Uploaded 1 July 1999

Open any Japanese book on documentary, and the “theory” of Paul Rotha will be singled out as one of the most influential bodies of thought in the history of Japanese cinema. While there were translations of all the major Western film theorists, from Münsterberg to Eisenstein, it is safe to say that none of their writing was as fiercely contested and discussed as Rotha. No other theorist or critic had more impact on actual film practice or underwent as much “processing.” Rotha’s influence in Japan may surprise the Western reader. Upon the release of Documentary Film (1935) it was widely read throughout Europe and America, particularly within the educational film movement. However, it was seen largely as a promotion of British documentary at the time – hardly a theoretical “Bible.” [1]

His place in Euro-American history is basically as one of the central filmmakers of the British school, as a writer, and occasionally as Grierson’s antagonist. Despite Euro-American film studies’ renewed interest in documentary, one rarely if ever hears Rotha’s name invoked. Even book-length histories of the British documentary movement note Documentary Film only in passing. This would undoubtedly shock Japanese filmmakers and scholars, as Japanese books about film theory and history mention Rotha’s name in the same breath as Eisenstein, Balasz, Pudovkin, Arnheim, Münsterberg, Moholy-Nagy, and Vertov! Imamura Taihei’s 1952 overview of film theory puts Rotha in the privileged position of his final chapter – the author poses with Documentary Film for his portrait (see Figure 1) – and Rotha’s prestige has hardly weakened in the intervening years. [2]

Thus, in 1960 Atsugi offered a completely revised translation of Rotha’s 1952 expanded version. This in turn was reprinted in 1976 and 1995. [3]

Ironically, judging from his own papers Rotha himself appears to have had no idea how powerful he was in Japan, an indication that while we may speak of Rotha’s “influence,” something was happening in Japan that was quite disconnected from larger currents of film theorization. [4]

This apparent imbalance may be partially explained by returning to the time when Rotha’s book arrived in Japan in the latter half of the 1930s, an opportune moment if there ever was one. Japan was escalating its invasion of China, especially with the 1937 China Incident. On the homefront, the government ensured the war reached into the daily lives of citizens everywhere, drawing on young men for cannon fodder and increasingly controlling “appropriate” behavior. Police pressure, including mass arrests, imprisonment and occasional torture, had shut down the noisy left by mid-decade. Most progressive intellectuals underwent ideological conversion to a rabid nationalism and an often racist nativism. Those who refused this course quietly retreated underground or disguised their thoughts in carefully chosen language when in public. At the very same time, the government placed elaborate strictures on filmmaking, ranging from intricate censorship mechanisms to nationalizing entire sectors of the industry. This culminated with the 1939 Film Law which mandated the forced screening of nonfiction films, or the so-called bunka eiga / “culture film”. Along with the pressures of continental warfare, this legislation propelled documentary to a level of prestige comparable to the fiction film. Film journals were filled with articles attempting to theorize a documentary practice appropriate for the times, and included essays by intellectuals as disparate as Hasegawa Nyozekan, Tosaka Jun, Kamei Katsuichirô, and Nakai Masakazu. In this atmosphere, the appearance of Rotha’s Documentary Film -especially its 1938 translation – electrified the film world, and was greeted with the respect afforded the most authoritative of theoretical systems. This intense interest eventually filtered into filmmaking itself, allowing Rotha to leave a mark on the history of Japanese cinema that few theorists ever achieve anywhere, anytime.

