made My Nightingale’s identity more complicated: on the one hand, from the perspective of Man’ei, it was supposed to attract and educate the local population of Manchukuo in line with the Great East Asian Film Project advocated by the military; while on the other hand, from the perspective of Japanese Tōhō, it needed to fulfill its role as a

National Film or Kokumin Eiga. Theoretically, as a part of the larger imperial film enterprise during wartime, the Great East Asian Film Project and the National Film Project should be mutually complementary and together in service for war mobilization and propaganda. Practically, however, the two film projects were actually in direct opposition in terms of style, expression and political orientation. In this chapter, through a study of these two imperial film projects, I explore the irreconcilable relationship between Japanese domestic filmmaking and overseas imperial film

3 production to illustrate the awkward and paradoxical position in which My Nightingale was situated.

Film production in domestic Japan during wartime had to follow the criteria of the so- called “National Film”, or Kokumin Eiga, which was broadly discussed and used by filmmakers, critics and historians after the adoption of 1939 Japanese Film Law. According to Article One of the 1939 Film Law: “the goal of this law is to achieve qualitative advance of films so that they are beneficial to the national culture, and to improve the integrity of film industry.”1 Films which basically fit this criterion are generally called “National Films.” Although debates around the definition and characteristics of “National Film” continued ever since then and never reached a consensus, there was a basic agreement underling the discussion, that is National Films are those films made domestically in Japan, in Japanese language, and for Japanese people who share similar understanding of Japanese culture and values.

After the breakout of the Pacific War, a new category of filmmaking was invented and promulgated by the military, that is the so-called “Great East Asian Film”, which directly echoes the political discourse of the “Great East Asian War” (Daitōa Sensō) and the “Great East Asian

Co-Prosperity Sphere” (Daitōa Kyōeiken). Specifically, its creation was out of the urgent need of cultural construction and education of the local population in Southeast Asian countries and oceanic islands after their annexation into the Japanese empire directly after Pearl Harbor.2 In other words, the targeted audience of the Great East Asian Film project is people from the newly colonized area, and the mission of the project is to realize the imperial ambition of “Asia as one”

1 Peter High, The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Year’s War, 1931-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, p.73. 2 Hana Washitani, “Ahen Sensō to Eigasen: Daitōa Kyōeiken no Horiwādo,” Tsukuba Daigaku Bunka Hihyō Kenkyūkai, 2002, p. 23.

4 (Ajia wa Hitotsu) through film. Just as the political enemy of the Co-Prosperity Sphere were the

Western powers lead by America and Great Britain, the direct enemy of the Great East Asian Film was Western film, particularly Hollywood film, which at the time not only became a global phenomenon but also exerted huge influence on the style, techniques and narrative of the Japanese film industry. In this way, the film enterprise of the Japanese empire during wartime was divided into two separate parts: domestically, it was under the guidance of the National Film project; overseas, the Great East Asia Film project was targeted at colonized areas around East Asia and

South East Asia.

It has to be clarified that National Film, National Policy Film and the Great East Asia Film are not film genres but film categories instilled with respective political agendas. Although targeted at different audiences, National Film and the Great East Asian Film had a shared enemy, that is Hollywood. In order to better understand the National Film project and its relationship with the Great East Asian Film project, it is necessary to tease out the interaction between Japanese film and Hollywood during prewar period. The shared enemy of Hollywood does not necessarily make the two projects mutually complementary. To the contrary, National Filmmaking’s demand for so- called “national characteristics” (kokumin seikaku) was counterbalanced and compromised by the demand of the Great East Asian Film to disseminate that “Japanese-ness” to its colonies of East and Southeast Asia.

As examined by film historian Hana Washitani, the nationality of film was not attached to filmmaking when it was first invented in the late nineteenth century, but was only emphasized later, especially after World War I when Hollywood replaced European films (especially French and Italian films) and gained total hegemony in the global film market. When film first arrived in

Japan, it was originally called “moving pictures”, or katsudō shashin which were generally

5 associated with “Western Modernity.”3 Washitani also points out that even when it comes to the mid-1910s, what was important was still the name of the film company rather than the nationality attached to the film being imported.4 However, in the March 1915 issue of the magazine, a dual system of “domestic film” (naichisei eiga) and “foreign film” (gaigokusei eiga) was introduced, and the nationality of the film had to be clearly demonstrated ever since then. According to

Washitani, in 1912, Japanese educationist Kumada Kichiji wrote a petition “Concerning the

Control of Publications” to the Ministry of Education at the time that demonstrated the danger concerning the predominant popularity of American films among the Japanese audiences. In other words, as early as in the mid-1910s, the awareness of and request for producing film that were in contrast to American films and uniquely Japanese had already emerged. Kumada claimed,

What is lacked in American film, is that through the screen, there’s nothing serious

about the human spirit. American film is full of physical actions, but insufficient in

presenting the delicacy of human heart. A good example is the so-called cowboy

films, which the Americans are proud of. Galloping through the African savannah,

chasing horse and feeding cows, there’s nothing about “the inside.” This is outdated.

This is no art.5

However, Washitani claims, such emphasis on the national characters of the film was only a minority within the field of cinema in the 1910s. At that time, the central struggle in the field was centered on defining “what is film,” compared to other mediums, especially traditional Japanese theater, represented by the so-called Pure Cinema Movement, or Jun’eigageki Undō. The question was not what is “Japanese” film. It was through the Pure Cinema Movement that Western film,

3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 20. 5 Ibid. 21.

6 especially Hollywood, was promulgated and consecrated in Japan, in terms of film technique, narrative and industrial systems. Then, after a process of “position-taking” in the early 1910s, western style cinema became the mainstream style in the Japanese field of film production during the teens and twenties. According to Aaron Gerow, at that time, Japanese film was generally despised by film critics and officials who equated “Japanese film” with “low quality film” and

“non-film,” and constantly called for reformation.6 It was not until the 1930s when war was looming and tension with the West intensified that the ideas in Kumada Kichiji’s 1912 petition was brought up again and reaffirmed as the guiding principle for the imperial film enterprise.

Expounding on the notion of National Film in 1942, wartime film critic and Ka’ei official Hazumi

Tsuneo echoed this early call for a uniquely Japanese film that could compete with Hollywood:

If we recognize that the spirit of American film is “Motion,” then in comparison,

the spirit of Japanese film is “Quiescence.” It is out of the spirit of quiescence that

masterpieces of Ozu Yasujirō, Mizoguchi Kenji, Tomu Uchida and Tomotaka

Tasaka emerged…. This spirit of quiescence is not necessarily a tradition from

Japanese traditional theater. That theatrical tradition already diminished, and the

American style of entertainment and superficiality, as well as their exaggerated

performance have contaminated our Japanese film. It is through contrasting with

the American that we reflect on ourselves, and we finally realize the fundamental

characteristics of “being Japanese.” In this process, the quiescent tempo of Japan

emerges.7

6 Aaron Gerow, “Tatakau kankyaku: Daitōa Kyōeiken no Nihon eiga to juyō no monadi,” Gendai Shisō, vol.30.9 (2002), pp. 139-149. 7 Hazumi Tsuneo, Eiga no Tentō, Aoyama Shōin, 1942, p. 32.

7 Here, even during wartime Hazumi not only gave credit to American style’s influence on Japanese film, but also admitted the constructed nature of Japanese-ness. This is indisputably true given that film originally is a foreign invention, and it is through imitating the West via the Pure Cinema

Movement that Japanese film finally cast off the influence of traditional Japanese theatre and established itself as something “pure” in its own term. In this way, the necessity of making “pure

Japanese cinema,” namely the so-called National Film project, under the prewar context of 1930s, seems no more than a political call compared to a spontaneous position-taking naturally happened within the cinema field.8

By the 1930s, the established industrial norm, popularity and cultivated taste through Pure

Cinema Movement were so entrenched in the industry as well as its audiences, that even after the total prohibition of American film after Pearl Harbor in December 7th 1941, the specter of

Hollywood continued to haunt the Japanese film industry. Throughout the war, film critics and policy makers constantly referred to their enemy for inspiration and guidance. A case in point is the phenomenon of wartime film symposiums surrounding topics such as “the construction of

Great East Asia Film” or “Japanese film entering the Co-Prosperity Sphere,” For example, in a special column for Eiga Junpō in April 1942, Iwao Mori, head of Tōhō during wartime said:

[We have] to make the presentations in Japanese film more straightforward, use

clear style, especially techniques in American film, which are understandable to

anyone. We have to manage to bring out the unsophisticated glamor of moving

8 Then it becomes understandable why it was not until the end of the war when Japan finally extracted itself from the imperial project that Japanese film began winning awards in international festivals and gaining attention from film critics, establishing itself on the global stage with distinctive national characteristics.

8 pictures…. [T]he most urgent issue right now is that we master the representative

techniques of the Americans.9

The incompatibility of the claims made by Hazumi, who calls for Japanese quiescence, and Iwao, who calls for American understandability, is clear. It is not hard to recognize the innate paradox and underlying self-destructive power of Japanese imperialism (as well as nationalism). On the one hand, domestically it was eager to show the idiosyncratic national identity and its distinctiveness towards its national believers, while outside the metropole, in order to assimilate its colonies and gain recognition from its western enemies, it had to show national idiosyncrasy in a cosmopolitan and universal way so that the messages could be readily understood and consumed.

After studying Manshū audience’s reception towards Japanese national policy film, Aaron Gerow argues that what really made the imperial Japanese film industry paranoid was the reception of the colonized, in which the Japanese had to constantly refer to their response and accordingly adjust their distribution strategy and filming methods. 10 In this way, national characteristics were compromised by the ambition of “selling abroad.” Therefore, although the National Film project and the Great East Asian Film project appeared mutually complementary and to constitute a perfect imperial scheme of war propagation through film, there actually were deep contradictions and incompatibilities between them. On the one hand, the Japanese film industry was eager to break away from American influence on its filmmaking, while on the other hand, the cosmopolitanism and universalism represented by American Hollywood always came back as a reference point in its building of the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

9 Iwao Mori, “Yume to genjitsu: Nihon eiga no Tōakyoeiken no shinshutsu no mondai”, Eiga Junpō, No.43 (1942), p. 56. 10 Aaron Gerow, “Tatakau kankyaku: Daitōa kyōeiken no Nihon eiga to juyō no monadi,” Gendai Shisō, vol.30.9 (2002), p. 141.

