Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Terada Torahiko

Preface

Films can be classified in various ways according to their purposes of production and use.
There exist categories such as educational films, propaganda films, and newsreels - each permitting further detailed subdivisions.
Yet even films created for these specialized purposes cannot achieve their objectives without possessing artistic value in the broadest sense.
Since all film production in this view still appears to belong to Film Art's expansive domain, we shall here disregard such practical categorizations and consider the matter holistically.

Film is the prodigy born from the marriage between art and science.
Therefore, when discussing film, it would follow proper procedure to provide a general explanation of the scientific foundations of film technology and its principal techniques; however, given the limited space available in this essay, I shall omit all such discussion here.
Yet I believe that assuming most readers already possess basic preparatory knowledge on this matter would likely pose no significant problem.

Incidentally, I wished to remark upon the circumstances that led someone like myself—a mere layman—to presume to take up the pen for this specialized subject in the lecture series. Film Art remains newly born in essence, and regarding its potential—though no small body of literature exists—it seemed to me that infinite possibilities still lay hidden and unexplored. Thus paradoxically, I thought there might be some probability that even from the naive observations of one unversed in such writings, a few useful suggestions could emerge. On another front, I had long regretted how many discourses on film art in our country appeared divorced from Japanese sensibilities to my eye, while theoretical examinations of cinema through our history and national character seemed comparatively scarce. Therefore, I considered it fortunate if I might touch upon even the slightest beginnings of research from that direction.

There was one more matter I needed to clarify: the problem of sound films.
A considerable disparity existed between considering sound films from their very inception and examining those that emerged after passing through what we might term the silent film era.
However, adhering to actual historical progression here, I first intended to consider silent films before separately addressing anew the issues surrounding sound films.

Regarding film, there existed various problems when viewed from both economic and sociological perspectives.
Moreover, these problems could not necessarily be considered separately from issues in Film Art.
However, I had neither the space here to address these crucial points nor was it likely within my purview; therefore, I resolved to omit them entirely without further mention.
This remained regrettable but unavoidable.
Regarding this matter, I wished to recommend reading Béla Balázs’s *The Spirit of Film* (*Béla Balázs: Der Geist des Films*, 1930).
I had been taught the most from these two works: this book and Pudovkin’s renowned *Film Technique*.

The Specificity of Film Art

Let us consider what unique characteristics film as an art possesses compared to various other arts.

Most arts have their prototypes in the dawn of humanity.
Literature has been transmitted as oral narratives since before the invention of writing, and painting and sculpture have left traces on cave walls and the surfaces of excavated artifacts.
Music and dance exist among any barbarian peoples.
In architecture and theater as well, one can likely trace their developmental paths back to a rather gray antiquity.
However vast the distance between Magdalenian cave paintings and Chavannes' murals may be, it could still be said that they are but the inevitable culmination of a single path long traversed.
The same applies to the comparison between Dahomey’s music and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

What about film?
For instance, shadow puppetry performed as parlor entertainment in our country since ancient times, and more advanced forms like Hawaii’s shadow theater did share common ground in being mere playthings of light and shadow.
Moreover, even our country’s ancient picture scrolls could not be said to lack similar elements in being continuous sequences of visual images.
Furthermore, in terms of utilizing the persistence of vision in retinal afterimages, there were similarities to toys like zoetropes and thaumatropes; however, the distinction between these devices and contemporary film—even when considering only silent films—was thought to be not merely a difference in evolutionary stages but rather an essential one.
In the same sense that radio and television did not exist in the past, it could be said that film was something entirely new that never existed before.
For modern precision science essentially contained elements fundamentally different from those of ancient natural philosophy.
It was this completely new scientific-mechanical technology that freely married traditional art before anyone noticed, and the illegitimate child born of this union was none other than today’s Film Art.
Because it was an illegitimate child, in the beginning, the question arose in the father’s world of art whether to acknowledge it as his own.
However, there was likely no one at the time who did not acknowledge it as a splendid legitimate heir.

There was a time when opera was proclaimed as the total art form.
However, the most comprehensive art form today is Film Art.
Painting, sculpture, and architecture are spatial but not temporal; music is temporal but not spatial.
In being both spatial and temporal, dance, theater, and musical drama are similar to film.
Then arises the question of in what points and how these existing spatiotemporal four-dimensional arts differ from film.

First and most distinct was the difference in spatial relationships concerning the relative positions between these visual objects and their audience.
Dance and theater were performed on stages of fixed dimensions while spectators remained bound to their seats.
Consequently their field of view and viewing angles became fixed.
In cinema however，the stage—whether interior，exterior，maritime or desert—could first be freely selected.
The camera’s objective lens then became proxy for viewers’ eyes，moving unrestrained through space to observe subjects from any distance or angle while arbitrarily limiting visual breadth.
Thus audiences ceased being mere spectators，instead invading and immersing themselves within scenes to become performers.
Paradoxically，though theatrical phenomena inherently occupied three-dimensional space，spectators’ fixed positions reduced these visions to mere two-dimensional projections.
Contrastingly，while screen images remained flat planes，the camera’s three-dimensional movements enabled viewers’ eyes—through ocular appropriation—to paradoxically perceive genuine volumetric spatial phenomena.

Among the various possibilities arising from this two-dimensional nature of images lie what we call the diverse techniques of trick photography. Through this, it becomes easy to show things that could never be presented in actual stage performances.

In this way, film can freely control space and, in the same manner, can arbitrarily govern time as well. By merely splicing together fragments of film, they can cut back or flash back to a scene identical in every detail to one that previously appeared at any time they choose. One can instantaneously replace the streets of Tokyo with those of London. By adjusting the filming speed, they can make fast-moving objects appear slow and slow-moving ones appear fast; moreover, if necessary, they can even reverse time to decrease the universe's entropy.

As I have previously elaborated on the analysis of cinema’s worldview in Shisō magazine, I shall not repeat it here again.
However, even from what has been outlined above, one can imagine how freely cinema can wield and control time and space.
In this sense, it can be understood that Film Art is an architectural art that erects its edifice within what might be called a four-dimensional space unifying time and space.
And so, although stage art may at first glance appear similar to this, it will be understood that in reality, it is severely restricted both in the number of dimensions and in the scope of each dimension.
At the same time, it will likely become naturally understood why film can serve as the most expansive vessel for synthetic art.