But why Rotha? And by extension, what did his writing mean in wartime Japan? A hint at the answer lies in the title itself — “Documentary film”. The manner in which this was translated immediately alerts us to the political ramifications of the translation act, and suggests the exceeding complexity of these questions. A variety of words were circulating in the Japanese film world to designate nonfiction filmmaking:  jissha eiga, kiroku eiga, nyûsu eiga, dokyumentarii eiga, and the like. However, the 1938 edition appeared with language on the cover that may or may not be a mistranslation: “Bunka eiga-ron,”or “On culture film.” First, the suffix ron/”argument, discourse” appended to the title could also render a reverse-translation as Documentary Film Theory. This may have given Rotha’s thought a heft we do not feel when reading the original English text. Second, an intertext for the bunka eiga is the kulturfilm of UFA in Germany. These were primarily science films, however, upon their successful Japanese release some critics began using the term for a variety of nonfiction films by Japanese filmmakers. The word begins to appear in Japanese texts as early as 1933, and all documentary came under the rubric of “bunka eiga” with the 1939 Film Law. Although most readers knew the word dokyumentarii eiga / “documentary film,” the translator chose to use bunka eiga, which was strongly connected to propaganda filmmaking by the time Rotha’s book appeared. Many of Rotha’s contemporary critics pointed out the ambiguity of the film genre to which this title points. Few, however, noted that it firmly inserted Rotha’s thought into the discourse raging around the terms of the new Film Law. The translation of Rotha roughly coincided with the announcement of plans for these detailed government regulations over the film industry, and amidst the fervent discussion about the new meaning and direction for nonfiction film Rotha’s cheerleading for the documentary found an enthusiastic audience. In one sense, this would appear to sell out Rotha to a radically opposed politics; however, I argue it could also be seen as an attempt on the part of the translator to quietly shift the terms of the Japanese documentary debate in a certain direction. Thus, the short answer to the question above is that Rotha’s book meant many things indeed.

The long answer is that because of this slipperiness, a curious situation arose in which Rotha’s book appealed equally to the entire political spectrum, with all debate participants claiming Rotha’s thought to different ends. This article will examine precisely this struggle over meaning over multiple levels. However, to root out the most important issues underlying this discourse we must look to an arena less obvious than the film magazines, that is, the media through which Rotha’s thought came to be known: translation.

Consider this relatively obvious example: the 1938 edition mistranslates “Worker’s revolution” with the more innocuous “rodôsha katsudô,” or “worker’s activities” to return the term to English. [5]

Only in the postwar revision did the proper translation appear:” rodôsha kakumei.” [6]

The reason is unambiguous; this was a dangerous term in 1939, and a text containing it would never pass censorship review. Authors, translators and publishers had been deflecting such trouble with authorities for nearly a decade by printing obvious synonyms and even substituting problematic words with XX’s (called fuseji). Readers knew the protocol; when they came across fuseji or ambiguous words, they could read past them at the original meanings. The first edition of Documentary Film is sprinkled with many examples such as this, but analysis of such simple instances of intentional mistranslation will only get us so far. This is because, first, as the example above suggests there were entire communities of readers who were forced to conceal their true relationship to the book, and second, everyone knew the translator’s command of English was dubious at best because it became one of the issues raised in the debates. [7]

We must dig far deeper into the issue of translation to appreciate the complexity of the highly politicized discourses circulating around Rotha’s original text upon its insertion into the Japanese linguistic world. After all, this is the medium through which Rotha came to be known in Japan; very few filmmakers and critics could read English well enough to take the original into hand. Furthermore, shifting our analysis from simplistic notions of (one-way) “influence” to the site of translation brings an array of larger issues into focus. For example, looking at the sheer volume of translation reveals much about the relationship between cultures (it follows that a lack of translation activity indicates a discourse stuck in an unhealthy short-circuit of desire). When bringing texts from one language to another the translator’s approach to language and meaning is inseparable from larger historical and ideological currents in the target language. This new linguistic and cultural context often impinges upon the translation, while having little to do with the original text itself. In this situation, where competing translations circulated amongst overlapping readerships, a struggle over authority occurs -after all, can there be a more powerful position over cross-cultural discourse than that of the translator? We must look at the qualities of a given translation, and ask who the translator is, what her relationship is with the original text, the author, and the larger communities of readers. These are all key factors in the relationship to the other. From this perspective the difference between translation theory and documentary film theory is very slim indeed, as both fields involve representations weighed by a debt to an “original,” whether it be the source text or The World.