9 My Nightingale was situated in the conjuncture between these two inherently incompatible film projects. As a coproduction between Japanese Tōhō and Man’ei, My Nightingale embodied agendas from both sides. From the side of Tōhō, it had to meet the criteria of a National Film to represent Japanese-ness at the same time resisting Hollywood-style novelty and dramatic expression. To achieve that goal, Tōhō assigned Shimazu Yasujirō, a master of Japanese shōshimin genre, as its director. From the side of Man’ei, as part of the Great East Asia Film project, the film had to be exotic and sensational enough to attract colonial audiences. In order to fulfill that mission,

My Nightingale had to be distinctive in terms of its form, style and even story telling, especially given the predicament of filmmaking at the time when it was conceptualized, namely the declining reputation and popularity in national policy films among domestic as well as colonial filmgoers, a phenomenon I will be discussing in next section. Ironically, it was the internal conflict of the

National Film project and the Great East Asia Film project of which My Nightingale was caught in between that made the film’s unconventional and even subversive expression possible.

10 Chapter 2 National Film Project and Criticism of Propaganda/National Policy Films Made by Former Shōshimin Film Directors

As examined in the previous chapter, the central idea of National Filmmaking was to establish so-called “pure Japanese film” that could cast off any Western influences, especially

Hollywood. In order to achieve that goal, policy makers often turned to prewar shōshimin film makers and assigned them as directors for national films because their “sketches of the human heart and soul in mundane lives… touches the heart of every Japanese person and allows them to realize the essence of being Japanese.”11 In addition, in order to attract national audiences, wartime

Japanese film companies tended to appoint film directors who had already made their names among domestic audiences. Given the unprecedented popularity and great economic success of shōshimin film during the prewar period, wartime policymakers and censors had a special interest in former film directors of this particular genre. In this way, directors with a prewar shōshimin background played a crucial role in the National Film project. Shimazu Yasujirō, the founding father and a master of the shōshimin genre, had been appointed to many national film projects, including My Nightingale in 1943. Shōshimin genre by definition refers to a trend in filmmaking that originated from Tokyo Shochiku Kamata film studio starting from 1920 and ending in 1936 with the studio’s relocation to Ofune and its gradual involvement in propagandistic filmmaking in collaboration with the government. Shōshimin films were characterized by the so-called “Kamata style” which in general refers to their hard-luck protagonists, optimistic worldview, lighthearted depiction of modern city landscapes, the happy ending, professionally trained stars, etc.

Even though shōshimin filmmaking had given way to a propagandistic style in the escalation of the war after 1936, the shōshimin ideology and its Kamata style actually continued

11 Ōtsuka Kyōchi, “Shimazu Yasujirō no ryōiki,” Eiga Junpō, No. 23 (1941), p.17.

11 to influence wartime film productions. The persistent existence of shōshimin ideology was largely accountable for the predicament faced by the imperial film industry at the time. This can be seen in wartime film critics’ reviews and criticism towards those prewar shōshimin directors and their works during wartime. As many critics complained in their reviews at the time, the so-called kandō

(the moving capacity of film) and seikaku (unique disposition or characteristics), which were highly sought after during wartime, “are disappointingly absent” in national policy films made by directors with a shōshimin background. I argue that the failure of those national policy films was not due to the filmmakers’ insincerity nor their stubborn political resistance towards the military, but rather the persistent influence of prewar shōshimin filmmaking, ideologically as well as stylistically. In the next section, I first present criticism towards national policy films made by directors with a shōshimin experience during wartime, to uncover the impasse faced by the imperial film industry at the time, namely the declining popularity and reputation of continental films since 1941. Then by referring back to the leftist film critics’ comments on shōshimin films during prewar period, I show how criticisms towards the same group of directors during two periods, prewar and mid-war, were surprisingly similar to each other. I argue that shōshimin film’s inherent indifference in converting and mobilizing people continued to exist in those directors’ national policy filmmaking, thus rendering any military appeal inefficient and fruitless.

The first example of a film that was heavily criticized is Hiromasa Nomura and his Suzhou

Night (Soshū no Yoru), which was released on December 28th, 1941 and said to be China Night’s

(dir. Fushimizu Osamu, 1940) counterpart. Hiromasa Nomura entered Shōchiku Kamata studio in

1924 and worked in the shōshimin genre for twelve years before he was assigned to national policy filmmaking after 1936. His Suzhou Night was harshly criticized by wartime film critic Chiyōichi

Ōtsuka as follows:

12 In terms of the educational meaning, it cannot compare to Hakuran no Uta (Song

of White Orchid, dir. Watanabe Kunio, 1939) and Nessa no Chikai (Vow in the

Desert, dir. Watanabe Kunio, 1940) and in terms of sweetness, it cannot compare

to Shina no Yoru (China Night, dir. Fushimizu Osamu, 1940). In the film, Kōran’s

hatred towards the Japanese has been presented as too simple and with a lack of

depth. This is no more than a cliché, triangular love story between one Japanese

and two Chinese, with Shanghai and Suzhou as its context…. The theme should be

the goodwill of Japanese people, however, it turns out the central attention is

focused on the sorrowful farewell between the two lovers…. [The film] exposes the

deficiencies of Ōfune film, and there’s nothing except disappointment and

dissatisfaction.12

In his comment, Chiyōichi expressed his discontent towards both the film’s content and ideology: the story was repetitive and dull, the pictures were lifeless and monotonous, and the film was ideologically ambiguous. Similar comments towards national policy films by former shōshimin directors were not uncommon. Another example is Tsuneo Hazumi’s comment on Mikio Naruse’s

Shanghai Moon (Shanhai no Tsuki) in 1941:

It is out of generosity that we take our time to watch the film, but compared to the

abovementioned two pieces [Shina no yoru and Nessa no Chikai], it is too free and

easy such that the film would be the same even if it weren’t located in Shanghai. I

am suspicious in the first place that Naruse is the director of a film of this kind.

Within the context of the films he made in the past, there’s no way I would agree

to let him handle this theme again without special conditions. Not to mention his

12 Chiyōichi Ōtsuka, “Soshūno Yoru,” Eiga Junpō, No.12 (1941), p. 24.

13 filming approach, even his personality is characterized by “non-characteristics,”

which means there’s no way he can represent Shanghai’s uniqueness. This film is

horribly aware of national policy and is conservative in its adaptation. The only

highlight is the female protagonist Wang Yang’s loveliness and astonishing

singing…. the biggest deficiency of the film is its failure to fulfill its function as a

cultural warrior that engages in fighting the propagandistic and educational war---

there is nothing specific of it doing its job. It’s our [filmmakers’] responsibility to

fight the cultural war, but the progress of Naruse and his film are extremely stagnant.

The story in this film could happen somewhere in Tokyo and not Shanghai, with

no difference.13

The discussion of unsatisfactory presentation of colonial landscape in the above two comments is of special attention here. It too is symptomatic of Kamata style’s continuous influence on wartime filmmaking. According to Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano in her discussion of urban landscapes through the lens of shōshimin film:

In contrast with the theatrical aesthetic, shōshimin film’s modern characters are

shown as thoroughly cinematic subjects in the spatial and temporal flow of the

camera’s eye on urban life. Many of the Kamata style films emphasize outdoor

locations, whether it is passing landscapes seen through the window of a bus or

college students running on a track…such scenes mirror the epistemological

experience of modernity, the audience’s experience simulates the act of window

shopping.14

13 Tsuneo Hazumi, “Shanhai no tsuki,” Eiga Junpō, No.29 (1941), p. 45. 14 Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Nippon Modern: Japanese Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008, p. 118.

14 In other words, Kamata style’s representation of city landscape focuses more on landscape as a modern experience rather than the particularity of certain location, be it Shanghai or Suzhou. In this way, there is no wonder why wartime film critics were discontent with the insufficient showcasing of the exoticism of colonial landscapes.

In addition to the plain city view, it seems that the negative impression which nowadays scholars still have on wartime national policy films, including their ideological emptiness, lack of artistic achievement, blatant advertising of military slogans, had already emerged as early as wartime when those films were released in the first place. These “deficiencies” are also accountable for the ignorance and insufficient study of continental films after the war until today.

Criticism towards My Nightingale’s director Shimazu Yasujirō during wartime was no exception. According to film critic or Seiji Mizumachi’s comment on Shimazu’s 1942 film The

Green Continent (Midori no Daichi),

He forgot his everydayness and focused on the superficiality of the story. Besides

the beautiful landscape of Qingdao, there’s nothing touching or inspiring. There is

no good guy/bad guy distinction in the film, and disappointingly, he also gave up

on suspense and spectacle. This is a long-winded work of indigestion and lack of

realness. The script was written collaboratively by Shimazu Yasujirō and Yusaki

Yamagata, in the form of a so-called “original scenario.” Original scenarios are

notorious for their narrow viewpoint and small scale, and this work is especially

careless. It randomly pairs characters with landscapes and incidents without the

slightest feeling of passion. Obviously, the people who wrote the story had no

enthusiasm, and there’s no way their work could inspire us. We should definitely

stop calling them producers of original scenarios.... The only reason this film studio

15 [Japanese Tōhō] is still making continental films that are considered serious is

because of its high-quality camera: the landscape of Qingdao has been beautifully

introduced, as well as the street, and the working class people. Hopefully the

deficiencies of this film will provide a negative example, and serve as a warning

for continental films to be made in the future.15

Other critics pinned their hopes on Shimazu as the leading figure of shōshimin film in the expectation that instead blindly following the national policy film standard, he would maintain consistency with his prewar productions. For example, in wartime film critic Otsuka Kyoichi’s analysis of the failure of Shimazu’s White Egret (Shirasagi), released on May 1st, 1941, he claims that the failure of this work is due to the director’s digression from his original specialty, namely,

“sketches of the human heart and soul in mundane lives.” As he expresses,

Under the official demand of national film making, we are expecting Shimazu’s

improvement on and unique contribution to Japanese filmmaking. What we are

hoping to see in his films is the most ordinary lives without sensational incidents

or exotic landscapes. That is what touches the heart of every Japanese person and

allows them to realize the essence of being Japanese.16

It is interesting to discern the dual standard towards national filmmaking during wartime. On the one hand, critics admitted the shōshimin legacy and Kamata style are essential in representing the

Japanese character and thus contributory to the National Film project, while on the other hand, they cannot help but blame former shōshimin directors such as Hiromasa Nomura and Mikio

Naruse for their lack of passion.

