The Saga of Anatahan and Japan

Sachiko Mizuno The Saga of Anatahan and Japan It is not widely �nown that, outside of some small the first time since his glorious days in Paramount critical and scholarly circles, Josef �on Sternberg’s in the 1930s. last film The Saga of Anatahan was made in Japan. Sternberg wrote in his autobiography that Sternberg stayed in Japan for ele�en months from Anatahan was “my best film – and my most August 1952 to July 1953 and wor�ed on the film unsuccessful one” and it still remained “anonymous” with a production team that was entirely comprised in the early 1960s.1 In fact the film, along with of Japanese crew and cast. The film was based the real incident, went into obscurity shortly after on well-�nown news reports about one Japanese its commercial and critical failure in Japan and woman and more than ��thirty�� Japanese men stranded America.2 At the time of the initial release, when on the Pacific island of Anatahan during the Second the Japanese saw the long awaited feature with �orld �ar. e news and memoirs of the sur�i�ors Japanese dialogue and subtitled English narration reported a tragic story about the group of ci�ilians by Sternberg himself in 1953, many critics were and solders who were hiding in the tropical island indifferent to�� the film or shoc��ed by it−�� particularly for nearly se�en years, refusing to belie�e Japan’s by the distant and dry narration in English. W��ith defeat, until their �oluntary surrender to a �S Na�y a great sense of authority��, t��he ��figureless ��oice rescue team in 1951. Soon after granting a warm comments�� on the images depicting murderously and sympathetic welcome to the sur�i�ors, howe�er, lustful desires of the men directed towards a young the Japanese media began carrying some sensational and beautiful woman, the long and haunting accounts of the story titled “the Anatahan incident”: communal life of the nearly na�ed Japanese drifters at least two men died in a fight o�er one Japanese on the tropical island, their desires for power and woman and se�eral others who had an affair with sur�i�al, �arious religious and patriotic rituals, her disappeared or died of uncertain and mysterious constant fear of both in-group murder and the accidents. Sternberg learned of this incident in Allied enemy, and a strong nostalgia for home. After New Yor� and approached Japanese film producer the lu�ewarm reception of the Japanese premiere Kawa�ita Nagamasa to ma�e a fiction film in Japan, and first-run release, Sternberg departed from which led him to begin the production the following Japan with the negati�e print of the film��,�� hoping year. Ha�ing two translators at his side, Sternberg for ��a successful ��S release. ��e originally released struggled but enjoyed ta�ing a great deal of control film was, howe�er, shown as a limited engagement o�er e�ery aspect of the co-production – writing, in America in 1954, which had, oddly enough, no directing, editing, and e�en narrating the film−�� for English subtitles of the Japanese dialogue. As I Transnationalism and Film Genres in East Asian Cinema Dong Hoon Kim, editor, Spectator 29:2 (Fall 2009): 9-24. Saga OF ANatahaN AND jaPAN elaborate later, the curious fate of thi��s�� “anonymous Japan. I consult the primary documents in Japanese film” did not ��end�� here. ��n the one hand, in Japan language that�� ha�e�� been�� currently a��ailable for Kawawa��ita replaced the problematic narration with scholarly research.4 I loo� into these documents a young English-spea�ing Japanese man in order in order to�� demonstrate�� how the different ways to mar�et the film in Europe. �n the other hand, the Japanese regarded Sternberg and his wor� in in America Sternberg later re-edited the film with Japan within the conte�t of postwar history in newly shot footage, hoping for a more successful re- general and film history in particular opened up release in the �S. Although Anatahan went further multiple readings of the film.� ltimately, this essay into obscurity particularly after Sternberg’s death argues that ��the e��amination of the dynamic site of in 1969, as a result of the multiple �ersions of the consumption dialectically relocates consumers on the film that emerged, it actually opened up questions site of cultural production as producers of meanings of authorship, authenticity, ��and ��originality. of a film�� te�t.t. is article traces the history of the long- forgotten The Saga of Anatahan by e��amining the Pre-History: Kawakita Nagamasa and Osawa Yoshio film te�t, reception of the film, and its authorship in a new light. During a few years before and after Sternberg, Kawa�ita and �sawa Yoshio were co- Sternberg’s death, some critical and historical e�ecuti�es of Daiwa Production, an independent studies on this film in Europe and America re�ealed production company founded in 1952 and operated some intriguing aspects of production history and only ��until mid��-��1953, for Anatahan’s production. thus�� pro��ided analytical�� insight to further decipher Howe�er, the film’s opening credit sequence does not what is hidden beneath the apparent plasticity list the names of Kawa�ita or �sawa. is section and comple�ity of the film.3 ese critical essays, illuminate��s�� how the two producers behind the howe�er, barely touched upon the rich production official credit list−�� Kawa��ita��,�� in particular ��came on materials in the Japanese language and reception board to produce Anatahan. e production history of the film in Japan, which resulted in illuminating of Anatahan cannot be fully understood without the film ��with��in the framewor� of classical author e�amining the careers of these two businessmen, studies that granted the authorship almost singularly and ��their in��ol��ement��s�� in the international ��film to Sternberg, the director of the film. Sternberg’s distribution and co-production projects in the remar�able career and art were illuminated, prewar and post-war period. but the site of consumption – wor� of Japanese In his autobiographical essay written in 1980, collaborators, the responses of audiences, and the Kawa�ita recalls the shoc� that he e�perienced historical conte�t−�� was untouched in the discourses. in the mid��-��1920s�� when ��watching the distorted In other words, the dynamically collaborati�e film Japanese culture and customs ��represented ��on the production, the comple� wor�ings of international operatic stage production of Madame Butterfly in co-production, ��the ��intriguing commoditi��ation Germany. process of art cinema, and the in-depth analysis on the historical conte�t and the reception of films in It was intolerable for me; howe�er, I Japan ha�e been largely neglected in these studies.studies. reali�ed that this was perhaps the image of �hile following these predecessors’ wa�e-up Japan of which �estern people concei�ed call to ree�aluate the aesthetically and historically and that the le�el of understanding of unsettling film a��s well as�� Sternberg’s art and Japan was still so low. … I felt compelled professionalism, this ��essay ��relocates Anatahan ��with��in to find a way to inform the people in the a�� transnational conte��t. I e��amine the collecti�e �est of our humanity, morals, customs, aspect of the�� film��’��s�� authorship in order to ��shed light and culture as soon as possible. At the same on ��Sternberg’s collaboration process with Japanese time I thought about a way to inform the filmma�ers and ��actors�� as well as the roles played Japanese on many practical things in the by uncredited film producers, critics, the general culture of e�eryday life in the �est, from audience, and the distributor who differently which the Japanese should learn so much. interpreted, or showed indifference to, the film in I �ept on contemplating many different 10 FALL 2009 MIZUNO ways, and finally came to the conclusion balance between a culturally moti�ated mission that cinema was the most appropriate and a mar�et-dri�en policy. Towa culti�ated and medium to accomplish this tas�.5 benefited from the une�plored urban art

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