Documentary Film enters the Japanese linguistic world

Originally, this book was read by Japan’s preeminent prewar film theorist, Imamura Taihei, who passed it on to Dômei Tsûshin’s Kuwano Shigeru, and the book surged into the film community from there. [8]

At one point, it came into the hands of Atsugi Taka, one of the first female filmmakers in Japanese cinema. Atsugi originally came to filmmaking as a leading member of the Nippon puroretaria eiga dômei (Proletarian film league of Japan), or Prokino for short. After the breakup of Prokino in 1934 under police pressure, Atsugi began writing film criticism and translating foreign film theory. She was also one of the dôjin producing the early film theory journal Eiga sôzô, along with other former Prokino members. This gave her concrete links to Yuibutsu kenkyûkai (Materialism study society, or Yuiken), a group of leftist intellectuals organized by philosopher Tosaka Jun. [9]

Atsugi even wrote a review article in their Yuibutsuron kenkyû, probably the first mention of Paul Rotha’s Documentary Film in print. In the late 1930s, Atsugi began a long career in documentary screenwriting, working for PCL, Toho, and Geijutsu eigasha (GES). This afforded her the chance to bring Rotha’s theory into practice. Above and beyond her own filmmaking activities, Atsugi’s most influential project was a translation of Paul Rotha’s Documentary Film, which she translated at the request of her PCL supervisor; he was moving to JO Studios to become head of production, and wanted to use the book as a text book for study groups. Atsugi had been reading the English original, and was glad to use the translation as an excuse to finish the book. She published the first edition in the fall of 1938. [10]

The translation had an enormous impact, and went into second and third printings within a year. [11]

The book’s influence spread in the late 1930s as critics debated Rotha’s terms and their implications for documentary filmmaking, often offering their own translations of the original in their quotations. Soon an alternative translation by Ueno Ichirô appeared in Eiga kenkyû, a film studies series put out by the magazine Eiga hyôron. [12]

There were study groups devoted to Rotha’s book in the production companies and film studios. It was said to have been considered the documentary filmmaker’s “Bible” at Toho, whose Kyoto studio actually circulated its own handwritten, mimeographed translation within the company. [13]

Before Atsugi’s translation appeared the original English-language book was even used for English practice at JO Studios. [14]

About the same time, the original text came into the hands of Ômura Einosuke and Ishimoto Tôkichi, and their reading of eigasha. Thanks to Rotha’s ideas, the company’s early films, such as Snow Country and Train C57, strove to surpass the usual public relations film and bring documentary to a new, independent level[15]

Geijutsu Eigasha’s own film journal, Bunka eiga, published enthusiastic debates over Rotha’s book, as did most of the other serious film publications.

One of the major responses to the Rotha translation involved a knee-jerk reaction to his disdain for the “story-film” which “threatens to stifle all other methods of cinema” and “tends to become an anesthetic instead of a stimulant.” [16]

The most vociferous of these critics displayed a near uncontrollable anger. For example, in his book-length, bibliographic survey of film literature, Okuda Shinkichi passes Rotha off with a flourish: “I -and others – can only recognize [The Documentary Film] as a little like drawing water for one’s own field [i.e., self-serving]. Above all, his rejection of the feature film, and explanation making documentary the main path for cinema is clearly ridiculous; even as a theory of art, it never exceeds shallow abstraction.” [17]

The most scathing attack on Rotha came from Tsumura Hideo, who sarcastically wrote,

Put a different way, Rotha’s book is extremely heroic and vigorous. He praises documentary based on materialist socialism as the most valuable cinema of tomorrow. In contrast to that, it pulverizes the fiction film into dust, with writing like vicious gossip. The way it attacked fiction film was extremely rough with ideological tricks. I confess that this is one of the reasons which gave me the courage to criticize Paul Rotha. [18]

This now famous attack provoked a response from Takagiba Tsutomu, who ran Toho’s Shinjuku news film theater and was a frequent essayist on documentary film. Takagiba humorously rewrote Tsumura’s article, substituting “Tsumura” for “Rotha” to turn the attack back on the Japanese critic. [19]

However well this strategy neutralized Tsumura’s critique, it did not address the key issues: that Rotha’s definition of “fiction” in documentary was less than clear, and that the book was less a theory of documentary film than a specious promotion of government cultural policy. There is a grain of truth to their accusations against Rotha – his arrogance, his self-promotion of the English documentary, and faith in government sponsorship – but the critical debate which actually affected Japanese filmmaking practice was over the problem of “fiction” in documentary.