15 Seiji Mizumachi, “Midori no Daichi”, Eiga Junpō, No. 41 (1942), p. 31. 16 Ōtsuka Kyoichi, “Shimazu Yasujirō no ryōiki”, Eiga Junpō, No. 23 (1941), p.17.

16 The central claim of all the above criticism is the films’ overemphasis on pure landscapes, or melancholy love stories between Chinese and Japanese characters, both of which derive from the heritage of Kamata style and shōshimin films. To the contrary, critics called for films with a

“broader scale” and “stimulating capacity” and urged filmmakers to contribute to the imperial cause of the Great War and enhance morality through their filmmaking, rather than being narrowly confined within everyday life, personal sentiments and natural sceneries. In fact, such accusations were not uncommon but lodged at shōshimin films from the first place when the genre was coined, and represent one of the major schools of criticism towards the genre. According to film scholar

Yuki Takinami, the leftist film critic Hisao Ikeda was the first person to use the term “shōshimin eiga” or “lower middle-class film” as a specific film category in 1932.17 For Ikeda, shōshimin films were not “films with shōshimin as a protagonist”, but “films made from the standpoint of shōshimin.”18 By using the word shōshimin eiga, Ikeda intended to criticize a lack of class awareness and apathy towards the revolution of the middle-class population, as presented in many films at the time, especially those made by the Shochiku Kamata film studio. In this way, unlike the general impression of shōshimin films nowadays, which mostly focuses on how its katama style represented by Ozu Yasujirō operates as an alternative to the style of Hollywood, the term shōshimin films designated a strong political context. According to Yuki Takinami, in the late

1920s and early 1930s, shōshimin film was frequently criticized in comparison with “proletarian filmmaking”, another influential film genre at the time. In contrast, proletarian films sought to use film as a tool to directly influence and mobilize people for the great cause of the communist revolution. Although both proletarian films and shōshimin films promoted realism, seeking to

17 Yuki Takinami, “Rethinking the Shōshimin Films of Ozu Yasujiro: Contemporary Criticisms,” Tokyo University Journal of Information Studies, No.83 (2010), p. 33. 18 Ibid. 40.

17 honestly present the actual situations of ordinary people’s lives, shōshimin films tended to walk on what Akira Iwasaki calls “the narrow path of formalism.”19 Specifically, according to leftist film critics in the 30s, the passivity of shōshimin films lied in their nihilistic world view, the presentation of apathetic and unadventurous working class, well-polished sentimentalism that invites melancholy, as well as their indifference in motivating its audiences towards revolution.20

In this way, even when the nation was in a state of emergency during the Great War, as Kamata style and shōshimin ideologies continued to influence former shōshimin film directors, propaganda film made by them were continued to be criticized for not being aggressive enough in propelling people forward. It is the shōshimin genre’s inherent inability to stimulate and mobilize the masses that led to national policy films made under its influence failing to fulfill the military’s demand for inspiring wartime films.

The above comments are worth attention also in that they reflected a major predicament in national policy filmmaking after 1941, that is the audiences’ declining interest in national policy films. As we can tell, commentators were inevitably comparing every continental film to the success of the “Continental Trilogy”, namely Song of White Orchid, China Night, and Vow in the

Desert. This is not because the trilogy was more artistically mature, or sophisticated in its storytelling, but because of its role as the “forerunner” of soft, or entertaining, propaganda films

(Rakumin Eiga). The trilogy created a big sensation when it first appeared in 1939-40, especially due to its mesmerizing and comforting power to provide a temporary escape for war-torn audiences.

Ever since the success of the Continental Trilogy and the craze for leading lady Ri Kōran, filmmakers produced large amounts of national policy films with similar storylines and geographic

19 Ibid. 45. 20 Ibid.

18 settings, because the genre was politically safer and guaranteed financial success. Before long, however, starting in 1941, at the same time when film critics were harshly disparaging continental films made by former shōshimin film directors, Ri Kōran’s popularity also witnessed a serious decline, which constitutes another sign of the masses’ declining interest in the continental films.

According to film critic Ichi Takeni’s 1942 comments about Ri Kōran:

Starting from last year [1941), Ri’s fortune began to die out. Let’s say it is the

political situation that put her happy-go-lucky sweetness to an end...people with

higher education and intelligence are getting tired of her and this will eventually

pass onto audiences at the lower educational level. Although her films are still

selling well in areas like Asakusa, Shinjuku, Shibuya, they are facing big challenges

in Ginza film theaters … Thus, with this film, we may still expect a good attendance

from lower class audiences... The film [Winter Jasmine, or Yingchuhua, dir. Sasaki

Yasushi, 1942] introduces the sport of skating, the domestic lives of Manchu, and

the city landscape of Harbin. However, even with those scenes, I still cannot see

the central theme of the film. It is only through careful observation that the theme

of Manchukuo as prosperous and enjoyable land can be discerned, as it is

ineffectually expressed through the depiction of a love triangle between three young

people. Thus, this makes it nothing but a light-hearted film, depicting the city of

Harbin as an exotic location for enjoyment.21

As Takeni pointed out, the longing for exoticism and optimism represented by the Continental

Trilogy, as well as any kind of carefree love story among young Japanese and Chinese men and women, were already outdated by as early as 1941. This may not only have been due to the

21 Ichi Takeni, “Geishunka,” Eiga Junpō, No. 44, (1942), p. 47.

19 audience’s weariness of similar films, but also the intensified war conditions at the time. In 1943, an article titled Expectations towards the Japanese Film Industry, by Mogi Kyūhei, then director of Man’ei’s Tokyo branch, was published in the September 11th issue of Eiga Junpō. In the article,

Mogi similarly discusses the phenomenon of the “recent failure of Ri Kōran films”:

In recent years, I have been trying to introduce Ri Kōran into the Japanese film

industry, and accordingly several films have been produced. Those films were all

directed by the top directors in Japan, though the result is nothing but total

failure…people say this is due to distribution issues, Ri Kōran’s bad acting skills,

or her declining popularity. In response to these suggestions, my question is, for

films in which Ri Kōran did not play a role, is there even one satisfying film being

produced in Japan...The failure of Ri Kōran films [in Japan] is not due to the low

profile of the Japanese film industry [where they resist creating big stars]. The

reason is the overall ideological weakness of Japanese films.22

Then he continued to claim that in order to solve the problem of this “ideological weakness in

Japanese films”, it is necessary to include people from all walks of lives in the production process, includcing scholars, physicians, as well as professional writers. For Mogi, My Nightingale, whose original script was drafted by the mass literature (taishū bungaku) novelist Jirō Osaragi, met his requirements. In the end of the article, Mogi expressed his high-expectations for the film by saying:

“Right now, My Nightingale, directed by Shimazu, is being shot, and I am putting my last hope in that film.”

22 Mogi Kyūhei, “Nihon eigakai ni nozomu,” Eiga Junpō, No.47 (1943), p. 31.

20 What about My Nightingale made it stand out from other continental films made during the same period? Advertisements for the film that appeared in Eiga Junpō help explain its unique status:

An exotic masterpiece made through the cooperation of Tōhō and Man’ei and

starring Ri Kōran. A story unfolds in the turmoil Harbin, a magnificent tale that has

never been told in any Japanese film. Besides Ri Kōran and the young actor from

Tōhō, most of the actors are Russian opera singers from Harbin’s top theater,

Tomsky Theater. The play is set during a time of raging turbulence and represents

the epitome of suffering in life. It also includes serious, grand opera and folkloric

tales which are filled with sorrow and melancholy. The history of Manchukuo’s

transformation is presented in the film. The producers draw from Jirō Osaragi’s

original story and Yasujirō Shimazu’s personal adaptation.

The above advertisement appeared in the April 21st, 1943 issue of Eiga Junpō, and the following piece appeared two months later, in the June 21st issue of the magazine.

This film, that gathers together white Russian actors from Tomsky Theater and top

opera singers is a masterpiece that must be recorded in Japanese film history. Thirty

years of Manchu history is narrated from the perspective of a Japanese orphan, the

main protagonist. Along with the grandiose music, an exotic flair is evident

throughout.

There are two things to note about the hopeful tone of these two advertisements: first, both agree upon My Nightingale’s significance and uniqueness in Japanese film history. I return to this subject below in chapter four where I demonstrate how the film is unique, not only artistically, but also ideologically when compared to its contemporary films. Second, there is a shift in tone

21 between the two; in the latter June advertisement, the wartime social context for the film – the

“turbulence,” “suffering,” and “sorrow” – were deleted. This deletion, I argue, not only reveals the reason for the film being banned in the end but is also indicative of the hidden spirit and theme of the film. In the next chapter, I consider how this subversive theme stemmed from another aspect of My Nightingale’s production background, namely the political contestation between so-called

“Shanghai Centralism” and “Manchukuo Centralism” occurring in the film industry of the

Japanese occupied Chinese continent. This intra-imperial competition ironically made this ideologically suspicious film possible.