Given that film art is an architectural art in four-dimensional space, completing it through the hands of a single artist proved exceedingly difficult.
Just as architecture requires the hands of all kinds of workers—from designers to draftsmen—so too did the creation of a single film demand the collaborative labor of so many people that it truly surpassed lay imagination.
Yet this was no disorderly crowd but rather a process that had to be rigorously executed according to detailed charts in an almost mathematical, steel-like organic blueprint.
Moreover, this progression unfolded while being constrained by the figures in parallel economic ledgers.
To elaborate, not only did one need to account for expensive film stock and set construction costs, but even location expenses like train fares, boxed lunches, and cart rentals required budgeting.
When comparing this system—where poets create masterpieces with fountain pens and paper, and painters produce divine works with pigments and canvas—one could not overlook the considerable differences.
The economic and social issues of Film Art originated precisely from this point.

The Formation of Film

Therefore, in considering the question of what film is, I believe it is necessary to first examine the actual process of how films are made before engaging in abstract discussions.

The process through which a film is created may not necessarily be identical depending on era, country, or producer but generally follows these stages.

First comes determining what might be called the story or sujet from that which will form the work's main theme.
This may consist of merely several lines but in any case establishes the content's general outline.
This outline is then developed into a more concrete script—the scenario.
Yet even then filming cannot commence immediately.
A detailed shooting script must first be prepared according to the scenario.
Here not only must filming subjects be selected but also meticulously designed specifications for shooting conditions and methods.
Only after completing this can respective positions for all involved personnel be determined.
Concurrently an exact budget must be formulated.

All processes up to this point constituted the 'analysis' phase.
It was the process of progressively breaking down what was contained within the initial theme into its constituent elements and completing the concrete design of each component.

Once this design was completed, next, these individual parts had to be constructed into reality by workers' hands.
In other words, each and every fragment of each and every shot in every scene was filmed.
The same thing was refilmed over and over until it met the director's approval.
In such cases, it became necessary to capture identical backgrounds or sets at once for convenience, without regard to each shot's position or order within the script.
Just as in architecture, castings were grouped and made separately as castings, and glass pieces as glass pieces.

The work of "synthesis" and "assembly"—putting together these components produced in this manner—now finally began. That is to say, here was where the so-called art of montage—the primary task of the film director as artist—was carried out.

Up to the point of writing a scenario, even an amateur not necessarily versed in film technology—if they had some grasp of “cinematic expression,” that is, the “language of film”—could manage to some extent. This was because that process remained an intermediate stage from literature to film, having only one foot stepped into the realm of cinema. Therefore, for instance, they were permitted to use vague expressions such as “in a poor room” or “filled with joy.” However, this became completely useless when it came time to actually begin filming. “Poverty” had to be translated into the “language of film”—that is, into visual images equivalent to it. For instance, one might have shown a cat sleeping in a sink with its water cut off to express abject poverty, or presented a spring-thawed river surface to convey a pardoned prisoner’s joy—but even if such elaborate techniques were not employed, literary expressions ultimately had to be translated into what we called photogenic and filmic representations.

However, that alone still could not become a film’s shooting script.
One had to determine the number of frames contained in each individual film fragment, its length expressed in meters, or its projection time measured in seconds.
Then one had to determine how many of those fragments would coalesce into a series or episode, calculate their total length, and establish how many such series would constitute the complete work.

In practice, while there may be directors who employ rather loose methods, in principle, unless one follows the organically established path described above, it should be impossible to create an organic film.
It may be possible to create something splendid by proceeding with filming based on so-called “notes scribbled on cuffs,” accumulating a multitude of improvised shots, and then editing selected cuts through montage; however, due to economic considerations, such a carefree method cannot be permitted everywhere and at all times.

Even from what has been discussed thus far, it should be evident that film production requires a rather meticulous analytical mind and complex constructive talent.
It is by no means work that one takes up as the result of an indulgent pastime.

The process conducted before transitioning from "analysis" to "synthesis" was that of "selection."

All art was ultimately said to be the art of selection.
The materials becoming an artist’s medium and the resources for their expression lay scattered before our very eyes in daily life.
The first step lay in what one discovered and extracted from among them; the second lay in how one selected the method of expression.
Even for film artists, it was exactly the same—it might be said that what determined a film’s value lay entirely in selecting filmic materials and their filmic methods of expression.
Where did one find visual representatives for “poverty” or “joy”? At what distance, from what angle, under what lighting should they be filmed across how many meters of film? Where in the entire work should these be placed? Should one use fade-ins and fade-outs, adjust the aperture, or employ superimposition?
Through these choices, effects could differ as vastly as clouds and mud.

To determine what filming of which materials would be effective, the filmmaker needed to possess the "camera’s eye." When Pudovkin attempted to film an actual dynamite explosion to depict a blast scene but found it utterly lacking in intensity, he experimentally combined torches billowing thick black smoke with magnesium flashes, and even inserted footage of an unrelated nearby river that happened to be available. To his surprise, this produced a remarkably effective result—creating an explosion that felt far more explosively authentic than the real thing. Furthermore, Eisenstein filmed a baby carriage rolling down stairs to convey the cruelty of the massacre at the harbor pier.

"Just as sculptors think through marble and bronze," filmmakers must first and foremost think through and select with camera and film."

The same applied to the selection of actors.
A great stage actor was not necessarily a great film actor.
In Russian films, ordinary peasants appeared as first-rate actors.
Even in American-style star films, the screen’s effect was heightened or diminished depending on the selection of extras who only occasionally appeared on screen.

Selecting a single forest or marsh to serve as a background might sometimes require many days and travel expenses, while choosing one pair of old boots could necessitate patiently combing through shabby crowds of beggars.

Once filming of these selected analytical elements was completed, a second-stage selection process was then conducted.
This was what constituted the so-called selection process from the perspective of montage - where these elements were edited to form a unified whole.

Within the many film reels shot according to the general plot were contained numerous wasteful elements.
There were failed takes and retakes, as well as extra bounty captured through on-set inspiration during filming.
Therefore, through inspection of the used film’s negatives, the significant task of selecting the portions that should actually be printed as positives and projected commenced there.
In the example provided by Timoshenko, six thousand meters of negative film were consumed to produce eighteen hundred meters of positive projection film.
Only thirty percent of what was used ultimately proved useful.
This had to be acknowledged as an exceptionally rigorous selection.
However, it appeared that what ultimately determined the value of the final completed work would indeed hinge upon the rigorousness of this last selection.

In short, cinema is the art of cutting.
For example, comparing Josef von Sternberg’s *The Blue Angel* screenplay with the completed work reveals how much was excised (apart from the cuts made by domestic censorship).
How much film Chaplin squandered in shooting a single scene of his *City Lights* becomes evident even from a cursory reading of Egon Erwin Kisch’s visit chronicle.

The selective cutting conducted in this manner was needless to say a cutting for the editing that followed and a processing for structural composition.
It was an art of cutting no different from using scissors to arrange flowers in a vase.

As the final decisive process in film creation, the technique of editing will be discussed in a separate section below.

