[HN Gopher] Japan's silent movie culture is still going
___________________________________________________________________
Japan's silent movie culture is still going
Author : lermontov
Score : 50 points
Date : 2023-09-28 19:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petertasker.asia)
(TXT) w3m dump (petertasker.asia)
| hotnfresh wrote:
| > The surprising thing is not that in the silent era Japanese
| audiences opted to watch films with live human mediation. What is
| strange is that no other countries -- apart from Korea, Taiwan
| and Thailand, all then under Japanese influence -- adopted such
| an excellent and fun idea.
|
| Since these performances are noted as including ad-lib commentary
| and anachronistic (to the film) references, seems like MST3K is
| pretty close, though they comment over talkies.
|
| [edit] I've also been to a couple showings with people who were
| on the production calling out jokes and commentary over it, and
| have been at film festivals where live-riffs or commentary were
| done by some set of podcasters or another. I'm in a trash-tier
| city so these are rare, but I bet they can be found in major US
| cities on a pretty regular basis, if you're not picky about the
| sort of movie you'll be seeing.
| endominus wrote:
| Not to mention the Rocky Horror Picture Show as a singular
| example of an audience taking part in a showing (a friend of
| mine showed it to me and other friends at a party, beginning
| the night by apologizing that he alone would not be able to do
| all of the normal ad-lib that a full theater would perform).
| stock_toaster wrote:
| I wonder if the prior existence of Rakugo made it more
| culturally normative.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| One thing that's really nice about silent movies/tv is that it's
| truely language agnostic. You'd be surprised just how much of the
| world knows "Mr Bean" for example. It's syndicated just about
| everywhere in the world and crosses language and culture
| barriers.
|
| I'm really surprised silent movies/tv isn't more common. Many
| diverse nations have a need for language agnostic entertainment
| and it's trivial to syndicate such media throughout the world.
| Papua New Guinea for example struggles to accomodate all of it's
| languages.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Papua_New_Guinea .
| Silent media is helpful there to provide a common point of
| connection across the nation (they used Mr Bean as a mascott for
| awareness during covid).
| mrob wrote:
| >no other countries -- apart from Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, all
| then under Japanese influence -- adopted such an excellent and
| fun idea.
|
| Some movie theaters in Uganda also have live commentary and
| translation, provided by "video jokers". You can hear such
| commentary by VJ Emmie in the famous Ugandan action movie "Who
| Killed Captain Alex?", which you can watch on the Official
| Wakaliwood Youtube channel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE
|
| Despite the very low budget, the movie is surprisingly
| entertaining, and the commentary makes it even better.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Is this the movie with the awesome helicopter scene?
| twic wrote:
| Yes, where the Tiger Mafia steal a police helicopter, and
| blow up a building, with incredible CGI.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| The commentary is the best part. Everybody in Uganda knows
| Kung-Fu!
| gascoigne wrote:
| This was a fascinating read. Do the benshis change the story? Or
| interpret it differently than intended? It sounds so foreign to
| me that I'd love to experience it.
| [deleted]
| anjel wrote:
| For those further interested, Hamilton College has collated a
| digital archive of historical and modern (including VR) benshi
| content
|
| https://benshi.hamiltonlits.org/main/
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I'd actually never heard of benshi.
|
| _The General_ is a silent film that you can show to any modern
| audience, and they 'll love it. I actually did this once in a
| movie Meetup.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| Silent comedies hold up exceptionally well. I've enjoyed nearly
| everything of Keaton's and Chaplin's I've watched, which is
| quite a bit. Haven't dug into Lloyd yet, but I'm expecting that
| to go well, too.
|
| Dramas are more hit-or-miss and benefit more from some effort
| at acclimatization, I think--that is, I think the average
| viewer is likely to bounce off even the very-good ones without
| putting some time & work into getting used to the medium.
| e0 wrote:
| Huh! Coincidentally YouTube suggested this older video about
| _benshi_ to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWc__spYakA
| xrd wrote:
| The author seems like an interesting personality. He's a (self
| described, but...) finance guru. Great writing.
|
| I'm sad I didn't go see a benshi film when I was in Tokyo a few
| months back.
|
| I wonder if there is a connection to the rakugo tradition? Seems
| like it could be an offshoot.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-29 23:00 UTC)