22 Chapter 3 The Continental Film Alliance and Intra-Imperial Competition

Unlike colonial filmmaking in Japan’s formal colonies such as Taiwan, Korea and Southeast

Asia which were directly controlled by their respective colonial governments, Japan controlled

Chinese film production more indirectly by establishing local film corporations and assigning

Japanese film specialists or officials to executive positions of those local companies. There were three film companies in total on the China continent during the fifteen years’ war, including

Manchukuo Film Association (Man’ei in short) in Shinkyō, Chūka Film Association (Ka’ei in short) in Shanghai, and Kahoku Film Association in Peking. The three film companies were only be able to remain independent nominally, and the relationship between them was full of struggle and competition. For example, Kahoku Film Association’s predecessor (Shinmin Film Association,

February 1938.2-November 1939) was Man’ei’s Peking branch, so that when Kahoku Film

Association was established in November 1939, Man’ei actually controlled most of its production and activities. Also, as twenty-five percent of Ka’ei’s total investment was from Man’ei when it was established in 1939 (another fifty percent was controlled by the Nanking puppet government and the remaining twenty-five was through civil financing from Japan), its flexibility was also restricted to a large extent and was under direct instruction of Man’ei. It was only through its vice- president Nagamasa Kawakit’s intransigent mediation and negotiation with the metropole, as well as with Man’ei, that Ka’ei was able to keep its relative autonomy in filmmaking. As early as 1941, a discussion about those three film companies forming an alliance called The Continental Film

Alliance (Tairiku Eiga Renmei) began to emerge. In the end, however, this Alliance was ultimately unsuccessful.

In this chapter, starting with its conceptualization I explore the reason for the Alliance’s eventual failure in organizing any cohesive and productive activities among its members. I argue

23 that the ambivalence and inconsistency in the imperial discourses about wartime filmmaking led to disagreement and rivalry among the practitioners of the imperial project as well as competition between the metropole and its colonies, and among different colonies. In this sense, Japan’s “total empire” is anything but “total”; but rather, full of paradox and contradiction. Under the grand scheme of “the Great Japanese Empire”, where conflicts and crosscurrents concerning fundamental tenets persisted, the literary and cultural realm became even more capricious and full of uncertainty, which rendered any coherent and powerful imperial cultural enterprise impossible.

Ironically, such fissures within the imperial scheme is precisely where sunlight shines in and vital resistance emerges. My Nightingale is the unexpected result of such discord and disagreement.

The Continental Film Alliance

Documents about the Continental Alliance date as early as 1941 and were mostly in the format of the records of so-called zadankai, or round-table symposia,23 which were published regularly through wartime Japanese film magazines like Eiga Junpō, a thrice-monthly film magazine that was recognized as “the [governmental] compass of the Japanese film industry during wartime”.24 In the November 1st 1942 issue of Eiga Junpō, a record of a symposium called

“Surrounding the Establishment of the Continental Film Alliance” was published. With a reporter as moderator and recorder, the symposium was attended by top officials from three Japan controlled Chinese film corporations, including Nagamasa Kawakita, vice-president of Ka’ei,

Mogi Kyuhei, the executive director of Man’ei, and Saburō Kitamura, special director of Kahoku

23 The Alliance had no manifesto or available cosigned agreement, which also suggests a lack of planning that may have contributed to its ultimate downfall. 24 Makino Mamoru, “Daitōa Kyōeiken Kōsō to Eiga Junpō,” Senjishita no Medeia, Yumani Shobō, 2004, p. 345.

24 Film Association. The key issues discussed in the symposium (and ones that were repetitively debated in other zadankai throughout the period) were reflective of the intra-imperial competition between domestic and colonial film companies which were supposed to work collaboratively under the imperial film enterprise. In this six-page report, the conversation was centered on criticizing the domestic Japanese film industry for its lack of cooperation and dysfunction. As we will see, the rivalry between the colonial film industry and their metropole counterpart lies not only in their fighting over limited resources including film stock, market etc., but more in the divergent beliefs and interpretations of the top-down film policies, delivered from the Home

Ministry of Japan and later the Ministry of Great East Asia,25 which were rather opaque and open to discussion even in terms of the most basic concepts and ideas.

First and foremost, there was intense competition surrounding film distribution or

“rationing” (haikyū) within the Co-Prosperity Sphere. According to Nagamasa Kawakita, vice

President of Ka’ei,

The current situation of Manchukuo, Chūka area,26 and Kahoku area27 owning their

respective film company is due to our special situation. It is fine that we have our

respective film companies, but the problem is that we have made them exclusive in

terms of film distribution. Man’ei has become a distributive monopoly, where in

Manchukuo only Man’ei made films could be distributed, which is exactly what

25 The Ministry of Greater East Asia (Daitōashō) was a cabinet-level ministry in the government of the Empire of Japan from 1942–1945, established to administer overseas territories obtained by Japan in the Pacific War and to coordinate the establishment and development of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. 26 The Japanese wording Chūka 中華 as a geographical terms is used interchangeably with Chūshi 中支 or middle Shina , refers to a broad area of middle-north China centered on Shanghai; sometimes it also used as abbreviation for Chūka Film Association. 27 Kahoku 華北 is used interchangeably with Kita Shina 北支 or north Shina, refers to north China centered on Peking; sometimes used as abbreviation for Kahoku Film Association.

25 Japan is doing [to films on the continent]. In middle-south Shina there are only

Ka’ei made films, and in north Shina there are only Kahoku made films. And it is

only on the production level that we met the total four hundred million Han Chinese

target audience. Although we cannot instantly merge the three film corporations on

the continent into one, we cannot let the situation continue like this…. The mission

of the Continental Film Alliance is to collaborate from the initial planning stage of

a film [until the last stage of distribution].28

As Nagamasa pointed out, the imperative of establishing the Alliance was to solve the problem of the highly fractured film market in occupied China. Since those non-profit oriented colonial film companies were fully supported and subsidized by the military, market and distribution should not have been an issue or concern for them at all. Then why were officials of Man’ei, Ka’ei and

Kahoku Film Association so exasperated by the situation of separate markets on the continent and eager for an integrated and powerful conglomerate. The answer for this leads to the second issue raised during the symposium, namely the discontent of those Japanese policy practitioners working in occupied China toward their counterparts in metropolitan Japan. The antagonism lay firstly in the profit-oriented nature of Japanese film corporations, even during the wartime period of national emergency. According to Mogi Kyūhei, the executive director of Man’ei, domestic Japanese film corporations were inexperienced and unreliable in terms of national policy filmmaking not only due to their unfamiliarity towards other ethnicities dwelling on the co-prosperity sphere, but more significantly because they “are all profit companies” thus their motivation and decisions in making films should always be doubted and challenged.

28 See “Tairiku Eiga Reimei no keisetsu wo meguru,” Eiga Junpō, No.64 (1942), p. 24.

26 The double-faced and “insincere” behavior of domestic Japanese film corporations during wartime has also been examined by Japanese film scholar Hana Washitani in which she specifically investigates the film production of Tōhō, one of the three metropolitan film corporations during wartime.29 She argues that on the one hand, Tōhō actively participated in the imperial project and collaborated with many Japanese owned or controlled film corporations in the colonized domains to make local targeted propaganda films, while on the other hand, it continued in dedicating large amount of money and resources toward making “Hollywood style commercial films.”30 This phenomenon is not unimaginable or uncommon since being commercial is not always irreconcilable with the theme of war mobilization and propaganda. A film could strategically fulfill both purposes at once. The problem lies, however, in these more popular film’s

“Hollywood style”, which became a big concern particularly after the start of the Pacific War.

Besides the profit-orientated nature of their metropolitan counterparts, those on-site Japanese colonial policy practitioners’ discontent also lay in their own identity crisis. As Nagamasa complains during the symposium:

There is an inclination that filmmakers working inside Japan (naichi) don't view us

working outside Japan (gaichi) as equal colleagues…they blame us for taking

advantage of Japanese films, selling Japanese film in China so that we can keep our

film company running. That is because those guys have no basic knowledge of the

mission of national policy film companies. It is because we pay multiple even

dozens of times the tax they do so that the holy war we are fighting right now is

29 The so-called “big three” Japanese film production companies during wartime are: Tōhō, Shōchiku, Dainihon Eiga. 30 Washitani, Hana, “Ahen Sensō to eigasen: Daitōa Kyōeiken no horiwādo,” Tsukuba Digaku Bunka Hihyo Kenkyukai, 2002, p. 25.

27 made possible. They are totally wrong when they feel their own profits are

shrinking and oppressed due to us.31

Not only was their self-esteem and pride as diligent national project contributors being ignored and misinterpreted, but the films they made outside Japan also were treated as “foreign films” and were subjected to “import restrictions” stipulated by domestic film regulations. According to Mogi

Kyūhei from Man’ei:

For the film Northern Protectors, we have attached the title “Kwantung Army

Reporting Section Production,” and then “Sponsored (teikyo) by Manchukuo Film

Association.” They [the metropolitan film censors] contend that since the

sponsorship is Manchukuo it is a foreign film. But the Kwantung Army does not

belong to Manchukuo; rather, it is a part of the Japanese army, how ridiculous that

they consider a film made by the Kwantung Army a foreign film...also, besides

distributive restrictions, they even swallow our rationing income, or limit the print

numbers of the films so that there will be no income at all…in this way, a petition

to revise the Film Law is an urgent task for all of us right now. In the name of the

Alliance we make an appeal to the Ministry of the Great East Asia, asking for a

revision of the Film Law. This is a shared problem for all three film corporations

on the Chinese continent, and it could only be solved in the name of a Continental

Film Alliance.32

The Film Law “in need of an amendment” here is the 1939 Film Law, which not only prescribed a limited number of foreign films for import (twelve in 1941 and only eight in 1942),

31 See “Tairiku Eiga Reimei no keisetsu wo meguru,” Eiga Junpō, No.64 (1942), p. 26. 32 Ibid.

28 but also placed a threshold on films that could be imported: only those which are “artistically mature and could set model in terms of film techniques for the improvement of Japanese films in the future” would be considered. “This clearly refers to other Axis films,” Nagamasa claimed, “and none of the films produced in the Co-Prosperity Sphere could reach such a standard.” Kyuhei echoed with Nagamasa’s view by saying “films we made are not foreign films, thus should not be restricted by the import rationing,” and claimed “what we made are the so-called ‘the Greater East

Asian Co-Prosperity films’.”33 Notably, as film serves the most efficient tool in war propaganda when language and cultural barriers become the biggest obstacle for propagating Japan’s total empire in Asia, the phenomenon of setting rationing restriction ironically shows the indifference and ignorance of the metropole towards the socio-cultural situation in other parts of the empire, which in turn undermines the foundation of the over-all imperial project.