Film Editing Process

The work of montage lies in selecting effective elements from piles of negatives and determining how to connect them.

Although it may have been the Pudovkin school that first extracted the term "montage" and consciously emphasized its significance, the fact that montage could essentially be substituted with the commonplace word "editing" without major issues can also be inferred from how Pudovkin's works use the English equivalent "editing" in their translations.
Moreover, this author uses the unremarkable phrase “Handling of Materials” for the chapter title discussing montage, then establishes subcategories beneath it such as “compositional montage,” “scene (shot) montage,” and “episodic (episode) montage.”

As an editing method that constructs films from cinematic materials, montage had undoubtedly been practiced since the dawn of cinema; however, in early films—whether simply showing waves lapping at the shore or slavishly reproducing stage acts—it rarely posed significant artistic challenges.
Yet the filmmaking method that emerged precisely when cinema broke free from its status as mere moving pictures—a simple replication technology—gained awareness of its unique domain, and was recognized as a new creative medium, was none other than this montage.
It might well be described as cinema's artistic editing method.
Before this term gained currency, the various original and effective techniques implemented by figures like America's Griffith and France's Gance ultimately provided pioneering examples of montage.

However, once the content of this term came to be analyzed in detail and various forms such as "parallel montage" and "metaphorical montage" became distinguished, theoretical discussions of these montages began to proliferate.
For example, in his *The Dialectics of Film*, Eisenstein critiqued the foundational concepts of montage theory advanced by Pudovkin and others, proposed a dialectical montage theory to replace them, and further sought to produce works based on this framework.
However, these attempts of his were also criticized by one faction as having lapsed into formalism and symbolism.

However, while such debates may hold importance for film theorists and particularly from the perspective of Soviet national policy, they hold little significance for general film viewers.
For us, what matters most is that the film engages.
It is crucial that one can watch eight or ten reels without growing bored, and vital to be deeply impressed by both the whole and its details afterward.
For this, there must be something that captures human hearts across the world, irrespective of ideological education.
And it must hold true equally for Russians, French, and Japanese alike.
If so, then we might reasonably imagine this element was not first invented with cinema, but rather governed by principles already existing in all other arts—at least in essence.
Indeed, when reading montage discourses by Pudovkin, Eisenstein, or Balázs, one finds that by appropriately replacing their surface-level concrete elements *mutatis mutandis*, they become almost entirely applicable to other artistic fields.
This is rather natural.
For in analyzing, selecting, and organizing themes, there must be elements common to all arts.

First, let us consider a nearby example—the art of flower arrangement.
In this case, there may be no easily verbalized "theme" as such, but it is precisely because of a hidden theme within the flower arranger’s subconscious that a vase of flowers comes to be arranged.
As the "words" to express that theme, flowers and a vase are chosen.
The flowers, after being cut with scissors, undergo spatial montage.
In this case, when arranging cowpea, Patrinia flowers, and bellflower in a bamboo cylinder through the spatial montage of these materials—apart from the mental images each material individually expresses—an entirely different entity emerges from their juxtaposition.
Eisenstein, rather than viewing this as a mere combination or accumulation of two elements—what he called the narrative principle—appears to have sought to recognize a dynamic principle wherein the collision between two elements generates and detonates ideas.
However, from the perspective of viewers like us, whether it be harmonious blending and mutual enhancement or clashing opposition and mutual negation, there seems to be no essential difference in their phenomenal nature beyond the author’s subjectivity, resulting in little disparity in outcome.
In essence, it ultimately lies in what Eisenstein calls visual overtones—or rather, what should be termed visual combination tones.
What arises from this combination no longer belongs to the realm of mere “flowers” but to an entirely different dimensional world—and moreover, it can only be manifested through the montage of those two or three flowers.
It is precisely through this that cowpea, Patrinia flowers, bellflower, and a bamboo cylinder arranged by someone on a particular day can coalesce into a singular artistic creation—a montage-like vision.

This applied not only to flower arrangement but equally to landscape gardening. Even the simple act of placing several stones across a sand-covered flat garden could generate—through the rhythm of their spatial montage—a grand poem articulated in the language of stones, one achievable solely through stones themselves. From even a single ukiyo-e print we might discern diverse montage techniques. While Eisenstein specifically isolated Sharaku’s portraits to expound on antagonistic montage through emphasized facial elements, we could nevertheless identify distinctive compositional methods characteristic of Hiroshige’s landscapes, Hokusai’s vistas, or Utamaro’s beauties alike. Those series revealing Mount Fuji peeking from within a barrel or miniatured behind massive trees constituted, so to speak, montage sequences employing Fuji as their leitmotif.

In this sense, what might be termed one of cinema's prototypes would be the category of picture scrolls.
This not only possesses spatial qualities but also draws closer to cinema through its temporal aspects.
Consider *Dōjōji Engi*—a theme containing what becomes its content: a grotesque, erotic, and religious narrative.
The picture scroll painter must craft a scenario from this story.
They must first determine how to "introduce" the hero and heroine, how many scenes should divide the entire work, and what formative visual materials to use in each individual scene.
That is to say, they must translate the tale into the "language of montage images."
This creative process would share significant similarities with that of a film director.
In Dōjōji's case, one might say there exists a compositional style fundamentally rooted in the "chase sequences" that became routine in early cinema.

In film, there were cases where what were called dissolves (fade-outs and fade-ins) were used when transitioning from one scene to the next.
In picture scrolls, the hazy atmospheres of clouds, water, forests, and mountains served this purpose instead.
In some instances, the end of one scene and the beginning of another might have appeared in overlapping form across the upper and lower sections of the paper surface, separated by clouds and mist.
Though I cannot cite a suitable example at hand, it would likely have been possible to identify various montage-like techniques within these picture scrolls—such as "contrast," "metaphor," "parallelism," and "simultaneity."

It is an interesting fact that even something equivalent to film subtitles is written in some picture scrolls.

A single frame of a picture scroll is, so to speak, static.
It is only through the rhythm of transition from that static single frame to the next that a dynamic effect arises.
However, even in film, works like Dovzhenko’s *Earth* frequently employed montage composed predominantly of static shots.
In the famous urban bombardment scene from *Potemkin*, even what appeared as a stone lion standing up and roaring was in fact nothing more than a combination of three stone lions filmed at three different locations.

Given that even the rhythmic arrangement of static elements could generate remarkably dynamic overtones, it stood to reason that combining dynamic elements would naturally give rise to effects of an even higher dimension. For example, the depiction of the storm appearing in the final reel of *Asia no Arashi* exemplified this.

Conversely, inept montage could produce something static that induced audience yawns through monotonous and insipid accumulation of dynamic images. Clumsy swordplay choreography would be an example of this.

