Iris Haukamp - A foreigners cinematic dream of Japan : representational politics and shadows of war in the Japanese-German coproduction new earth (1937)

A Foreigners Cinematic Dream of Japan

Representational Politics and Shadows of War in the JapaneseGerman Co-production New Earth (1937)

Iris Haukamp

Id rather scale calving icebergs in Greenland or float around on ice-floes than shoot a film here in Japan.

(Arnold Fanck, 02.09.1936)

Contents

Notes

Figures 1.21.6 are by courtesy of the Cinmathque Suisse. Figures 2.1 and 4.2 are in the public domain, as the authors are unknown and the copyright has expired. Figures 6.20 and 6.21 are from the National Film Archive of Japan Collection. All other images are by courtesy of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute Tokyo.

This book is the outcome of over a decade of study, trial and error, and trying to make sense of past events. I am thankful to the many people who gave their generous support during all these years.

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Isolde Standish and Christopher Gerteis for their continuous support, patient guidance and constructive critiques, far beyond their official supervisor roles. And the generous help I received from scholars and colleagues in the field and from various institutions surprised and humbled me. In particular I would like to thank: Tochigi Akira, Irie Yoshiro, Okada Hidenori, Daib Masaki, Kamiya Makiko and Alo Joekalda of the National Film Archive Tokyo; their colleagues in the Filmmuseum Mnchen, Stefan Drler and Gisela Pichler, for invaluable access to their resources; Matthias Fanck for providing me with material about his grandfather and for being open to questions. Wachi Yukiko of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute gave invaluable support for more years than I dare think about. Also Bernd Martin, Okumura Masaru, Klaus Kanzog, Jan-Christopher Horak, Kobayashi Fujiko and the staff of Deutsches Filminstitut Frankfurt, Cinmathque Suisse Genve and Tokyo Laboratory (Tky Genzj) never hesitated to answer minute and seemingly random questions. Karl Sierek kindly provided incredible last-minute support. Finally, thank you to Horie Makoto of the NYK Maritime Museum Yokohama for steamship-sleuthing. I would also like to thank my editor at Bloomsbury, Katie Gallof, for her valuable advice and patience. And many kind thoughts go to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscripts various versions. Thank you for your positive comments, and I am particularly indebted to Reviewer Fives suggestions for restructuring. It caused some sleepless nights but much improved the book.