Obviously, along the way those on-site Japanese empire practitioners developed contradictory understandings from their fellow workers back home concerning even the most basic interior- exterior issues. Essentially, the Alliance was intended to reverse the imbalanced power relationship and institutional hierarchies between the colonial film industry and their counterparts from the metropolis, namely their subjugation under Japanese Tōhō, Shōchiku and Dai-Nihon Eiga film company. Not only were they fighting the metropole, but there was also intense intra-imperial competition where each colonial film studio was fighting for legitimacy and prominence within the imperial landscape under the backdrop of total war.

Reports concerning the Alliance gradually disappear after 1943 which indicates its deadlock. In fact, the Alliance only remained at the conceptual stage and never took real action, neither in terms of solving the import rationing issue nor in producing any films under its name.

33 Ibid. 28.

29 According to Noguchi Hisamatsu (official of Kahoku Film Association) and Shizumi Akira (Ka’ei official), the deadlock was due to in-fighting among the members of the Alliance:

Noguchi: After the formation of the Continental Film Alliance, we have been

dedicated to various collaborations and exchanged staff and communicated. We are

now [at the mid-1943] taking into consideration the issue of film distribution

between the three companies all around the Chinese continent.

Shizumi: It is for sure that we have to tackle that next stage, but the internal conflict

[between Man’ei, Ka’ei and Kahoku Film Association] has caused constant

changing of our plans. That’s the problem for now.34

Although the appeal and mission of the Alliance were clear and well-planned, the uncompromising

“internal conflict” among the three continental film companies rendered the eventual failure of any joint effective action. In the next section, I examine a major “internal conflict” through the example of the antagonism between Man’ei and Ka’ei, or between the “Manchukuo Centrism” advocated by Man’ei’s president Amakasu Masahiro and the “Shanghai Centrism” embraced by Ka’ei’s vice- president Nagamasa Kawakita. As we shall see, such competition paradoxically created a relative flexiblely environment for film artists to instill different ideologies, personal as well as political, into their filmmaking, from which My Nightingale was made possible.

Harbin vs. Shanghai----The Intra-Imperial Competition

The story of My Nightingale was staged in the Chinese northeast city of Harbin, also known as Manchukuo’s “city of music” during the wartime period. Besides being a de facto Japanese colony, Manchukuo was also an experimental utopia for persecuted former activists or politicians

34 See “Chūgoku Eiga no Genjō,” No. 82 (1943), Eiga Junpō, p. 45.

30 from Japan who were being “exiled” to Manchukuo during wartime. The film’s protagonist Dimitri, a former Russian royal house opera singer, is just such an exile living in the city of Harbin. The story of the film was staged in Harbin, from 1917, after the Russian Revolution, to 1931, after the

Manchurian Incident. The film follows the tale of a Japanese girl (Mariko in Japanese and Mariah in Russian) raised by a white Russian opera singer named Dimitri. The first part of the film occurs in Manchuria after the 1917 Russian Revolution. A cohort of white Russian opera singers from the former Russian royal family are hunted by the red Russian army, or the Bolsheviks, down to

Manchuria. Sumida, a Japanese business man running his company in Manchuria, generously offers shelter to the cornered singers. Before long, conflict arises among Chinese warlords, and

Sumida, his family, and the Russian singers get on their wagon and flee. In the chaos, Sumida falls off of his wagon and becomes separated from his wife and daughter Mariko. The second part of the film depicts the following three years when Sumida endlessly searches all over China for his family, with no results. The third part begins fifteen years later in 1931, Mariko has grown into an elegant girl renamed Mariah by her foster father, the white Russian opera singer Dimitri, who had shared the same wagon with Sumida’s family during their escape. When singing the song “My

Nightingale,” Mariah becomes famous overnight. Later, realizing Mariah has become involved with a Japanese boyfriend, Dimitri decides to leave Harbin to go to Shanghai. However, the night

Dimitri and Mariah prepare to leave Harbin, the Manchuria Incident occurs. After the incident and all the ensuing chaos, Dimitri falls terribly ill. With the help of a friend, Sumida finally finds his daughter, but realizing that Dimitri is very sick, he insists that Mariah stay with Dimitri until he fully recovers. However, Dimitri dies during his last performance on stage. The film concludes with Mariah singing “My Nightingale” at the foot of Dimitri’s grave.

31 Within the film, Dimitri’s relationship with Harbin was constantly changing: at first,

Harbin was his sanctuary when he was escaping from the Bolsheviks and arrived in Manchuria.

Due to constant warfare, he had to leave Harbin and travel around China to perform. Later, he came back to Harbin and gradually developed a strong identification with the city, where “it is the people of Harbin who could truly understand my performance.” At last, due to the sabotage of the red Russian Bolsheviks, he had to leave Harbin and go to Shanghai in the hopes that his art would be welcomed by more audiences. Dimitri’s never-ending transfer between Harbin and Shanghai is symptomatic of the struggle experienced by many people at the time under the political rivalry between the military occupied Shanghai and the puppet state of Manchukuo within the empire. In other words, Dimitri’s personal experience epitomizes the internal struggle and the living conditions of many frustrated artists who were exiled in Manchukuo: on the one hand, they viewed

Manchukuo a utopian space for them to implement their aesthetic pursuits in an era of political upheaval. On the other hand, they never stopped admiring Shanghai as the true center of Chinese film.

Iwasaki Akira (1903-1981), the producer of My Nightingale, who was also a prewar left- wing activist, film historian and critic, a central member of the Proletarian Film League of Japan

(Prokino), was a case in point for such dual attitude towards Manchukuo. Due to his communist background, after been in and out prison several times, it was not until 1942 that Akira Iwasaki officially started working as the chief executive of Manchukuo Film Association’s Tokyo branch.

At the time, he was prohibited from any form of critical writing and could only work as a producer for national policy or continental film. Under the mediation of Kyuhei Mogi (president of Man’ei’s

Tokyo branch) and Kanichi Neigishi (Man’ei’s chief director), Akira Iwasaki was assigned as Ri

Kōran’s supervisor. This was not only due to Iwasaki’s expertise in film art, but also relied on his

32 prewar experiences in using film as a tool to connect with the masses. Ri Kōran herself was at a transitional moment in her career. After her films witnessed a decline in popularity and reputation in 1942, in order to change these conditions and to resolve the predicament of continental filmmaking, Man’ei strove to elevate her image to a higher level of artistry and sophistication.

According Ri Kōran’s memoir, Iwasaki, as the representative from the Japanese side of Man’ei, oversaw every film she participated in since 1942, including the Yellow River (Huanghe, 1942),

Winter Jasmine (Yingchunhua, 1942), The Bell of Sayon (Sayon no Kane, 1943).

Although not every one of Ri Kōran’s film that was supervised by Iwasaki was politically skeptical, many were. I argue that the dilemma faced by propaganda filmmaking created a space for Iwasaki and filmmakers like him: according to Akira Iwasaki, the rivalry between the Ka’ei in

Shanghai and Man’ei was at its height when My Nightingale was being conceptualized and produced. Similar to Man’ei, the establishment of Ka’ei in 1939 was also a joint venture between the Japanese military government and the puppet-government of Nanking. Ka’ei’s representative from the Japanese side was Nagamasa Kawakita. He was well-known for his open-mindedness in terms of filmmaking, and full support of the Chinese film industry. In the eyes of a staunch nationalist like Masahiko Amakasu (the head of Man’ei), Kawakita’s behavior betrayed the imperial project, and Amakasu strongly opposed his activities and ideology. After taking over

Man’ei in 1939, Amakasu advocated a “Manchukuo Centralism” and intended to subsume Ka’ei under the control of Man’ei. Nonetheless, under the pressure of Chinese filmmakers in Shanghai and through the mediation of other executives from the Japanese side, Ka’ei was able to keep its independence from Man’ei. Amakasu failed to incorporate Ka’ei under Man’ei’s control through political methods, so they began to include filmmakers from different backgrounds and to loosen restrictions on filmmaking to some extent. These actions were taken in order to counterbalance the

33 artistic influence of Ka’ei, and to make Man’ei the “true center” of China’s film industry. Ironically, caught in the middle of intra-imperial competition, the political environment surrounding Man’ei, especially in the later years of the war, paradoxically resulted in an unusual flexibility in terms of filmmaking. It was under such a context that a production team of suspicion was organized.

My Nightingale’s central production team consisted of Akira Iwasaki as producer, Shimazu

Yasujirō as director, Osaragi Jirō as original script writer, and Hattori Ryoichi as its music designer.

This was a suspicious arrangement at the time, for nearly everyone within this team had shown anti-military sentiment to different extents during wartime. As Japanese film critic and historian

Tadao Sato states:

Akira Iwasaki was the leading figure of the former leftist film movement in the

1920s, and upheld the anti-military stance until being imprisoned in the late 1930s;

it was only under extreme military pressure that he converted in prison, and

working for Man’ei was his last resort for survival… Yasujirō Shimazu, an expert

in making films about urban people and lives, becomes well-known for his

commercial films with high box office returns, and never expresses even the

slightest compliment towards the war in his any of his films… Osaragi Jiro, in his

literary works published during the wartime, which on the surface were criticizing

the French army, nonetheless pointed directly at the ferocity of the Japanese army…

all of the members on the production team were liberal or anti-military fighters

within the Japanese film industry or literary world.35

Ri Kōran, the actress who played the Japanese daughter Mariah in the film, also recalls in her memoir that director Shimazu would boldly say while shooting My Nightingale in 1943: “Japan

35 Tadao Sato, Nihon Eigashiki, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006, p. 120.

34 will lose the war with no doubt. It is exactly for this reason that we should make valuable artistic films, in order to show the U.S. and British occupation forces in the future - to show them that our

Japanese have not only made war films, but also art films comparable to those made in the West!”36

In the following chapter, through a close analysis of the music element within the film, I reveal how with My Nightingale the filmmakers strove to make an art film that could convey their political message of discontent.

36 Yamaguchi Yoshiko, Fujiwara Sakya, Fragrant Orchid: the story of My Early Life, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, trans. Chia-ning Chang, 2015, p. 185.

