We Have No Choice but to Be Angry: An Interview with Kazuo Hara

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the latest
installment of Being Human from the
University of Pittsburgh.
This series is devoted to exploring
the humanities, their connections to
other disciplines, and their value
in the public world.
I'm Dan Kubis, associate director of
the Humanities Center at Pitt.
My guest today is Kazuo Hara,
a filmmaker whose documentaries have
raised important questions about
Japanese postwar culture for nearly
50 years.
Hara has been making documentaries
since 1972 when he released
Goodbye CP, an intimate portrait
of Yokota Hiroshi, a man living
with cerebral palsy.
The film was controversial because
of Hara's honesty in portraying the
difficulties of living with the
disease and because of his decision
to include footage of Hiroshi's wife
objecting to the way he was
being portrayed in the film.
These two qualities of Goodbye CP,
that is, its willingness to tackle
difficult social issues and its
refusal to occupy a moral high
ground, make it a good
representation of Hara's work as a
whole.
He offers similarly complex
treatments of the legacy of World
War II in his film, The Emperor's
Naked Army Marches On, and
of sex and gender in the film,
Extreme Private Arrows, just to
name two examples. Hara's
most recent work is Sennan Asbestos
Disaster, his first documentary film
in 17 years.
The new film focuses on a group of
former asbestos workers suing the
government for allegedly exposing
them to asbestos poisoning.
The film, which took Hara eight
years to shoot, follows the
plaintiffs as they fight against red
tape, flagging motivation, and
their own failing health.
As usual, Hara does not exempt his
own efforts from these challenges,
filming several scenes that lead
viewers to wonder what role the
presence of the camera played in the
development of the case.
Sennan Asbestos Disaster has
received multiple awards in Japan
and earned Hara the first biennial
Japan Documentary Film Award at the
University of Pittsburgh.
I had the honor of talking with him
through a translator when he was in
Pittsburgh to receive the award, and
I began by asking him how he came to
make his latest film.
Well, welcome to Pittsburgh,
and congratulations on winning the
first University of Pittsburgh,
Japan Documentary Award for your
film Sennan Asbestos Disaster.
I wonder if we could start by
talking a little bit about that
film.
It's the first documentary you've
made in 17 years.
Can you talk a little bit about what
inspired you about this
particular situation and why make
this documentary?
The initial impulse wasn't much of
anything at all.
The occasion was a TV producer
saying to me, "Mr.
Hara, how about doing a piece on
asbestos?"
Up until then, I didn't know
anything about asbestos.
I said on the spot, "I'll do it."
Since I'd been unable to
make another film for quite some
time, and I was
happy to make a film on pretty much
any subject. After
that, the sequence of events was
that I went to meet with the lawyers
and the plaintiffs since it's really
a legal battle.
Filming
for TV involves a lot of
restrictions, like being
told to film this way or that
with various policies, and
my own ideas about how to film
wouldn't show up that way.
So I turned the TV producer down.
That's how the film became an
independent production.
Yeah, that's really
interesting. There's a lawyer
in the film for the second plaintiff
group who says that
she films her client
because she wants the judges
to see that her client's suffering.
And I wonder if one of the things
you wanted to do in making this film
was similar to that.
That is show the suffering
that the people who worked in
asbestos factories and suffered the
illnesses that came along with that
make that visible to the world.
I really struggled with what to do
for this film.
For a time, I even doubted whether
it would become a film.
Reason being that the protagonists
were so very different from the main
characters in my other films to date
that I was really grasping in the
dark.
Or up till now, my protagonists
were clearly people who had a firm
desire to contest authority.
They were conspicuously
idiosyncratic or singular
individuals, radical in
their way of life.
However, the people in this film
were extraordinarily normal folk,
ordinary people.
For starters, these were not the
type of people I would have chosen
for any of my other films.
But I told the TV producer I would
take this on, and
I couldn't just give up.
So I struggled thinking how to
approach making a film about them.
I continued like this for eight
years, grappling with the question.
That is to say, the entire time I
was filming, to be honest with
you.
But muddling through somehow with
little confidence at all that I was
making an interesting film,
I did start to get a sense of how I
wanted the film to look.
There were 59 people in the Sennan
plaintiff group. Of
these, about 20 actually appeared in
the court proceedings and in the
protest scenes.
So I thought I would concentrate on
the lives of those 20
individuals.
In the end, while editing,
I feel like those scenes were the
most vivid.
Oh, yes.
You asked me about suffering.