The most tempered discussion of this issue was offered by Kubota Tatsuo in Bunka eiga no hôhôron (“The methodology of the culture film,” 1940). This was one of the more serious attempts to explore the phenomenon of the bunka eiga. Although he came out of production (Shochiku’s Kyoto studios), Kubota was very well read. He draws on the writing of Münsterberg, Arnheim, Balasz, Eisenstein, and most other major theorists to that point. But the book is ultimately a disappointment. Kubota’s aesthetic agenda centered on expunging any influence of the avant-garde from documentary, positioning the bunka eiga with a hard and fast opposition between fiction film / “sensitivity” (kansai) versus science film / “intellect” (chisei). [20]

Unfortunately, this colors his discussion of Rotha as well. Kubota had originally intended to structure his entire book around The Documentary Film, a measure of Rotha’s prestige and influence over the very conception of nonfiction filmmaking. In the end, he wisely saved the discussion of Rotha for the final chapter. After his careful discussion of the avant-garde, Kubota warns readers that while Rotha has his good points, his vague definition of “dramatization,” bolstered as it is by questionable examples such as Pabst’s Kameradschaft (1931), could lead documentary to stray too completely into the world of fiction.

This represents one typical brand of discussion which was occurring in all sectors of the Japanese documentary world. In actuality, the relatively innocent looking debates about Rotha’s conceptions of “fictionality” and “actuality” veiled struggles over documentary’s function in Japanese society. The written record on this score is decidedly one-sided. Rotha proposed a nationally sponsored documentary film committed to the enlightenment and unification of the citizenry, precisely the kind of cinema necessary for a country deeply imbricated in foreign warfare. However, under the restrictive circumstances of 1930s Japan, many other important perspectives went unrecorded. This aspect of Rotha’s appeal – especially his apparent sympathies for socialism – necessarily had to be concealed from the public sphere; restricted to private discussion, this body of discourse never appeared in the written record, posing a battery of problems for the historian. There are, however, traces remaining which provide access to these the hidden spaces, and in the remaining sections of this essay we will explore their furthest reaches.

Footnotes:

[1] See Iris Barry, Review of Documentary Film, Saturday review (12 August 1939), which discusses how people are nervous about Rotha’s politics and his immodest pontification. Also Frank Evans, “How the film can help democracy,” Evening Chronicle (Newcastle on Tyne), (12 May 1939), a book review that discusses only documentary’s social function (nothing on style). Also see Elizabeth Laine, “About documentary films,” Transcript (Boston), (10 June 1939);” Documentary Film,” The Times (11 August 1939); “Documentary Film,” Lady (3 August 1939).
[2] Imamura’s book contains the best Japanese overview of Rotha. In contrast to the wartime debates, its reasoned, over-all critique reveals how narrowly the discussion was focused in 1940. This suggests how other issues were at stake besides the one explicitly on the table in 1938. Imamura Taihei, Eiga riron nyûmon (“Introduction to film theory”), (Tokyo: Itagaki Shoten, 1952), 184.
[3]  Rotha, Paul, Dokyumentarii eiga (“Documentary film”), Revised and expanded ed., trans. Atsugi Taka (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobô, 1960). Rotha, Paul, Dokyumentarii eiga (“Documentary film”), Revised and expanded ed., trans. Atsugi Taka (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobô, 1976). Rotha, Paul, Dokyumentarii eiga (“Documentary film”), Refurbished ed., trans. Atsugi Taka (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1995). The 1960 edition involved a fairly extensive revision of the translation itself, although this translation has its own problems. The 1995 outing is billed as a “refurbished edition” (shinsôban), but the only apparent difference is a new color on the jacket.
[4] Nothing in his personal files suggests he knew what the Japanese thought of his work. Quite the opposite, he clearly shared fears about the menace Japan posed to the West. In a letter to Eric Knight written at the height of his prestige in Japan, Rotha wrote, “I agree that the sooner America sees her immediate danger the better and that now more than ever is the time to come into this business . . . She actually (it sounds) trying to appease the Japs which seems odd after all the examples of appeasement she’s had before her [sic]. I agree with all your beliefs about the cementing of the English speaking peoples – at least that would be a beginning basis for reconstruction.” Paul Rotha, Letter to Eric Knight, dated 28 August 1941 (2001 Box 26, Paul Rotha Collection, UCLA). After the war (in the 1960s, from the look of the paper and adjacent documents), in a statement written to someone in Japan Rotha wrote, “One day, perhaps, if I am still alive, I will come to visit to the land of Hokusai and Kurosawa and Ozu.” (No mention of any Japanese documentarists, let alone his translation by Atsugi.) Paul Rotha, Undated letter to Japan. (2001 Box 82, Folder 3, Paul Rotha Collection, UCLA).
[5] Rotha, trans. Atsugi (1938), 108.
[6] Rotha, trans. Atsugi (1960), 68.
[7] In her postwar autobiography, her embarrassment for rushing the translation prematurely to print is clear. Atsugi Taka, Josei dokyumentarisuto no kaisô (“Reminiscences of a female documentarist”), (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1991), 103-105.
[8] Okamoto Masao, Bunka eiga jidai + Jûjiya Eigabu no hitobito (“The era of culture film and Jûjiya’s film unit”), (Tokyo: Unitsûshin, 1996), 62-63.
[9] Atsugi also married Yuiken philosopher Mori Kôichi.
[10] Paul Rotha, Bunka eigaron (“On culture film”), 1st Japanese ed., trans. Atsugi Taka (Kyoto: Daiichi Geibunsha, 1938). The original volume is: Paul Rotha, Documentary Film (London: Faber and Faber, 1935).
[11] Paul Rotha, Bunka eigaron (“On culture film”), 3rd Japanese ed., trans. Atsugi Taka (Kyoto: Daiichi Geibunsha, 1939).
[12] Paul Rotha, “Bunka eigaron josetsu” (“Introduction to On culture film”), trans. Ueno Ichirô, Eiga kenkyû 1 (Tokyo: Eiga hyôronsha, 1939): 54-84 [covers Chapter I in Rotha’s Documentary Film]; Paul Rotha, “Dokyumentarii no jyakuha to sono shiteki kôsatsu” (“Various groups in documentary and their historical thought”), trans. Ueno Ichirô, Eiga kenkyû 2 (Tokyo: Eiga Hyôronsha, 1939): 50-85 [covers Rotha’s Chapter II]. While there were many reports on the British documentary movement, Ueno probably wrote the best; this study certainly contributed to his translation: Ueno Ichirô, “Eikoku no bunka eiga” (“British culture film”), Eiga kenkyû 1 (Tokyo: Eiga Hyôronsha, 1939): 146-161.
[13] Paul Rotha, “Bunka eigaron” (“On documentary film”), Chôsa shiryô 4 (Kyoto: Toho Kyoto Satsueijo, undated). (Makino Mamoru collection) This mimeographed publication completes the Ueno translation, covering the final Chapter IV.
[14] Makino Mamoru, “Kiroku eiga no rironteki dôkô o otte 41” (“Chasing the theoretical movement of documentary film 41”), Unitsûshin (19 June 1978).
[15] Tanikawa Yoshio, Dokyumentarii eiga no genten – sono shisô to hôhô (“The origins of documentary film – its thought and method”), 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Futosha, 1990), 194-195.
[16] Rotha (1935), 70.
[17] Okuda Shinkichi, Eiga bunkenshi (“The history of film literature”), (Tokyo: Dai Nippon Eiga Kyôkai, 1943), 39.
[18] Tsumura Hideo, “Pôru Rûta no eigaron hihan – sono cho ‘Documentary film’ ni tsuite” (“Criticism of Paul Rotha’s film theory – on that writer’s Documentary Film“), Shineiga 9, no. 12 (November 1939): 17.
[19] Takagiba Tsutomu, “Kyokô no riron – Tsumura Hideo-shi no ‘Pôru Rûta hihan’ o yomu” (“Theory of fiction – reading Tsumura Hideo’s ‘Paul Rotha criticism’”), Bunka eiga kenkyû 3.1 (January 1940): 525-528.
[20] Kubota Tatsuo, Bunka eiga no hôhôron (“The methodology of the culture film”), (Kyoto: Daiichi Geibunsha, 1940).