35 Chapter 4 Textual Analysis: Opera and Propaganda Theme Song in My Nightingale----

Nostalgia, Ethnicity and Political Resistance

My Nightingale is an exceptional wartime propaganda film, not only because of its exoticism and association with high culture, but also due to its strong political implications that are hard to recognize at first, but become clearer with a careful study of its form and text. These expressions would not be possible without the competition within the empire and the challenge from Shanghai that Man’ei faced at the time: as a coproduction between Japanese Tōhō and Man’ei, the high art form of opera is not only sensational and exotic enough in attracting filmgoers for the

“profit oriented” Tōhō, but also artistic enough to earn Man’ei attention and appreciation from the metropole thus besting its competitor Ka’ei. By taking advantage of such background, filmmakers were given a chance to instill their political dissent into the film. In this chapter, I argue that the film’s antiwar subversiveness comes mainly from its nostalgic sentiment as expressed through its musical elements, which include opera performance, a military theme song and musical interlude.

The operatic sequences throughout the narrative make the film ambiguous, preventing a simple analysis based on the category of national-policy film. Through an analysis of these sequences and other operatic expressions (such as the acting style and proscenium shooting method), I emphasize the embedded themes of nostalgia, ethnic entrapment and displacement. These messages would not be so evident without the strategic use of opera. In addition to opera, military theme song, a common practice in most of the national policy films made by Man’ei, is also a crucial element in assisting My Nightingale’s political expression. I argue that unlike the seductive and numbing theme songs in most of propaganda films, such as those sang by Ri Kōran in Shina no Yoru, the theme song and musical interlude in My Nightingale are endowed with a thinly-veiled layer of subversion and resistance.

36 Opera Performances: A Nostalgic Escape and Suspicious Motif

There are in total three opera performances by Russian singers in the film. The first sequence is at the very beginning of the film, when Rasoumovshy, an Earl of the former Imperial

Russia in exile in China, singing on a boat that is going back to Harbin after the turmoil between

Chinese warlords in the 1920s. It is notable that among the three songs, this opera sequence is the only song that has been translated with Japanese subtitles, and contained a strong sense of homesickness and longing for the past: “The far-off land is the country of raging snow, the hometown covered by the snow; the mourning wind from the deserted land, I heard singing of sorrowful songs.” The “far-off land”, “hometown” and “deserted land” here all refer to Russia, which at the time was swept by the Bolshevik revolution and controlled by the Russian communists.

Such an articulation of nostalgia and longing for hometown at the very beginning of the film could be a rather suspicious or even dangerous move during the height of the war in 1943, when the nation of Japan was overwhelmed by the fever of the “East Asian New Order” (Tōa Shin Chitsujo) promised by the holy war. As imperial expansion and colonization became the national cause of the war, any recollection of the past peace or longing for the motherland was potentially demoralizing and thus could be viewed as a disloyal retreat or betrayal towards the holy project of expansion.

In addition to the nostalgic lyrics, opera as an art form itself is presented in the film as not only a means of livelihood for the Russian singers, but more of a ritualistic tribute and nostalgic gesture towards the collapsed Russian Tsar. At the heart of their opera performance is a recollection and reconstruction of their subjectivity as artists exiled to this remote and alien land of Manchuria. What they were constantly seeking through opera performance is a relationship with art and with the audiences of their art. In the film, two contrasting worlds are established via opera,

37 one of reality, and one of nostalgic escape. The nostalgic world on the stage is one of the past, a world where the singers can immerse themselves into opera performance wholeheartedly and without any concern, and perform for their respectful and sympathetic patrons. This is an idealized picture of the relationship between artist and audience. In reality, they were constantly pressed by the theater manager to sing popular songs in order to entertain audiences, while sometimes experiencing severe disruptions caused by communist saboteurs in the middle of their performance.

The tension between the identification with the world of the past on stage, and the awareness of the irreversibility of that lost world, not only sets the basic melancholic tone for the film, but also foreshadows the Russian protagonist’s heroic death on stage.

The two major opera sequences performed by the Russian father Dimitri in the film are classic episodes from Russian and German literature: Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and

Goethe’s Faust. A shared trait of the two opera excerpts is a central motif of criticism towards the dark side of human nature, namely greed, avarice and relentless desire. The critique and discontent expressed by the two classic European operas seems incompatible with, and even opposed to, the theme of colonial prosperity and ethnic harmony one may expect from an ostensible propaganda film like My Nightingale. Rather, such motif risks the accusation of criticizing the behavior of the

Japanese military surrounding Asia at the time. Given the origins and motifs of the two opera arias in the film, the loyalty of My Nightingale as a national policy film aimed at promulgating colonial policy and the East Asian Co-prosperity project becomes suspect.

Besides directly incorporating works from traditional opera repertoire, the film also includes operatic expressions. A dark visual tone is considered an indispensable element in opera tableaux and this operatic darkness assumes a thematic role which giving the film a feeling of artfulness. The operatic chiaroscuro (extreme low key lighting) in the film contributes to narrating

38 the actual living conditions of different ethnicities within the colony. For example, as illustrated in Figure 1 and Figure 2, when the Manchuria Incident occurs in the film, representations of the

Japanese and Russian refugee camp reveal the contrast of living conditions between the two ethnicities and foreshadows future conditions once the Japanese army takes control of the city;

Maria’s singing scene (Figure. 3) contrasts with the image of Dimitri sick in bed (Figure. 4), indicating the continuing hardships experienced by minorities as their vitality gradually decreases over the course of unceasing war and conflict.

Figure 1. The Russian refugee camp when Manchuria Incident occurs. With operatic chiaroscuro it was depicted as a filthy, alcoholic, and chaotic underworld.

Figure 2. The Japanese camp during the Manchuria Incident, it was comfortable and an ordered place where even love romance would occur.

39

Figure 3. After Manchuria Incident, Dimitri becomes completely bedridden, Maria shouldered the family livelihood. Maria singing the film’s interlude New Night

in a bistro.

Figure 4. After singing for the whole night, Maria gets back to their room and weeps over her seriously sick father.

By inserting opera performances into the film, the filmmakers of My Nightingale successfully conveyed a sense of homesickness and criticism towards the voracity of the Japanese military.

Cinema Haunted by Opera

Opera always turns out to be tragic, which means its existence intrinsically denies the fictitious, cinematic “happy-ending” that familiar to the genre of propaganda film. In this sense,

My Nightingale is a cinema haunted by an operatic melancholy and death, regardless of the

40 superficial depiction of ethnic harmony which operates on a surface level. As argued above, the relationship between opera and the protagonist is much more complicated than a simple career choice. On the one hand, opera is the very source of Dimitri’s pride that shows his loyalty to the former Russian emperor he served, constituting his subjectivity. On the other hand, opera also speaks through the protagonist, as Dimitri lives an operatic life, dies an operatic death, and constitutes the very “operatic-ness” of the film. In other words, as an opera singer, Dimitri’s destiny is informed by not only the roles he plays, but the operatic medium itself. Below I use the

“Orpheus myth” and the concept of the “Orphic gaze” central to the myth to assist my analysis not only because the myth is the very origin that set the deadly undertone for operatic singing, but also since the gaze of Dimitri in My Nightingale constitutes the turning point of the entire story. Like the myth, it is the moment that directly steers the story to its tragic ending.

The scene of the Orphic gaze occurred when Maria has her debut singing “My Nightingale”.

At the time, Dimitri is deprived of any means of performing opera in Harbin, because he rejected the theater manager’s demand to sing popular songs to entertain audiences using his Russian royal name. As a former Russian royal house opera singer, Dimitri was famous among opera-goers in

Harbin, and recently was sabotaged on stage by communist Red Russians. Thus, in order not to ruin Maria’s debut, he hid himself backstage to secretly enjoy his Japanese daughter’s performance.

Suddenly, he discerned that Maria is acting intimately with a young Japanese man (Figure. 5), who once rescued Maria from the brutal Chinese street police. Typically, for a propaganda film, or more specifically, a “Manchu settlement film,” the woman protagonist marries a Japanese young man, and together they settle down in Manchuria. However, Dimitri’s facial expression shows his envy and anger of seeing the relationship developing between his daughter and the Japanese man across the stage (Figure. 6).

41

Figure 5. The reverse shot of Dimitri’s Orphic gaze. Maria cozies up to the Japanese young painter Uneo. Ueno saved her before when she was bullied by the Chinese police when selling flowers on the street, and kindly bought all her flowers.

Figure 6. The Orphic gaze of the Russian father Dimitri in which he saw his Japanese foster daughter Maria’s intimate interaction with the Japanese young man Ueno

42 In her study of the thematic relationship between cinema and opera, Michal Grover Friedlander uses the “Orpheus myth”37 to explain how the element of the “gaze” in opera singing works.38She emphasizes the unsustainability of the miraculous phenomenon of operatic singing and argues that

“the visual,” as in, the gaze, has the power to kill the “acoustic,” namely, the singing.39 She also points out the duality of ecstasy and melancholia inherent in the expressive power of operatic singing, that is the ecstasy “as if bringing the dead back to life” and the melancholia over the singing’s “inability to sustain that exhilaration.”40 Dimitri’s gaze is truly a gaze that overturns the happiness of singing. The expression on his face reveals Dimitri’s sudden realization that the happiness experienced between him and his foster daughter was merely an apparition, which will eventually disappear once she unites her natural Japanese father and marries a Japanese man. For

Dimitri, who had experienced political persecution, being exiled to a foreign land and dispossessed of any dignity and status as former royal house artist, Maria was his only source of consolation and hope for the future. Such consolation and hopes, however, are constantly threatened by the daughter’s Japanese boyfriend and the possibility of her natural Japanese father which may come and take Maria away from him.

37 The myth is as follows: Orpheus’ wife Eurydice dies due to a fatal bite, and in response, Orpheus plays a sad and mournful song in front of her body that made all the gods weep. As advised by the Gods, Orpheus travels to the underworld. Just as before, his music softens the hearts of the gods from the underworld, and they agree to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth, on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both reach the upper world. He sets off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety he forgets that they both need to be in the upper world before he lays eyes on her. As soon as he reaches the upper world, he turns to look at her, and she vanishes forever. 38 Michal Grover-Friedlander, Vocal Apparitions: The Attraction of Cinema to Opera. Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 23. 39 Ibid. p. 24. 40 Ibid. p. 28.