Meeting with the plaintiffs,
I heard, as you say, that living
with asbestosis is,
in fact, painful and stressful.
So I thought I had to show that
experience visually.
I asked victims politely
whether I might film them in
uncomfortable situations,
but the family members had a
difficult time permitting me to film
their loved ones in great
discomfort.
I have to say that I understand how
they felt, so I wasn't in a position
to insist. They
would say I could film when the
victim recovered, but I
thought it important to film when
they were still suffering.
I was resigned to them turning down
my request, and in the
end, I never got to film a scene
of real suffering.
So I guess you might say I was left
with regret over not having filmed
the real physical discomfort
of the victims.
One of the-- I'll ask a follow-up
question to that.
One of the most intense
scenes in the film
comes when you see a victim
coughing in the bathtub.
And this, I think, is the lawyer's
film.
And so I wonder, is that an
important scene to have
in this movie?
Because it does show that intense
suffering.
There was footage in that film taken
only days before she passed away.
That was taken by her attorney.
The lawyer took it to show the judge
at trial just how uncomfortable
it was for her since
she could not be present in court
herself.
At any rate, they wanted to show the
judge.
So the lawyer imposed upon the
family members saying that they had
to shoot this video for the trial.
We borrowed the footage from the
lawyer and used it in the film.
So that scene is not something that
I shot myself.
Then there's the bath scene.
That woman, her name is Mrs.
Nishimura, is a good-natured
person, and she welcomed us warmly
on each visit.
She was so welcoming that we visited
any number of times.
Her son works the night shift,
and we filmed her making his bento.
After which, Mrs. Nishimura
said to me, "Mr.
Hara, I'm going to take a bath.
I always choke on the steam in the
bath.
That's something you'd like to film,
right?" I understood right
away that she was giving us
permission to film.
So I said, "Yes, we would very much
like to." And
that's how we were able to shoot the
bath scene with her permission.
I wonder, can you talk a little bit
about the characters in the film
who weren't interested in holding
the government accountable?
There are a few characters who
say they don't want to dig up the
past.
There are a few characters who say
they don't regret working in the
asbestos factory, and they're
happy for the opportunity that it
gave them.
Did you want them
to be more upset
and be more willing
to protest?
And what were your feelings about
those characters?
Now
that I'm older, I often think about
what drew me to the topics I've made
films about until now.
Not so much for the present film,
but with regard to all
the films I have made until now.
I think I've come to understand what
motivated me because of my
feelings while making this film.
What should I call it?
I guess those in positions of power
completely lack the way of thinking
that they are to conduct politics
for the weaker members of society
or for the people and to support
citizens in order to lead a
happy life.
My awareness of that has deepened,
and what I'm saying
is that humans, in order to live
fully as human beings,
have to fight with those in
positions of power.
That idea has been my main
preoccupation until now.
That's why I made films with those
kinds of people to date.
Once more, these residents of
Sennan aren't even conscious of
fighting the authorities.
But getting involved in a legal
fight, they come to realize
the true nature of the authorities.
They come to the realization that
we have no choice but to get angry.
And I fashion the film around that
process.
Even so, and I do think
that the underlying message of the
film is that people have to get
angry.
But as for why we have to get angry,
I was born in 1945,
which was just when democracy was
introduced to Japan.
And I grew up as that process of
democracy was taking root in Japan.
So my own consciousness,
I think that notion of democracy was
a decisive contributing factor.
In addition, I myself have thoughts
as a member of the masses, and a
notion of democracy, including
fighting with authorities, became
a part of me.
I've made films preoccupied
with how that became something we
have the capability to do as
citizens.
I feel that strongly now.
Yeah, that's a
perfect segue to my next question.
You
were born in 1945.
There's a recent story about you in
The New York Times where
you talk about the postwar
democratic order in Japan.
And a central question
of that order, you say, is the
question how will you live.
And that your
films are
an attempt to address
this question, how will you live?
So I wonder, one thing I wanted
to ask you was
how do you see the relationship
between your films and
that democratic order?
Do you see them as opposed
to the order, or do you see them as
an important part of it?
I
would say that the state sets up
various mechanisms to uphold
its power as a state.
Every system. Those of us who don't
have any power in democracy
to regulate the populace
create various schemes.
What I mean is that we live our
lives inescapably controlled
by institutions. In
the course of our daily life, we
sometimes feel constricted or
confined, and some
are especially sensitive to this.
Toward the system, which
makes them feel constricted, they
have to fight in order to liberate
themselves.
And of the people who think this
way, some consider
taking action.
