Abstract

In this paper, I explore three cases from postwar Japanese media history where a single topic inspired the production of both documentary films and magic lanterns. The first example documents the creation of Maruki and Akamatsu’s famed painting Pictures of the Atomic Bomb. A documentary and two magic lantern productions explore this topic through different stylistic and aesthetic approaches. The second example is School of Echoes, a film and magic lantern about children’s education in rural Japan. The documentary film blurs distinctions between the narrative film and documentary film genres by utilizing paid actors and a prewritten script. By contrast, the original subjects of the documentary film appear as themselves in the magic lantern film. Finally, the documentary film Tsukinowa Tomb depicts an archeological excavation at the site named in the title. Unlike the monochrome documentary film, the magic lantern version was made on color film. Aesthetic and material histories of other magic lanterns include carefully hand-painted monochrome films. Monochrome documentary films in 1950s Japan tended to emphasize narrative and political ideology, while magic lantern films projected color images in the vein of realism. Through these examples of media history, we can begin to understand the entangled histories of documentary film and magic lanterns in 1950s Japan.

Highlights

  • Documentary films and magic lanterns share intertwined production and viewing histories in wartime and postwar Japan

  • In Japan, magic lanterns survived until the 1950s, they played a major role in postwar media and cultural movements

  • Due to lower production costs, magic lantern film production was widely used across Japan to deal directly with topics often covered by contemporaneous documentary films

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Summary

Introduction

Documentary films and magic lanterns share intertwined production and viewing histories in wartime and postwar Japan. This study extends beyond the facts within the frame, arguing that the fundamental historical basis for postwar magic lanterns or documentary films necessarily includes the often-entangled processes by which these media were produced In this sense, they should be considered additional forms of what Justin Jesty has described as “engagement”,. In addition to entertainment media producers, activists frequently made use of magic lanterns to promote social or political movements One such example concerns the 63-day strike for wage increases undertaken by the Japan Coalminers’ Union from October to December of 1953. Fruitful comparisons between documentary films and magic lanterns exist beyond their relationship with government control They demonstrate the complexities of historicizing aesthetic trends in postwar media, the history of color projected media and conceptions of realism in relation to technological advancement. The Asahi Shimbun reported on the military’s use of “natural color (ten’nen-shoku)” magic lantern films from 1943 to 1944.2 As it was too expensive to use color film in the production of documentaries during the war, magic lantern films played a supplementary role to the aesthetic tendencies of monochrome documentary films

Efforts to Record the Tragedy of the Atomic Bomb
Voices from Students in the Deep Mountains
Unearthing History
Findings
Conclusions
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