43 Another implication of the Orpheus myth elaborated by Friedlander is that death is immanent in the operatic voice.41 Dimitri’s gaze during Maria’s debut was similarly fatal and led to the irredeemable loss of his beloved. However, in the Orpheus myth, the one being gazed upon is killed; Eurydice, Orpheus’s wife, dies from Orpheus’ gaze, since it is Orpheus who has the power to rescue and revive his dead wife from the underworld, and that power is also able to kill and efface all happiness. In the film, the gaze in the film kills only the subject who gazes. Dimitri’s gaze, rendered impotent and desperate, can only lead to self-destruction. On the night of Maria’s debut, Dimitri is finally determined to leave Harbin and go to Shanghai, a move that goes against his former insistence that he would never leave Harbin because “only in Harbin is there a real audience for my art.” When Maria arrived home that night, Dimitri tentatively asked her if she would leave Harbin to go with him to Shanghai. The way in which Dimitri asked is intriguing, in that he was not treating Maria as a child who is dependent on him anymore. Instead, he asked: “I am going to Shanghai; Harbin is a hard place for me to make a living now. Maria, do you want to stay in Harbin?” He was not asking from the standpoint of a guardian who informs his daughter that they are leaving. Rather, seeing the big success of Maria’s debut, Dimitri clearly knew that his daughter can make a living by staying in Harbin, and, with her boyfriend, she can live happily while starting a new family. If Maria refuses to leave with him, it would be fatal and devastating for him. However, based on the way he asked Maria, he left himself open to the very possibility of being turned down by his own daughter. In the end, although Maria decided to leave with

Dimitri, things did not turn better, which indicate the persistent influence of the destructive power of “the gaze”. The Manchuria Incident happened the next day as they try to leave Harbin by train.

Having lost their dwelling, Dimitri and Maria first became refugees on the street. Then Dimitri

41 Ibid. p. 45.

44 sent Maria to the Japanese camp since the living conditions were more desirable there, while he himself went to the Russian refugee camp, where was chaotic and filthy. It was since then that his health condition deteriorated and he never recovered and eventually died. In this way, Dimirti’s tragic destiny was sentenced from the start by his beloved art form of opera.

Singing as Ethnic Marker

Besides nostalgia and tragic connotation, ethnic sonority is another element inherent in the art form of opera in My Nightingale. In the film, Russian ethnicity is shown collectively rather than individually on stage. The ritualistic singing and dancing show the coherence and unification of the ethnic group, producing a sense of ethnic sonority. At first glance, My Nightingale caters to the Japanese colonial policy of “Harmony among Five Ethnicities” (gozoku kyowa) which emphasizes the cooperative relationship among the Russian, Han Chinese, Korean, Manchu, and

Mongolian. However, in this section I argue that the film’s association of the Japanese girl, Maria, with popular songs, and the Russian father Dimitri’s association with high art opera, a polarity or opposition between the two ethnicities is established. Rather than a mutually supportive relationship promulgated by military authority, the singing career of the Russian father, along with his vitality, has been gradually displaced and compromised by the success of the Japanese daughter.

Such seemingly unconscious rivalry between the Japanese daughter and Russian father sheds light on the imbalanced power relationship between the colonizing power and the colonized minority.

In this way, it is such an irony that a propaganda film designated to promulgate ethnic harmony instead reveals the incompatibility, and, processes of displacement between the colonizer and the colonized.

At first glance, music in the film transcends ethnicity and serves as a tool for connecting the Russian father and Japanese daughter. It is in the utopia of music that the two characters in

45 diaspora experienced happiness and the sense of belonging. With a closer analysis, however, the apparent unification of the Russian father with his Japanese daughter through music and singing were constantly being challenged by a deep sense of exoticism associated with opera as a distinctly

Western art form. The art form of opera does not so much connect them as alienate them. In other words, although music is transcendent, the mastery of a specific music genre is another matter.

Trained in singing by her father, Maria never truly takes over her Russian father’s career and becomes an opera singer, but rather, it is her solo as a soprano who sings popular songs that wins her fame and applause. The esoteric nature of opera performance indicates the very impossibility of an idealized ethnic fusion or harmony between the two, for the Japanese daughter can never completely replicate her Russian father’s skills and follow his path. Rather, the different vocal timbres and deliveries generate a distinctive affect within the performers’ singing. For example, the Russian father’s deep, husky and masculine aria contrasts sharply with the Japanese daughter’s high, brisk and sonorous soprano, and thereby an impression of disassociation arises between them.

The different sensual affects of the singing are not only a matter of gender, but more importantly the very inimitability between the two ethnicities that is inherent to their physical and biological

(vocal) differences. In this way, any attempt to try to transplant one set of ethnic characteristics onto the other, or to let one represent the other, only results in discomfort, artificiality, and even hypocrisy, as is evident in Figure. 7, when, at the end of the film, Maria puts on a blond wig and tries to play a part in the opera for the first time in the film.

46

Figure 7. Scene of Maria wearing blond wig trying to blend into Russian opera performance.

This scene of her “pretending” to be a Russian opera singer was likely disturbing and offensive to

Japanese authorities, as Russia had already declared war with Japan in 1944, when the film was supposed to be released.

The incompatibility between the Russian father and Japanese daughter also underlies their competitive relationship on stage: it is the fall of the father’s fame and body that facilitated the rise and the success of the daughter. In other words, on the surface, the daughter’s inheritance of the father’s career actually only disfranchised the father from singing while entitling the daughter to fame and achievement. Dimitri’s first opera performance in the film was disturbed by the

Bolshevist saboteurs, after which, in order to avoid further troubles, Dimitri gave up on singing publicly and stopped in using his fame as a former imperial opera singer. In the following scenes, being invited to perform in a local charity concert, Dimitri suggested that Maria perform in substitution of him. During the charity concert which was also her debut, though singing “My

Nightingale”, Maria became famous overnight. After the Manchuria Incident, Dimitri fell seriously ill and became completely bedridden. In the aftermath, Maria took over the livelihood of the family and gradually established her fame on stage.

47 The contrast between the father and the daughter’s respective body movements on stage are also telling in indicating the shifting power relationship between the two: compared to

Dimitri’s unstable and erratic body movement and final collapse on stage, Maria’s stillness and confident gestures shows a direct transition of vigor from the father to the daughter. In this way, the father shifted from patron and decision-maker to the powerless and dependent, the daughter became the supporter of the family. Also, throughout the film, Dimitri never had a chance to truly finish his opera aria on stage: for the first performance, he was interrupted by the communist saboteurs, and the second time, he died on stage without finishing his lines. The incompleteness of Dimitri’s operatic performance contrasts sharply with the perfected accomplishment of Maria’s every singing. Under such settings, we are constantly reminded that the so-called ethnic harmony is by no means in a form of “co-prosperity,” but involves the process of displacement and substitution of the colonized by the colonizer.

Phantasmagoria and Mutual Implication: Subverting Delusion

In addition to opera, theme songs and musical interlude in My Nightingale also serve a crucial role in its political expression. There are three songs in total sung by Ri Kōran including the one that constitutes the title of the film. Inserting theme songs and musical interludes into film plot was a common practice among national policy films produced during the wartime. A case in point is the theme song “China Night” (shona no yoru) and the musical interlude “Suzhou Nocturne”

(soshū Yakyoku) in China Night, a national policy film in which the colonial fantasy of dominating the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai has been projected onto a screen romance between a Japanese man and Chinese woman (played by Ri Kōran). In this section, I argue that in contrast to the conventional military theme song which offer the spectator a drug-like seduction, comforting the audiences with an artificial prosperity and happiness, the theme song and musical interlude in My

48 Nightingale do the opposite. Inspired by Adorno’s notion of “phantasmagoria” and using songs in

Shina no Yoru as an example, I first explain the popularity and mesmerizing power of propaganda songs produced during wartime which were circulated around Japanese colonies. To the contrary, songs in My Nightingale only reveal the inconsistency between the ecstasy of colonial life depicted in the song and the actual declining living condition of the minority ethnicities struggling under the military control. In this way, viewers of the film are encouraged to reflect on the discontinuities inherent in the hypocritical colonial discourses promulgated by the military.

According to Adorno, the power of musical artwork lies in its ability to break down differences, to efface the material dimensions of its production, to create false identification and, finally, to trap audiences in a magical delusion, or, “the mirage of eternity.”42 Adorno calls the effect of musical artwork that contains all of these characteristics a “phantasmagoria.” The phantasmagoria of Ri Kōran’s singing in Shina no Yoru depends on identification at a host of levels, forming a bridge between ethnicities, ideologies, classes, and even between the colonizer and the colonized.

Specifically, Keiran (the female protagonist played by Ri Kōran) in Shina no Yoru experienced several identity transitions, from being a homeless tramp to a well-off lady, from being a Japanese hater to a Japanophile, and from being a young lady from a broken Chinese family to the wife of a Japanese solider. In Shina no Yoru, the various identities Keiran embodied offer the audiences a chance to see themselves through the film in any number of positions. The singing scene in Shina no Yoru occurred when Keiran and Hase finally solved all kinds of misunderstandings and survived the abduction by the communist villains. The singing scene temporarily but successfully effaced Keiran’s former hostility and hatred towards the Japanese, and masked the absurdity

42 Theodor W Adorno, “Freudian Theory and Patterns of Fascist Propaganda,” in J.M. Bernstein, eds. Culture industry: selected essays on mass culture. Routledge: Routledge Classics, 2001, pp. 132-58.