I've turned my camera on those
people of action.
To say again, people who really
feel constricted in order to break
through those bonds have to
assert themselves, take action,
and actually work to deconstruct the
system.
I filmed that process of
deconstruction.
Filming those who have made the
choice to live by taking down the
system, I refer to the films
I've made like this as action
documentaries.
As for why I gravitate toward these
kinds of films, I myself
in my daily life-- How should
I say?
Various institutions.
I have felt constricted by systems,
so I share the feelings of those who
aim to take down those institutions.
How audiences respond to my method
of filmmaking, well,
of course, some are turned off
because the protagonists of my works
have an extreme lifestyle.
Of course, some share the sentiments
of my characters. I
make documentaries organized around
such issues precisely so
that spirited discussion happens
on camera.
I hope that such conflicting views
or you might even say that I want
such conflicting views, to
erupt on camera.
This is another kind of,
I guess, a big-picture question.
The Japanese photographer, Shōmei
Tōmatsu,
has talked about having a
love-hate relationship with
American culture in postwar
Japan.
And he talked about this in
particular with regard to a
collection of photographs titled
Occupation.
You've talked about your love of
Hollywood action films.
So I wonder if you have a similar
kind of relationship to the presence
of American culture in Japan
in the postwar years.
There's a government program that
permits you to spend one year as a
Japanese cultural ambassador abroad,
which allows you to go wherever you
want to learn more about your craft.
I applied and was accepted,
so I went to New York City for a
year.
At that time, I was interested to
learn more about American
documentary filmmaking.
So I watched quite a few American
films.
My impression from that experience
is that the approach is remarkably
different between American
and Japanese documentaries.
American films seem to prioritize
criticism.
I'm not saying that's good or bad,
just that there's a clear difference
in the two countries based on
differences and culture.
At any rate, I felt that this
critical posture was important in
the American films I watched.
Well, then, thinking about what's
different in Japanese documentaries,
of course, they aren't
without a critical stance either.
But one element even more important
than critique is that Japanese
filmmakers develop a close
rapport with the filmed subject.
Regardless of how you feel about the
subject, developing empathy
so that you know what motivates them
is, I believe, the most important
feature.
Once that rapport has been made
or established, you can spend
years with them.
And that intention, that stance, is
a feature of many of the films made
in Japan.
At any rate, this difference that
American films prioritize criticism
and Japanese aim first to establish
empathetic rapport with their
subject stayed with me.
One of the things I've-- just to
talk again about, I guess, your
films. I'm thinking about action
documentary.
And one thing that you've always
been-- you've talked a lot about
in your career is
the idea of your films as
actions, not as
stories or not as something that's
about something else, but it's
actually an action.
I'm thinking here, in particular, of
the opening of Extreme
Private Eros, where
you say that the film is an attempt
to understand your relationship with
Takeda Miyuki.
It's not about the relationship.
The film is an attempt to understand
the relationship after she goes to
Okinawa.
Can you talk a little bit about
that? That is your films as actions?
I try to show the main character's
whole way of life when I'm making
a film, so that person's
special charm.
We follow them closely, but we don't
just shoot the film with the idea
that we are depicting them
objectively. To
bring out their special charm as
clearly as possible, we have
to show that person's message,
way of life, and it may
take two, three, even five
years.
So we pay attention to the type
of life they want to lead.
Takeda Miyuki had the idea
to have an unassisted birth on
camera.
The main character of Emperor's
Naked Army Marches On
already lived his life firmly
convinced that he would fight
the emperor system.
I thought carefully about how to
express these life decisions.
In the case of Takeda Miyuki,
she knew best what she intended by
giving birth unassisted,
which is to say that historically in
Japan, until then, sexual
discrimination in society was
widespread.
Women's life decision should be made
following men.
That women, until this point, were
forced to live that way.
And she saw her solo birth
as a way to change and contest
that established pattern.
That's how we came to film the
birth.
That reminds me that--
I can ask a follow-up to that, too.
I've read that when you were filming
The Emperor's Naked Army
Marches On, you
got sick of being around
Kenzo Okazaki.
Is that because of him as a
character or the natural
result of spending that much time
with someone for you?
Okazaki Kenzo
protested the emperor's system,
and to show why he took such an
antagonistic stance,
I thought there might be something
we might show connected to the war
and looked around.
I learned that cannibalism took
place on New Guinea and
that men were executed for desertion
even after the official end of the
war on August 15th.
So I decided to have Okazaki
pursue the answer to the question
of why something like this would
happen.