Eisenstein argued that all elements of Japanese culture were inherently montage-like, stating that even Japanese characters—for instance, combining "mouth" (口) and "dog" (犬) to form "bark"—were constructed through such principles. He further interpreted Kabuki through the concept of "decomposed acting," explaining how performers' separately executed movements of the head and limbs became montage-combined.
It is said that this method found application in the recently released *Jinsei Annai*'s depiction of Korika’s mother’s death.

He also discussed tanka and haikai, stating they were “ideograms replaced by phraseology,” and by citing several haiku examples, argued that their structure constituted montage composition.

I had previously noted in journals such as Shisō and Shibugaki that the structure of haikai linked verse bore remarkable similarity to film's montage-like composition.
When I later read Eisenstein's theories, I experienced both the pleasure of intellectual resonance and regret that he had made no mention whatsoever of linked verse.
This was likely because he possessed no true understanding of haikai linked verse.

Film and Linked Verse

Among all arts, that which most closely approaches film in its dynamic compositional method would likely be haikai linked verse.

The so-called opening verse already contained within itself a montage-like composition of mental images.
However, each individual added verse in kasen-style linked verse was both a montage build and one of its "cells."
Of course, each one of them constituted a single picture.
Yet merely arranging those pictures did not generate the kinetic sensation of linked verse.
When Bashō stated, "Consider kasen as thirty-six steps—not one retreating backward—where spiritual transformation arises solely from this forward-moving intent as one progresses," this dynamic "movement" existed exclusively in the transitional process between verses.

This montage-like method of transition was precisely the technique of linking added verses—expressed through what might be called Eastern metaphorical terms like scent, resonance, status, and shadow—but these were ultimately nothing more than classifications of stylistic patterns governing how two latent mental images attached to each pair of connected verses formed their chain-like relationships.
For instance, one linked “shattering silver earthenware on the veranda at dusk” with “behold the slender sword being drawn.”
This linking method was described as “striking to resonate,” but if one were to imagine applying these two shots in succession within a film scene, the impression given to the audience would undoubtedly have mirrored that very resonance.
For example: “Explosion.”
“Where lay any essential difference when compared to the chain of ‘A stone gate trembles’ followed by ‘The stone lion awakens, roars, and leaps up’?”
Between the montage that paired “Behold this desperate death frenzy!” with “In azure skies hangs the bright moon at dawn’s break,” and the juxtaposition that followed an image of a prisoner presented with a pardon by showing “A spring thaw river”—though their emotional tones differed, how much difference truly existed in their technique?

There exists a conventional technique often used in film as a means of transition, also referred to as the grafting-like linking method. For instance, they might overlap a phonograph disc with an attendance register’s disc, or dissolve from a hand clutching a crumpled handkerchief to one arranging white roses. Another variation shows an indoor trunk transforming into one resting on a train luggage rack. However, in linked verse, similar techniques were frequently employed. Take for example: “A monk, slightly chilled, returns to the temple—or does he?” In “The monkey handler’s monkey and autumn’s moon enduring through time,” the monk’s figure overlaps transitionally into the handler’s simian charge.

In film, first show a crowd, then move the camera closer to extract the hero from within it, and project him in close-up to "introduce" him.
In linked verse as well, for example, "At Suwa’s hot springs at dusk, crowded with visitors" followed by "Among them, a tall mountain bush clover" employs precisely this technique.

In film, a special effect is achieved through parallel montage of events occurring simultaneously in separate locations.
The added verse "spreading out broad leaves where mochi is made" links to the preceding verse "the idle noon of playing go with a parent."
It presents a parallel between the father and son in the parlor and the mother and daughter-in-law in the kitchen, where hands placing go stones overlap with those arranging oak leaves.
Through the montage of these two scenes, we are made to tangibly experience the household’s atmosphere as a unified whole.

What replaces each shot composed of optical images in film is, in linked verse, a long or short phrase constructed from tangible mental images. Through the rhythm of their montage, these constituent elements trace waves that are at times rapid, at others gentle—generating what might be termed a musical progression.

A single film shot should be likened not to an isolated musical note but to an entire melody. The relationship forged between shots through montage constitutes a form of contrapuntal interplay. From the contrapuntal combination of each element in the preceding shot with those in the subsequent one emerges a complex composite effect. In linked verse precisely this principle holds true—the preceding verse and added verse derive their existential value solely through serving as contrapuntal elements within a chain of mental imagery.

In this manner, the progression of linked verse's movement resembled, to a certain degree, the structure of a musical composition such as a sonata.
As I had previously elaborated on this comparison in the pages of Shibugaki magazine, I omitted it here; however, exactly the same could be said of film's rhythmic organization.
Thus, the Eastern montage techniques known as jo-ha-kyū or termed kishōtenketsu all found their isomorphic counterparts within the rhythmic principles of film editing.

In essence, the crucial point of these montages lay in how subconscious interaction beneath the threshold of two mental images generated something new there—something comparable to a "chemical compound" formed from the two elements.

What connected only at consciousness' upper threshold amounted to nothing more than a static image.
So-called over-linked verses ultimately split a single verse into two without achieving true "movement".
Similarly in film, no matter how long a monotonous chanbara scene continued, it ultimately functioned as just one shot.
By contrast, even when repeating monotonous images above consciousness' threshold, an accelerating emotional current flowing beneath would unwittingly draw audiences along.
For example, *Under the Roofs of Paris* showed a street singer playing accordion and singing.
The singer and audience reappeared repeatedly.
Yet through clever rhythmic montage, a single conflict gradually developed and intensified in the audience's subconscious depths.
The same film's alternating montage between a dancing protagonist and stalking villain followed identical principles.
This guided reactions arising from two images' contact according to their natural rhythm.
Only when montage rhythm resonated with audience expectation could maximum effect emerge—precisely as in music.

In this way, the connection of film frames and the linking of linked verse phrases acquired dynamic significance only when conducted below the level of consciousness.
For instance, even if water lilies floating on the surface appeared at first glance to be scattered haphazardly, beneath the water’s surface they were connected by a single root.

From each conscious concrete image extended countless roots beneath the threshold of consciousness; each of those roots connected with the roots of many other concrete images.
In this way, all phenomena throughout the cosmos were interconnected through an infinitely complex network of endlessly multifaceted associations.
Even just the connecting roads from A to B existed in infinite numbers.
Among those pathways existed national highways and byways, as well as paths well-trodden by people and those less traveled.
Therefore, when an audience was shown image B immediately after image A, in that instant they perceived—as if illuminated by lightning—the mental image of the pathway between A and B that they habitually traversed.

