This paper attempts to explore how Japanese cinema changed during the 1930s. In the mid-1930s, the idea of narrative being superior to film form became prevalent amongst critics of Japanese film. Therefore, directors like Daisuke Ito who relied heavily on visual devices were criticized. This idea, in turn, negated the visual achievements of the 1920s.

The emergence of the importance of narrative is directly linked to the rise of the studio system and the switch to talking pictures. After the formation of the first Japanese studio system by Toho (founded in 1937), virtually all the films produced by Toho and others began to present themselves as standard products with an reliance on narrative.

As a result, film was no longer just a work of art but was transformed into a medium, by which information could be conveyed. Because Japanese film was driven by the communicativity of narrative during the 1930s, the Japanese government came to use the medium to distribute propaganda during the war, while putting the film industry under tight control.

Not until the 1930s did the term “documentary” begin circulating in America. Its pervasiveness should not be merely attributed to Grierson’s influence; rather, people privatized the word according to their social interests. Exemplifying discourses by four different social groups, I analyze ways in which they made sense of the term on two planes: the levels of use; and the interpretation of representation. In so doing I discuss the negotiation of its meanings in historical situations. Socialists, for instance, were the first to use the term in the early 1930s, insisting that a documentary reveal the contradictions of capitalism and operate as a “weapon” against the dominant regime. As the term began to be used by the film industry and gain a wide currency later that decade, however, its signification was dominated by its roles as a commodity for capitalism, and national propaganda against fascism. Still, “propaganda” was not simply the substitute for “documentary.” Rather, by the early 1940s, the dominant social institutions referred to this genre as “documentary” more preferably than “propaganda” as it helped in concealing ideology in the appearance of universal justice.

“I made a video trilogy during 1975–76: Camera, Monitor, Frame (1976); Observer / Observed (1975); and Observer / Observed / Observer (1976). The aim of this project was to create a Semiology of Video as a video work rather than a written text; it was completed after my series Self Identity (1972–74). The relationship between language and image, which was initially explored using “I” as the subject in Self Identity, is developed according to the logical structure of a video system dealing with the grammar of language at the same time.”

Above is the first paragraph of a paper: “A Semiology of video” which I wrote in Japanese, 1983, on this magazine (ICONIS, No.2–7, 1983, pp34–45). ⁽¹⁾ Since then 15 years have passed.

During this period video semiology has neither been discussed as much as film semiology nor has it developed distinctively as a study. What is the meaning of this absence of video semiology in comparison to film? I do not think that film semiology in its present state can be considered adequate for video, and I do think that a study of semiology unique to video should be established. I hope “A Semiology of Video” can serve as a basis for further discussion.

This year (1998) I have had an opportunity to remake the videotapes which I consider the foundation works for “A Semiology of Video”: Camera, Monitor, Frame (1976), Observer / Observed (1975), and Observer / Observed / Observer (1976). Without altering their basic concept, I remade them more simply than the originals, reducing their length drastically (three tapes altogether 22 min. from 59 min.) and cutting the redundant repeating parts of the original.

The discussion hereafter is based on this remade version, but the writing previously published (on “This is a camera 1” and “This is a camera 2”) remains unchanged, since those pieces were remade without fundamentally altering their concept.

Note:

(1) Translated in English, Takahiko limura, Film and Video, Anthology Film Archives, New York, 1990, pp 44-50.