Okazaki's pursuit was, at the same
time, his effort to fight the
emperor's system that made this
all possible.
Thinking that his fight to find out
the truth would also reveal the
system, I suggested
that Okazaki meet with former
soldiers and try to expose
the truth that they had hidden for
many years.
Thinking that for Okazaki,
that amounted to the same thing as
grappling with the emperor system
itself.
I think of that lifestyle as
the non-everyday.
In the non-everyday,
the protagonist can question his
or her own life philosophy.
That is, I would characterize it as
a struggle for self-liberation.
They were able to accumulate a
series of concrete actions.
I'm able to film those concrete
scenes, one after the other,
and some are better than others.
By editing together these scenes,
the sensibility of the main
character comes across visually.
Some shots are more successful than
others, and together they make
up the story. That's
the strategy I've used from the
beginning with my films.
You've expressed skepticism
about the amount of change that
your films or any film
can bring to the world.
But you've also acknowledged that
you think your films can at least
make small ripples - is the
way that it translates.
I wonder, can you talk about this a
little bit with regard to your
newest film?
What kind of ripples, what
kind of small changes do you think
that this film will bring to the
world?
Well, let's
just say that Okazaki acts alone.
Taking action as a group presumes
that there will be various opinions
about how to proceed.
In order to follow through perfectly
on your own, you won't take into
account other points of view.
He works alone and acts
based on how he sees things.
So he makes absolutely no effort
to compromise or work with others.
It is what it is.
For him to act alone, he
has to establish his own regulations
or rules.
Our opinions were not as fully
formed as his by comparison, so
he often criticized us for
not having the same understanding of
rules and scolded us.
And I don't just mean scold.
It was usually in the form of a
lecture.
So naturally, we started to feel
like Mr. Okazaki was a
tough person to interact with.
There were quite a few moments like
that.
We thought, "He's a really difficult
person."
Actually, Okazaki pays almost
no attention to others.
He just announces his thoughts to
those around him.
For example, he uses the word
tenbatsu, or heavenly punishment,
often.
That divine punishment.
That's a tough concept
to comprehend, but Okazaki
says to the patient just released
from the hospital after recovery
from illness that,
"Your sickness is evidence of
heavenly punishment for past sins."
Okazaki says confidently that
he got sick as a result of divine
punishment.
While filming that scene, we all
felt a bit of revulsion that
it was exceedingly harsh to tell a
sick man that he was being punished.
But I have to admit that after
listening to him carefully,
I do understand his thought process.
Of course, I don't agree that it's
appropriate to get riled up,
and say that to a sick man.
Okazaki doesn't account for other
people's situations.
He's the type of person who says
just what he's thinking at any time.
He has a very rigid sense of his own
rules, and we were left
with the feeling that we were always
getting yelled at while filming.
For sure, I resented it at the time.
But now that nearly ten years has
passed since his death,
my resentment toward him has
vanished, and I can think calmly
about what you would call his
personal philosophy.
And I now understand his way of
thinking.
Looking back now, I'd say
that Okazaki is the kind of guy
who often caused resentment.
But I do get the way he thought.
Yeah.
This isn't even a question, just a
comment.
There's a character in your movie
about Mitsuharu Inoue, A Dedicated
Life, that
talks about not even
knowing that it was possible
to protest.
She didn't even know that oppression
existed, and she kind of was
awakened by
her relationship with Inoue, and
maybe the same kind of thing is
necessary in this case.
To be honest,
my first film, Goodbye CP,
overturned the way that the Japanese
looked at people with disabilities,
including discrimination in society.
It changed quite a bit.
I feel like our film brought about a
concrete change in people's
awareness.
I hope to bring about change,
but it's harder to say for sure.
The interpretations vary.
My latest film-- and this
is actually something I'm struggling
with.
Japanese films are screened through
a systematic network of
theaters, and I've screened the
film, to be sure, but
regrettably, not many people
came to see it.
That was, for me, a pretty big shock
with such an easy to comprehend
message, even
though the response has been
positive, with most saying
that it was a good film and
certainly a film that many should
see.
But audiences have been sparse,
much less than I hoped for or
expected.
Why aren't people coming
to see such a good film?
I have to say I don't really
understand.
This is a film people should see
that I went to great lengths to
make, but Japanese
audiences aren't coming to see it.
It makes me want to say, "Had the
Japanese lost their minds?
Have they become too insensitive to
appreciate films with this kind of
message?" At any rate,
that's how I feel about it.
