Michaël Ferrier, Kenichi Watanabe & [RE]presentations of the Fukushima Disaster

Abstract

In 2021, Kenichi Watanabe & Michaël Ferrier published the screenplays for their three nuclear documentaries with Gallimard as Notre ami l'atome (2021). Ferrier said these screenplays were not simple publications but expansions of the material they had collected in their three films, which includes expanded interviews and photographs of the disasters. In this article, I use adaptation theory to examine Watanabe & Ferrier’s film Le monde après Fukushima (2013) along with the screenplay that appeared in the 2021 publication to understand the limits and possibilities each medium affords. For instance, these documentaries were partially funded by state institutions with a vested interest in the film, its reception, and its depiction of the events, whereas literature is arguably freer to express opinions because it is not tied to certain forms of state funding. This article thus uses Jan-Noël Thon’s concept of transmedial adaptation to demonstrate how both media (film and text) are complementary. Rather than simply publish the screenplay, Watanabe & Ferrier use the publication as an opportunity to share expanded commentary and photography. When the film and text are read together, they become an even more explicit critique of the nations that perpetuate the use of nuclear energy despite their demonstrated dangers.