For montage in film and linked verse to achieve universal effect, it was necessary that the "pathways" the creator attempted to present be national highways and prefectural roads. When this was not achieved, the creator fell into self-satisfied assumptions, making it difficult to gain understanding from general audiences.

Film and Dream

When we consider the above, we are naturally led to a comparison between film and dream.

The diverse mental images that appear in dreams may at first glance seem a bizarre and seemingly disconnected inorganic series of fragments, yet according to psychoanalysts, if one translates those fragments into the latent content they symbolize, such dreams become coherent organic texts that lay bare the terrifying secrets of our inner lives.
However, in the case of dreams, it is said that because these manifest images symbolizing the "dream content" are not universal but determined solely by people's personal histories, they become difficult to interpret.

In both film and linked verse, beneath each manifest image there existed an abundance of latent content.
It was said that montage's secret lay in this method of composing sentences through the language of latent content.

As I had previously elaborated on this comparison in Shibugaki magazine regarding the psychology of dreams and linked verse, I will omit it here.
And what was discussed there could almost entirely apply unchanged to film montage without issue.
Be that as it may—after presenting this theory—in Close-Up,
while examining Volume 7 Issue 2,I encountered an article by one C.J.Pennethorne Hughes discussing parallels between film and dreams that caught my interest.
It described phenomena like dreams lacking color or flocks of sheep transforming into troops of soldiers before one’s eyes.
He further noted how just as dreams realize suppressed desires,cinephiles become millionaires beyond reality’s reach,live impossible romances,and achieve unattainable feats through film viewing.
This too struck me as an intriguing viewpoint.
Undoubtedly,cineplex popularity stems most intimately from precisely this connection.

The reason film and linked verse exhibited marked differences in their overall forms despite being nearly identical in the montage of connecting two individual fragments lay in the distinction between what was called logical coherence and its absence.
While many films possessed at least a superficially logical plotline, the thirty-six verses of a renga sequence lacked any such narrative thread.
Moreover, even in film, works such as *Berlin* presented no overarching narrative whatsoever.
Man Ray’s *Sea Urchins* likewise depicted no events, but through stimulating associative activity connected to this marine animal, “landscapes undulating in the haze of yearning, painfully irrepressible erotic visions, and rare kaleidoscopic play of forms discernible only as faint shadows grew from within each viewer through irrational necessity.”
(Balázs’s *The Spirit of Film*
p. 115).

However, in these absolute films, the entirety was at least summarized by themes such as *Berlin* and *Sea Urchins*. However, there were also those that were not so simple. When we came to the non-realistic film titled *Un Chien Andalou* (Ōraisha edition, *Film Script Collection Volume 2*), there was no longer such a clear theme. That montage was a sheer method of dream composition that nevertheless captured the characteristics of dreams quite well. For instance, a cloud slicing through the moon evoked a razor cutting a woman’s eye, and a swarm of ants emerging from a wound in a man’s palm overlapped with a woman’s armpit hair. Amidst such sequences of unrealistic illusions, it depicted the terrifying truth of humanity's latent psychological phenomena. In this regard, it must be said that the structural principles of this type of film most closely approached those of linked verse. This comparison suggested the possibility of non-realistic films becoming even more linked-verse-like than those currently in existence. Dovzhenko’s *Earth*, which was not usually considered as such, undoubtedly represented precisely the first step in that direction.

Avant-garde Film

The various movements and attempts that arose aiming to liberate film from theater and literature and pioneer a cinematic realm for truly cinematic films constituted what was called avant-garde film.
There were those who sneered, “The avant-garde refers to a group of people who make films that don’t turn a profit.”
While all these past attempts had only experimental significance, they were interpreted as being worthy of respect in that very regard.
However, this could not be entirely dismissed as such.
There existed countless examples of things that could never be understood by Americans or Germans being both comprehended and enjoyed by the masses of Oriental Japan.
If there should ever exist a land where the linked-verse-like avant-garde film as discussed here could be cultivated and nurtured, it was thought that such a place would likely be none other than our Japan.
And it was thought that this would likely be somewhat understood by the French and Russians.
Nevertheless, it remained regrettable that even the beginnings of a movement aiming to develop this field could not be found anywhere in our country at present.

Abstract Film

The abstract film initiated by a Swedish painter consists of a chain of geometric forms in motion and has been called "moving decoration." This was likely born from the intention to create visual music through analogy with auditory music, but it is presumably a failure resulting from erroneous analogy. The ear hears sound itself and moreover possesses the unique ability to unconsciously analyze it. However, the eye perceives the synthesized entity and its content within that image, yet without special training, it is not equipped to analyze and extract lines and planes from within. Even when considering just these fundamental differences in sensory capabilities, the value of what is called abstract film should become clear. Thus, the fate of Cubism and Futurism in painting will likely show us the future course of this type of film.

Sound Film

When silent films had finally developed to transcend their role as mere substitutes for live performances and theatrical spectacles, and were on the verge of establishing their own distinct domain, sound film equipment suddenly appeared on the market.
Thus, silent films that had finally begun to become "eloquent" were suddenly rendered "mute."

As curiosity toward the novelty of films that could speak faded away in but a brief moment, all manner of difficulties arose one after another, and film art plummeted from lofty peaks into valley depths.
And thus, it was compelled to start anew from the very first step.

First and foremost，technical difficulties arose.
For instance，various issues arose—such as traditional studios becoming useless for noise prevention，actual noises transforming into entirely different entities requiring appropriate artificial sounds to be sought，and determining how to record actors’ voices while they moved about—which were not merely technical difficulties but imposed constraints on the very material to be filmed.
However，even if all those difficulties had been resolved，the purely artistic problems that remained would arise.

What became immediately clear was that if one attempted to let audiences hear the actors’ dialogue, the visual screen became static and died. To avoid this, the need arose to prevent monotony by showing someone eavesdropping in the next room. What was more problematic was that differences in national languages hindered the international universality of sound films. The audience who had been 'listening' to silent films were rendered deaf when they became sound. To avoid this difficulty, a policy emerged to economize language as much as possible, and thus a compromise involving subtitles was devised.

The interesting fact first discovered through economy of language was that it was precisely through sound films that 'silence' could be completely expressed.
In silent films, silence and stillness had only been faintly suggested visually; it was through sound films that they came to be expressed with powerful immediacy for the first time.

At the same time, advancing a step further, filmmakers came to understand that the insertion of apt ambient sounds could further intensify this silence.
The discovery made long ago by Eastern poets—that a single bird’s cry could render a mountain even more serene—was now rediscovered and applied anew by filmmakers.
The loneliness of Paris’s backstreets in the dead of night was rendered through the footsteps of a tramp walking the pavement, or the voices of frogs and insects at a swamp’s edge in the woods came to capture the stillness following tragedy—such were the examples of this technique.

