声の動員――1930–40年代記録映画におけるラジオアナウンサーと弁士

抄録

This paper will explore the historical context of the development of voice-over narration in wartime Japanese documentary, focusing on the introduction of existing vocal performers, mainly radio announcers and benshi, and their unique arts into nonfiction sound film production. At the beginning of the 1930s, after talkie technology arrived in the Japanese film world, filmmakers and critics began to search for a desirable acoustic accompaniment to the newly flourishing genre of bunka eiga (culture film). Interestingly, two previous techniques of narration contributed in this process, namely, radio announcing and the art of the benshi. In particular, the narrating practices of the latter had a qualitative and quantitative influence on the stylistic formation of voice-over narration in wartime “sensuous” documentaries, whereas the former, having been established as a modern and public vocal-medium, took a firm hold on newsreel soundtracks.

Through analyzing stylistic relationships between these vocal performers and nonfiction media, we will see that early documentary filmmaking built a close connection with radio broadcasting practice and such contemporary performing entertainments as mandan. Indeed, experimentation in documentary forms in the early era was surely an outcome of not just auteurist creativity but also a conflict between the techniques of existing performing arts, the enlarged modern soundscape, and the desire, on the part of those involved in the genre, for differentiation from other media and/or for surviving during the hard times of war.