When film enthusiasts discuss their first encounter with Japanese cinema, they often name the big (really big) stars—Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and other menacing creatures that were staples in movie theaters in the 1950s and ’60s. It is certainly true for this year’s recipient of the SFSFF Award for commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema, Hisashi Okajima, director of the National Film Archive of Japan (NFAJ).
Okajima, a self-described “ordinary, movie-loving boy,” eagerly fed his imagination with kaijū eiga (monster movies) as well as with big American releases growing up in a suburb of Nagoya, a major urban hub about two hundred miles west of Tokyo. When it came time to choose a career, Okajima stayed true to his boyhood love and earned a degree in film studies from Tokyo’s Nihon University College of Arts. By the early 1980s, he was writing criticism, including for Kinema Junpo, the venerable Japanese movie magazine that has published continuously since 1919.
His earliest practical experience in film curation came in 1979, when he became a research assistant at the National Film Center (NFC), a small division of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. “The Film Center was the place I went almost three times a week for four years as a student to see classic and rare films,” says Okajima. Because of the NFC’s modest size, he had the chance to gain experience in film preservation, programming, research, and international cooperation. In 2005 he became its chief curator. When NFC became independent from the museum in 2018, Okajima was appointed director.
NFAJ is Japan’s only national institution specializing in the preservation, research, and screening of films. Its collection of Japanese silent films exceeds six hundred works, including features, shorts, and documentaries, whether complete or incomplete. “We have divided them into themes, such as pioneering animated films, images from the Meiji era, the Great Kanto earthquake, and rare newsreels and cultural films, and we are distributing some of them online,” says Okajima.
The archive also houses the invaluable Tomijiro Komiya Collection of nitrate prints, donated by the son of the private collector in 1988. It has been a crucial source for the restoration of at least five dozen European titles, including Jean Grémillon’s The Lighthouse Keepers, which screened at SFSFF 2018, and one of Okajima’s favorites from the collection, Jean Epstein’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), preserved with its original tinting. The archive continues to acquire films on a voluntary basis from studios of all sizes, a situation that Okajima says would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. “It is gratifying to see that our work is gaining recognition and that production companies do not throw away their films as they once tended to do.” Indeed, Okajima, who served as president of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) from 2009 through 2011, championed film conservation through FIAF’s groundbreaking Don’t Throw Film Away! manifesto.
What personal relationship do you have with silent film?
My earliest memory of silent film is not a film itself, but rather a series of photos of stars from American silents I saw when I was around ten years old. They were printed on the backs of playing cards that came from my paternal great-grandfather on a visit to the United States. I was struck by the beauty of one of the actresses, whom I learned much later was Lillian Gish. She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I am still proud that I was able to see Gish in person from afar at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1984. That same great-grandfather also died under mysterious circumstances while in the U.S. and every time I visit SFSFF, I have a feeling of hetu and prataya (因 縁)—predestination—that is very precious to me.
How do you feel about the changes that occurred after the film archive split off from the museum?
Almost all the changes have been for the better. For example, in the old days of the Film Center, its chief was rarely able to speak with the heads of major film companies. From their perspective, the Film Center was merely a division of the National Museum and was too small to deal with. After we became independent, I began to meet directly with studio heads, talking with them about the importance of film preservation and how they could benefit from cooperating with film archives. As a result, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of major film companies depositing their original films with NFAJ. The “big four” film companies in Japan—Toho, Toei, Shochiku, and Kadokawa—also started an ongoing project to send their staff members, at their expense, to assist with our archive’s work.
Yasujiro Ozu’s I Was Born But… is showing after your award ceremony. What can you tell us about his approach to this film? According to Ozu’s recollections in a 1952 issue of Kinema Junpo, this is the first film in which he consciously or intentionally stopped using the fade-in/fade-out technique and tried to have all cuts simply be spliced. I think this is notable as an example of the simplification and purification of film technique that Ozu sought. It earned Ozu his first No. 1 ranking in Kinema Junpo’s annual ten-best film poll. His films achieved this ranking a total of six times, a record that remains unbroken to this day.
Are benshi, who narrated films like I Was Born But… in the silent era, still performing at screenings?
Although there are not so many opportunities for benshi to accompany films today, several excellent benshi are still active. NFAJ has strived to organize these performances whenever possible. One of the best benshi performances I ever saw was by Midori Sawato, whose narration helped make Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1933 Taki no shiraito (The Water Magician) a five-handkerchief experience. However, we do not believe that all silent films should be screened with benshi. The star is the film, and the benshi and pianist are there to help illuminate the show.