Such sound montage was common in haikai.
Of course there was the famous “old pond—a frog jumps in—water’s sound,” but also “the drip from an ash bucket ceases—grasshopper,”
“Bashō’s banana plant split by typhoon winds—listening to rain in a basin all night—”
“the distant sound of gunfire clouds over Fourth Month—”
One could enumerate them endlessly.

All noises suggested their sound sources while simultaneously implying the spaces through which their sounds spread.
Unfortunately, due to the still-imperfect mechanisms of current recording devices and sound microphones, they had not succeeded in faithfully reproducing all noises.
Thus they still could not reproduce the subtle timbral differences that allow a blind person to judge a room's size through vocal echoes; yet despite this, the judicious insertion of suitable noise remarkably emphasized the spatial characteristics of the screen.
Through the swelling, fading, and disappearance of a passing train's sound, the flat screen instantly acquired three-dimensional space—a stage of mere square meters expanding to kilometers in breadth.
From the figure of the heroine listening intently to distant drumbeats emerged a long urban vista depicting marching soldiers.
By the steam whistle resounding across misty decks and its echo, a harbor's nocturnal space suddenly expanded within the audience's minds.

The reason sound delineates space is that sound propagation is spatial and not linear like light.
Because of this, we cannot restrict the angles from which sound arrives.
The optical technique of extracting and projecting only a limited portion from within a wide field of view using a fixed frame could no longer be applied in the case of sound.
Therefore, sounds from humans and sound sources not captured on screen invaded without mercy.
However, by utilizing these characteristics of sound propagation, sound films demonstrated extraordinary capabilities.
For example, while a detective was speaking with a criminal suspect, he noticed a native woman’s song coming from the adjacent room and pricked up his ears.
If the song ceased and the woman appeared afterward, a unique montage effect was produced.
Or through so-called non-simultaneous sound pairings—such as when a gunshot was suddenly heard piercing a windowpane, whereupon the camera rotated to arrive at a villain hidden in the bushes—various effects could be achieved.
In the final act of *Western Front*, a close-up appeared of delicate Paul’s right hand attempting to catch a butterfly resting its wings on scorched earth beside a trench.
Instantly, a gunshot cracked through the air like the snap of a whip.
Paul’s hand convulsed instantaneously; then, slowly, slowly, its strength drained away.

The various differences between the two worlds of sound and light were utilized in sound films through diverse methods; another notable objective concerned itself with matters of rhythm.
Rhythm was inherently temporal—a phenomenon where temporally periodic occurrences resonated with humanity's physiological and psychological sense of rhythm.
Spatial rhythm emerged as a secondary derivation from this principle, becoming translated into temporal rhythm only through ocular movement exploring space.
Thus rhythm's most essential quality resided in temporally unified acoustic-musical pulsation.
While rhythmic sounds could naturally compel even children or barbarians to dance, untrained audiences watching even markedly rhythmic scenes in silent films without musical accompaniment seldom felt moved to clap hands or stamp feet.
Hence it followed naturally that sound films could achieve remarkable effects through rhythmic deployment of noises corresponding to visual rhythms.
Examples included synthetic rhythms combining locomotive engine motion with steam whistles and musical accompaniment in Lubitsch’s *Monte Carlo*, factory hammer blows in *We Demand Freedom*, and crowbar impacts during rail construction in *Life Guidance*.
One might imagine these noises alone—even stripped of music—evoking comparable rhythmic sensations to some degree.

An attempt at contrapuntal rhythmic composition between screen and sound was employed in *The Melody of the World*. I recall sequences where piano keys and their tones were alternately cut back between close-ups of a gong and its reverberations. While this film was generally regarded as a failure overall, we must nevertheless recognize the value of such technical attempts.

There was another marked difference between vision and hearing.
This was the difference in the univocality of these two senses.
In the case of visual images too, it was of course possible to misperceive A as B through illusion.
In practice, by utilizing this illusion through an overlap-based grafting montage, they transformed a handkerchief into a white rose.
However, with sound, the nuance differed somewhat.
At least in our sighted world, the mental images evoked through the auditory perception of a single noise or clamor became highly polysemous.
For example, the sound of wind resembled the rustling of clothes and approached the voice of a sigh.
The sound of a typewriter held potential to resemble both a machine gun and the clang of a rivet hammer in an ironworks.
For this reason, sound overlaps—such as transitioning from a goose’s cry to shop shutters’ clatter—could be executed more easily and effectively than their visual counterparts.
Moreover, various noises—due to their sound sources’ indistinct impressions—came imbued with subconscious emotional nuances: indescribable shadows or bamboo-fringed borders.
The more abstract the sound became, the richer these shadows grew.
Therefore, as symbols for indescribable nuances of emotional states, sound could prove more potent than images.

For example, in the final scene of *Life Guidance*, the locomotive’s roaring, groaning voice eerily seeped into the viewer’s very core.
In *Under the Roofs of Paris*, when two friends stood poised to quarrel, the blaring, grating noise of a broken record—utterly unmusical and unpleasant—propelled the scene toward its climax with extraordinary symbolic force.

Precisely because of this symbolic quality, sound could also be effectively deployed as a leitmotif.
The drums and trumpet in *Morocco*, the tolling time-bell in *The Blue Angel*—these served as prime examples.
In a later film’s scene where the unfortunate Professor Raato trudged through back-alley darkness, that peculiar sound—whether steam whistle or something else—faintly audible from indeterminate directions had likely been employed with similar intent.
It gave an impression one might liken to hearing fate’s cursed voice itself.

In haikai linked verse, these acoustic montage techniques are truly skillfully employed.
In the previously cited “Ash Bucket” haiku, the sound of dripping droplets overlaps with a cricket’s chirping, while in the “Bashō’s Storm” haiku, the sound of rainwater leaking into a washbasin is depicted in close-up amid the raging noise outdoors.
For instance, Bashō depicted the spacious riverside expanse through the cuckoo’s call, while Sōseki did so through the sound of pile-driving.
The phrases “A cough nearby follows the veranda’s edge” and “Drawing near reveals such a furrowed face” constitute non-simultaneous montage and camera rotation tracking (Nachpanoramieren).
If one were to list such examples, there would be no end.
I intend to elaborate on this in detail at an appropriate place in the future.

As mechanical improvements in recording and sound reproduction continue to advance while talkie fans’ auditory senses become trained, the possibilities of sound films will likely be further expanded.
By the sound of dripping water, one could perceive the room’s spaciousness; by the resonance of thunder, sense the mountain’s proximity—such possibilities will likely become attainable.