49 behind her sudden obedience rendered by the slap of a Japanese man. The singing scene essentially removed the viewer from the dramatic event towards which the entire film has been progressing, i.e. the “material condition” that made the film narrative possible. During this scene, as all the tension and threat in the film disappear, the audience can finally lay down their defenses, give up their individuality, and immerse themselves in the collective experience of singing. It is also a time when the mesmerizing power of music comes to a culmination. If the slapping scene marks the narrative climax of the film, then the singing scene along the Suzhou river constitutes the film’s

“phantasmagoric climax”, the climax of the filmic delusion. In this way, the phantasmagoric climax is made possible through a gradual process of effacing the material dimensions of the film by lulling the audience into perceiving the artificial construct as natural and realistic, and inducing them to participate in or identify with the aesthetically induced fantasy, and ultimately accept the film’s reprehensible and illogical premise: that colonizer and colonized can live happily and harmoniously along with each other. The harsh colonial reality of oppression, danger and conflict is suspended in favor of the ecstasy of singing, which expresses the universal theme of love and beauty of life.

In contrast to Keiran’s singing in Shina no Yoru, Maria’s songs in My Nightingale were deprived of such possibility of constituting a phantasmagoric climax, since the struggle and hardship experienced by the Russian father always followed the ecstasy of the singing, and every song was haunted by tension and a sense of restlessness. “My Nightingale”, “New Night” and

“Persian Bird” are the three soprano solos performed by Maria. “My Nightingale” appeared twice in the film, first at Maria’s debut (Figure. 8), and also at the end of the film, with Maria singing in front of Dimitri’s grave (Figure. 9). The phantasmagoria of the first sequence of “My Nightingale” always was cut off by the fatal gaze discussed in the former section. This is particularly evident

50 in the visual contrast between Maria singing on stage with a halo of light around her (Figure. 8), and Dimitri hidden backstage in the dark, while he experiences the anxiety and horror of the sense of displacement brought by the gaze (Figure. 6).

Figure 8. Maria singing “My Nightingale” for her debut.

Figure 9. Maria singing My Nightingale in front of her foster father Dimitri’s grave.

The second time of Maria singing “My Nightingale” was as the end of the film, when the song was directly linked to the death of Dimitri as his funeral dirge. In addition, the song’s overall melancholy and funereal rhythm is not inspiring, nor is it passionate. The inconsistent tempo, with unstable changeover between upbeat and downbeat, generate an affect of uncertainty and precariousness. The lyric also shows a strong sense of nostalgia and an anticipation of the time to

51 come. In other words, “My Nightingale” is a song of the past and future that has nothing to do with the present. Rather, the present is dark, helpless, and full of uncertainty and misery.

Unlike “My Nightingale”, another musical interlude “New Night” (Atarashiki Yoru) seems to fit perfectly into the category of military theme songs, due to its lively rhythm and lyrics which seek to inspire fighting morale and fervor for war. The context for the singing of “New Night” was directly after the Manchuria Incident, when the Japanese army successfully marched into the city of Harbin. “New Night” was a song celebrating the prosperity and pleasure of the “present” and of “tonight,” but for Dimitri, the new night brings only heartbreak. After the Manchuria Incident when Dimitri became completely bedridden, Maria had to sing in a bistro to make a living for the family. After singing the vibrant and promising “New Night” on the stage (Figure. 3), she returned home to check on her father sick in bed (Figure. 4). On the same night, Maria’s biological father

Sumida, under the protection of the army, finally arrived at Harbin, paid them a visit, and showed his desire to get Maria back. In her study of the relationship between music and film, Claudia

Gorbman introduced a process of “mutual implication” which she explains as follows: “whatever music applied to film segment…will have an effect, just as whatever two words put together will produce a meaning different from that each word separately because the viewer automatically imposes meaning on such combinations.”43 In other words, the meaning and effect of music in the film could, and should, only be understood through a mutual implicative process with the film segments that adhere to it. In this way, the spectacle of the cheerful singing of “New Night” was largely jeopardized by the effect of “mutual implication” between music and film narrative.

43 Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music, Indiana University Press, 1987, p. 3.

52 Unlike Keiran’s phantasmagoric singing in Shina no Yoru, Maria’s singing in My Nightingale served as a foil to show the austerity and oppression experienced by the Russian minority group.

If it is the “new night” for the Japanese army to celebrate their military success and the days to come, it is the most shocking and heartbreaking night for the Russian father and the Japanese daughter. The contrast between the euphoric singing and cruel reality constantly reminds us that suffering and endurance is an unending and recurring process haunting the domain of Manchukuo as well as people living there, especially for ethnic minorities.

Music in My Nightingale, opera performances and “military theme songs” alike, provide access to the very intention of the film and function as an interpretive key. In the film, music plays a central role in the film’s counterhegemonic discourse, expressed not only through musical tone, rhythm and style, but also through the music’s thematic role in unveiling the hypocrisy of the colonial slogan of “ethnic harmony.” The music in My Nightingale performs a resistant gesture towards the military-prescribed pattern of wartime filmmaking, and opens up outlets for ideological subversion.

The film’s closing most clearly articulates this subversion. At the end of the film, Dimitri fell on the stage without finishing his lines, and his last confession to his Japanese daughter was rather intriguing when he said to Mariah: “Mariah…go back to your father’s place… go back to Japan…

Japan is a beautiful country… the home of deities… a nation of greatness and uniqueness…on the soil of this precious island…” The implication behind these last words cannot be more obvious: military expansion and invasion to other Asian countries go against the will of the gods and can only destroy Japan and its spirit. “Homecoming” is the only way to end all the suffering and misery of the Japanese people. This statement also reveals the filmmakers’ nostalgia for prewar democracy and prosperity. The last scene of the film is Maria singing at Dimitri’s grave but

53 without further elaboration on whether Maria follows his Russian father’s last words and goes back to Japan or settles down in Manchuria with her Japanese boyfriend Ueno. In this way, the ending of the film becomes tragic and thus contemplative, which makes the real intention of the filmmakers even more suspect. Certainly, this doesn’t mean that tragedy as a genre had been completely forbidden from production in the corpus of propaganda films. For example, in one of the versions of Shina no Yoru, Hase is killed by Chinese bandits, and Keiran commits suicide following Hase’s death. But, ideologically, the blame for the tragedy in Shina no Yoru is clearly placed on the Chinese communist bandits, while in My Nightingale such a target is ambiguous.

Unlike most of the propaganda films at the time, such as the Continent Trilogy there was no direct negative representation of Chinese bandits and their savage conduct in My Nightingale, but rather the emphasis was on the crisis and adversities endured by people living in a turbulent Manchuria.

Thus, without a recognizable and definite target to blame for the tragedy that happened to the protagonist, the source of all misery naturally falls onto the war itself, jeopardizing the legitimacy of Japan’s occupation of Manchuria.

54 Afterword

During the scholarly symposium “Ri Kōran in Film History” which is recorded in Yomota

Inuhiko’s book Ri Kōran and East Aisa (2001), film historian Minori Ishida had the following to say about wartime propaganda film production in fascist Italy:

Of course, Fascism is anti-Communism, and harshly oppresses their activities. However,

many of the filmmakers during wartime [in fascist Italy] were lefty intellectuals. Those

filmmakers’ practice of on-site shooting and their discontent with the fakeness of studio

productions had nothing to do with left and right ideological issues; their activities

flourished in the Neo-Realist film movement after the war. It is exactly for this reason that

the Mussolini trilogy continued to be discussed, even during the postwar period, and the

filmmakers who worked for the fascist government were able to continue working. As

rumor has it “films produced under fascist regimes are corpses in the closet.” Surely even

until nowadays, we make sure that those corpses are securely buried, but if we open the

door of the closet, we may find out how desirable those corpses are.44

My Nightingale is just such a “desirable corpse” that needs “to come out of the closet.” Since the rediscovery of its print in 1984, even now, scholarly analysis of My Nightingale is still limited to introducing the basic plot of the film itself and its unconventional style.45 However, I believe that it is only by situating the film in the chronology of wartime filmmaking, and through a careful and comprehensive study of its historical and production background, an examination of the production

44 Inuhiko Yomota, Ri Kōran to Higashi Ajia, Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2001, p. 130. 45 Scholar works centered on My Nightingale are mostly done in Japanese, including Iwano Yūichi’s My Nightingale and the Music Capital Harbin (2001), Imai Katsuya’s “Why My Nightingale Wasn’t able to Released?” (2010), Kawasaki Yoshiko’s My Nightingale and Russian Connection (2012), and Irina Melnikova’s Ri Kōran Myth and Reality through My Nightingale (2015).

55 team, its artistic style and images, that the rivalry, competition, and concessions made among different interest groups within the empire during wartime can emerge. My Nightingale is also an important film as one of the few extant examples among the films that can demonstrate how suspicious ideological messages sometimes got included under the cover of a “national policy film.”

Others include Mulan Joins the Army (dir. Bu Wancang, 1939), Eternity (dir. Bu Wancang, 1943), and Tuberose (dir. Zhou Xiaobo, 1944). These films too are understudied and need to be reexamined, particularly in light of their similarly complicated production context. By studying these films, we can reaffirm that any authoritarian apparatus is not unified or consistent, but is instead porous, unstable, and is thus breakable.

As a form of collaborative work, filmmaking engages people with different personal characteristics, artistic ideologies, and political agendas. Wartime filmmaking is no exception. In the future, starting from films made by Man’ei, I plan to reevaluate film produced during wartime, as a medium as well as a process. I will reconsider wartime colonial film as medium, in terms of how the authoritarian state used it to build connections with the people, and as a process since the production of film involves complicated financial and political struggles between stakeholders, for the government and film companies alike. I believe that as more wartime film archives are recovered and become more accessible, many conventional ideas towards propaganda film will change and even be overturned.

56 Bibliography

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Chiyōichi, Ōtsuka. “Soshūno Yoru.” Eiga Junpō. No.12 (1941), pp. 24-26.

Citron, Marcia J. Opera on screen. Yale University Press, 2000.

---When Opera Meets Film. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Gerow, Aaron. Visioning Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship,

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---Tatakau Kankyaku: “Tatakau kankyaku: Daitōa Kyōeiken no Nihon eiga to juyō no monadi.”

Gendai Shisō. vol.30.9 (2002), 139-149.

Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Indiana University Press, 1987.

Grover-Friedlander, Michal. Vocal apparitions: the Attraction of Cinema to Opera. Princeton

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