In point of fact, this film was made
as a kind of self-portrait of
Japanese who have lost
their sensibility.
It's a cat and mouse game, I
suppose, that I made this film
with those likely to question the
status quo in mine.
But I'm trapped, in a sense,
because of small audiences.
I'm not sure how to break through
this problem, but for starters,
I have to show the film to more
audiences and take it from
there.
While I've shown the film for half a
year in theaters,
that run is now over.
And I'm thinking of taking it on the
road myself across Japan,
cooperating with local groups who
are willing to screen the film.
It's not a very flashy approach, but
I'm resigned to the fact that it
will take that kind of effort to
make this happen.
As for the problem of whether the
Japanese sensibility has been dumbed
down, I think this
is an important and fundamental
problem.
Postwar Japanese history
tells us that Japan lost the war,
and in a period of extreme poverty,
the Japanese worked hard to make
economic development possible.
Now that those peak years are gone,
we are in a period of economic
decline.
At one time, the Japanese had a lot
of energy and worked hard.
Now that the peak has passed,
that energy has also faded away.
I'll say it clearly.
I think that those in power in
Japan, and here I mean explicitly
the Abe government, are trying
to undermine and destroy the postwar
democracy set up after the war.
What I mean is that the government
is trying to restructure military
power and turn Japan into
a country that can wage war,
which is an important key.
I think the Japanese people are
unaware of this, and although
this isn't a new problem per se,
it's lamentable that the Japanese
have been largely unable to display
the will to fight against this
power.
Analyzing the situation in order
to overcome it is a task
that is slowly coming to light.
So I said that postwar Japan
succeeded economically, but
what precisely does that mean?
Were we truly, fundamentally able
to marshal our energy?
Probably not.
That energy was somehow bent
off course.
Our fangs were somehow blunted.
I can't help but feel that somewhere
along the line, we lost
our teeth.
So I'm left with the strong feeling
that we need, of necessity,
to rethink all that we know about
postwar history.
Put simply, considering
the limited audiences for my film,
it's not just that the Japanese have
lost their energy, but rather
it's evidence of a certain kind of
postwar process or historical
formation.
It draws the eye.
It calls attention to itself.
I'm left thinking that it's part of
a larger problem.
Given the scale of the problem, I'm
not in a position to casually
suggest a few concrete steps
we can take to resolve it.
But for starters, we must recognize
as fact that our energy
has waned.
Unless we work resolutely to rethink
our way of life, I think
it's unlikely that we will find an
answer.
Yeah, I mean, I guess I would just
say that's why it's been an honor
for me to get to watch all of your--
so many of your films and get to
know your work.
It seems to me that's why it's so
important, and it's been--
I don't think it's just a problem in
Japan. And it's
been an honor to have you here.
And congratulations on your award.
Thank you very
much.
That's it for this edition of Being
Human. This episode was produced by
Noah Livingston, Humanities Media
Fellow at the University of
Pittsburgh.
It was translated and recorded in
English by Charles Exley, professor
of Modern Japanese Literature and
Film at Pitt.
Special thanks to Hitomi Mullen for
interpreting during the interview
and everyone else who helped produce
and review the script.
Stay tuned next time for a special
interview with Somali novelist
Nuruddin Farah.
Thanks for listening.

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Title
We Have No Choice but to Be Angry: An Interview with Kazuo Hara
Contributor
University of Pittsburgh (depositor)
Hara, Kazuo, 1945- (interviewee)
Kubis, Dan (interviewer)
Date
December 7, 2018
Identifier
20230127-beinghuman-0037
Description
An interview with Kazuo Hara, Japanese documentary filmmaker and winner of the first biennial University of Pittsburgh Japan Documentary Film Award. The interview focuses on Hara's nearly 50 years of documentary filmmaking and the social impact his films have had in Japan and worldwide. Special thanks to Charles Exley, professor of modern Japanese literature and film at Pitt, for translating and recording Hara's responses. And thanks as usual to Noah Livingston, humanities media fellow at Pitt, for his production work.
Extent
29 minutes
Publisher
University of Pittsburgh. Department of English
Type
sound recording-nonmusical
Genre
interviews
Subject
Documentary films--Production and direction
Documentary films--Social aspects
Motion pictures, Japanese
Hara, Kazuo, 1945-
Geographic Subjects
Japan
Source
Being Human
Language
eng
Collection
Being Human Podcast Recordings
Contributor
University of Pittsburgh
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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University of Pittsburgh

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We Have No Choice but to Be Angry: An Interview with Kazuo Hara

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