In any case, light images and sound should not merely be used in parallel; they should be edited contrapuntally and tonally.
Parallel use cancels out both elements, while contrapuntal organization enlivens and emphasizes the two.

Color Film

There remains the question of what possibilities may unfold when film, having gained sound, further acquires color.

During the silent film era, by dyeing film in monochrome, they sometimes evoked the mood of a moonlit night or the atmosphere of a fire scene.
Subsequently, various methods for color photography were devised, progressing to the level demonstrated by Technicolor-style color films; however, their colors remained extremely monotonous and garish, barely reaching the standard of cheap three-color printing.
Because of this, they instead disrupted and diminished the screen’s balance of light and shadow while excessively stimulating and fatiguing the eyes; therefore, at present we must conclude that artistically they remained entirely low-grade novelties.

The addition of auditory sound to visual cinema constitutes an essential expansion into a fundamentally different dimension, whereas the addition of color remains merely a supplementation of visual attributes.
Therefore, no matter how extensively scientific techniques of color reproduction might advance, it seems improbable that they would instigate a revolution as fundamental as that wrought by sound films.

The reason why color—when improperly applied—diminishes rather than enhances visual imagery's effect lies in how its use attenuates chiaroscuro balance, rendering the screen's depth shallower and consequently flattening the image.
This phenomenon would be familiar to anyone versed in Western painting practice.

Then, if we were to say that color films are entirely without prospects, we cannot definitively assert this. If in the future a genius director devises an appropriate method of color montage—skillfully employing colors that enhance light and shadow rather than diminishing them—and can contrapuntally organize this with sound, the result may indeed be something greatly worth seeing.

As for how color montage should be approached, Eastern paintings—particularly those by Sōtatsu and Kōrin, along with ukiyo-e—would prove instructive. Haikai linked verse too would offer substantial reference material. Take for instance three stanzas from *Shichibushū Sumidawara*: "Seeing snow-laden pines at the mountain's mouth deepens the cold"; "Crimson winter sky before sunrise"; "A boat spills its meager catch upon the shore"—each proves quite intriguing in its chromatic composition.

Ultimately, one must establish a chromatic focal point as the keynote for each frame, perform what might be termed *color cutting* by subduing surrounding hues to accentuate this center, then propel this dominant chromatic element through montage-like rhythmic transitions. Should every frame appear as though paint pots were indiscriminately spilled—bereft of culmination or accent—the work would evoke not progression but sheer exhaustion.

Three-Dimensional Film

There had been various attempts to create three-dimensional images with depth instead of two-dimensional planar ones, but none had yet achieved full success.
Projecting a film that appeared three-dimensional identically to naked-eye viewers across all seats of a large auditorium entailed considerable optical difficulties.
However—setting aside such technical challenges—were such a stereoscopic film ever realized, what manner of reaction might it produce within film art?

When considering where the three-dimensional quality of our visual perception in actual space comes from, within a close distance of about one meter from the eyes, the so-called stereo effect through binocular vision proves effective; however, as the distance increases, this effect diminishes while lens focus adjustment becomes more operative.
However, when objects lie much farther away, even this effect ceases to function—in practice becoming equivalent to viewing a projection upon a plane at infinite distance.
For instance, when observing the stage from second-floor front seats at the Kabukiza theater, visual depth should be nearly absent; yet through actors' movements, we psychologically apprehend the spatial dimensions of the stage.
There even exists a technique called Glass Walk that capitalizes on this illusion to simulate cinematic backgrounds.

In film, while there is no binocular vision effect, the stereoscopic effect arising from the lens's focal depth remains fundamentally equivalent to that of biological sight.
When focus aligns with flowers in a window frame, distant trees beyond blur; when adjusted to the trees, the flowers lose definition.
Through skillful application of this principle, three-dimensional effects could indeed be achieved even with existing techniques.
Should the camera shift focus from nearby blossoms to a far-off tree, viewers would experience precisely that sensation of redirecting one’s gaze into depth.
Yet such methods see scarce employment in contemporary cinema.
This likely stems from audiences’ visual perception remaining untrained to such subtleties.

It could paradoxically be stated that current flat films are more three-dimensional than viewing three-dimensional stage performances, as I once noted. That is, through the camera’s unrestricted movement, audiences freely navigate within spaces—thereby creating effects equivalent to viewers themselves entering the screen.

Through such movement of the camera’s focus, position, and viewing angle, contemporary films had in fact conquered a three-dimensional, substantial space—at least psychologically.
Therefore, even if one were to expend considerable effort and finally achieve so-called three-dimensional films, I suspected their efficacy would likely not prove particularly remarkable.

All three-dimensional films currently being pursued by inventors relied on stereoscopic effects; however, these exaggerated stereo effects actually created an extremely unrealistic sensation—as evidenced by experiences such as viewing landscape photographs through toy stereoscopes or observing actual scenery through rangefinders.
If so-called three-dimensional films were realized, they would produce an unnatural effect akin to our eyes suddenly and unnaturally widening their separation—thereby significantly distorting the veracity of images.

In any case, the notion that films psychologically lack "depth" simply because current screens are physically flat constitutes a fundamental fallacy; having certified this error, I believe we can naturally estimate the breadth of possibilities that so-called three-dimensional films could bring about.

Artificial Film

Beyond ordinary films targeting shots at real humans, animals, houses, landscapes, or sets substituting for real objects, there exist works like *The Adventures of Prince Achmed*—which forgoes all such tangible elements entirely, instead employing silhouette puppets cut from black paper against backdrops—alongside our nation’s distinctive Chiyogami doll films and sound cartoons featuring fairy-tale heroes such as Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Rabbit, or Bimbo, rendered through line drawings.
It is an awkward designation, but for the time being I will group these under the name "artificial film."

The defining characteristic of these artificial films lay in their potential to create an entirely unique new world through the rhythmic movements of their simple shadows and lines.
In the world of silhouettes lingered something akin to phantoms of lives from a distant, distant past, accompanied by the rustling of bamboo leaves.
From this emerged poetry that real photographs could scarcely capture.
Furthermore, I believed the reason recent cartoon-like films were favored lay in their realization of human dreams that could not otherwise exist within a dreamlike atmosphere.
Just as desires unattainable through wishing in the real world were realized in the land of dreams, in the world of artificial films all fantasies were effortlessly brought to life.
A mouse’s tail became a single-stringed koto when stretched and plucked; a freshly sprouted beanstalk could be climbed to reach the heavens.
The merits of cartoons were not limited to these alone.
In the same way that caricatures resembled their subjects more closely than photographs did, by extracting and exaggerating certain distinctive elements of the subject and composing them montage-style, one created something more real than reality itself.
A dog that recently appeared in a cartoon I saw seemed to so thoroughly capture the characteristics of that beloved domestic animal that it nearly projected "dog-ness" itself.
Another merit of cartoons lay in the complete freedom of visual expression when executing contrapuntal montage with music; the movement of images could undergo vast changes from pianissimo to fortissimo at will, with crescendos and diminuendos applied as desired.
They could open their mouths as wide as their faces allowed or purse them as tightly as if pricked by a needle—all with complete freedom.

When one considers matters in this light，it seems that cartoons still conceal various undiscovered territories within their future．However，current Bimbo-like works—in their excessive pursuit of absurd thrills—might they not soon risk inducing audience fatigue？

If ordinary realistic films are prose，then cartoons can be poetry and song—nay，should be such．Present-day cartoons correspond to that era when haikai indulged in Danrin-style extravagances；one cannot help but wonder whether those who will establish cartoons’ “proper style” might instead emerge from beyond distant seas before long．Truly，this stands precisely as the field that Japanese creators should naturally cultivate．

Film and National Character

In all art, the national subconscious of each people seeps through.
In film as well, this permeates with striking clarity.
American films are the scripture of Yankee-ism and leave an aftertaste of chewing gum and ice cream soda.
German films carry the aroma of mathematical science and beer, while French films are accompanied by the taste of escargot and frog legs.
Beyond the screens of Russian films, the phantom of the vast Siberian wilderness perpetually lingers.
Now, what of Japanese cinema?
According to statistics from a few years ago, our country appears to far surpass France and Germany in terms of film production volume; however, what of the quality of these films?
There may indeed be some commendable works among the many domestic films produced; however, within the scope of what I have seen, it must regrettably be said that those capable of standing alongside renowned European and American films appear exceedingly rare.

Eisenstein—whom Russia-worshipping filmmakers elevated like a deity—had discovered and marveled at montage's true essence within Japan's indigenous arts while simultaneously declaring its absence in Japanese cinema—a profound irony.
It remained difficult to ascertain how many Japanese films he had seen to make that statement, yet this criticism had to be accepted to some degree.
For within our nation's film producers and critics alike, those demonstrating interest in Japan's indigenous culture and appearing to base their work upon it were—to my eyes—scarcely to be found.
So long as they slobbered over Americanism's seductive postures, leapt at Marxism's red flags, and merely licked the dregs of Sternberg and Clair, Japan would never produce films distinctly its own.

Even in swordplay films, wandering samurai dramas, or Bakumatsu-era period pieces, all remained bound by the conventional shackles of traditional Kabuki theater.
I had never seen a realistic period film that brought the world of our grandparents' days exactly as it was before our eyes.
Even in sword fights, they remained mere copies of cheap play choreography; nowhere could one find anything resembling genuine life-and-death struggles.
The ideological content of subtitles in current event-oriented Bakumatsu-themed films was truly cringe-inducing.
I believed the modern masses should have been somewhat more open-minded.
Of course, it would have been unreasonable to demand lofty productions like avant-garde films from filmmakers bound by profit-driven corporate policies; however, within the freedom permitted by those constraints, there should have been no reason why original Japanese films could not have been created at least to the degree of Sternberg, Lubitsch, or René Clair.
The reason this could not be achieved likely lay in a fundamental fallacy at the producers' starting point.
That fallacy was likely the loss of national consciousness and an indifference to—or lack of understanding of—inherent culture.
Admittedly, half the responsibility for the inability to produce good films undoubtedly lay with the general audience; however, artists by their very nature only truly became artists when they could educate and guide their viewers.
A genius like Chaplin attracted, educated, and trained the masses while making them laugh or cry—all while amassing vast fortunes.

To Japan—which gave birth to waka, haikai, and ukiyo-e—remained the great task of creating a "globally Japanese film" for the next generation of Japanese people.
I earnestly hoped that among today’s youth, those individuals endowed with the finest minds would take notice of this profoundly significant task—that while remaining within the current mesmerizing atmosphere, they might nevertheless overcome its spell and advance into the pioneering of new territories.
Naturally, this required the twin wheels of high and broad cultivation along with deep and sharp observation.
“If Leonardo da Vinci had been born in the modern era, he would have turned his hand to film”—it seemed truly reasonable that someone had made this statement.

(Note) Among the items omitted due to limitations of space were issues such as those pertaining to "subtitles" and the shape of projection screens. I had also wished to discuss in some detail such genres as mountain films and wildlife films as forms of artistic live-action cinema; however, regarding these too, I intend to attempt a preliminary analysis on another occasion when appropriate and in a different venue.

The books referenced in drafting this main text are as follows.
(in no particular order)

V. I. Pudovkin : On Film Technique, 1930.

W. Pudowkin : Filmregie und Filmmanuskript, 1928.

Béla Bálazs : Der sichtbare Mensch. Eine Film-Dramaturgie (2te Aufl.)

Béla Bálazs : Der Geist des Films, 1930.

Léon Moussinac : Panoramique ducinéma, 1929.

Bryher : Film Problems of SovietRussia, 1929.

L. Moholy-Nagy : Malerei, Fotografie, Film.

Der russischeRevolutionsfilm (Schaubücher 2, Orell Füssli Verlag.)

Russische Filmkunst (Ernst Pollak Verlag.)

G.Herkt : Das Tonfilm-Theater.

Close Up : Vol. VI, VII.

Eisenstein: The Dialectics of Film (translated by Sasaki Norio).

Béla Balázs: Film Aesthetics and Film Sociology (Japanese translation of the aforementioned The Spirit of Film, translated by Sasaki Norio).

Ueda Susumu, trans. and ed., Film Directing Studies and Montage Theory.

Léon Moussinac: Soviet Russia's Film (translated by Iijima Tadashi).

Eric Elliott, Film Technique and Art (translated by Kishimatsu Takeshi).

Sasaki Norio, trans. and ed., Sound Film Direction and Screenwriting Theory.

Viktor Shklovsky: *How Should a Scenario Be Written?* (translated by Honma Shichiro).

Seldis and Tokii: *Film Art* (translated by Takahara Fujirō).

Sasaki Norio and Iijima Tadashi: *Avant-Garde Film Art Theory*.

*Film Science Research*, Volume 8.

*Newly Compiled Film Script Collection*, Volume 2.

The above merely listed works I happened to come across and read cursorily.
Not all were quality works.
One must exercise caution when reading translations.
The author’s arguments and impressions regarding specific film examples have been compiled in *Zoku Fuyuhiko-shū*, so I would like you to read them.
Regarding haikai linked verse as a sister art, I would like you to refer to my treatise [“Renku Zassō”] serialized in the magazine *Shibugaki* from March 1931 onward.
The current paper forms a two-fold counterpart with this work.

(August 1932, *Japanese Literature*)