Interview with Observational filmmakers Kazuhiro SODA & Kiyoko KASHIWAGI
On the occasion of the release of Inland Sea on digital platforms (25 November 2019), Rock Salt Releasing contacted me to review it and offered me to interview the filmmaker Mr. Kazuhiro SODA and his producer and wife Kiyoko KASHIWAGI. Both are working jointly since Mental (2008; Observational Film #2).You may find his other films on his website (at Laboratory X).
Kazuhiro SODA used to be a director-editor of 20 min TV documentaries for the NHK, between 1997 and 2004 : a series of over thirty portraits of NewYorkers. But the intensive TV practice and timing was everything he didn't want to do. Thus he conjured up his "Ten Commandments of Observational Filmmaking" and went on to produce his own feature length films independently (self-financed, directed, edited and never scripted). Trained as a fiction director, his vocation for documentaries was initiated by the films of Frederick Wiseman.
I could draw parallels between some of his films and Frederick WISEMAN’s oeuvre : Mental (2008) and Titicut Follies (1967), Theatre 1&2 (2012) and Ballet (1995) or La Danse (2009) ; Oyster Factory (2015) and Belfast, Maine (1999) ; Inland Sea (2018) and In Jackson Heights (2015).
He seems to enjoy filming the same areas twice, with films in two parts (on purpose or not) : Campaign (2007) & Campaign 2 (2013) about one of his classmate running for office in Tokyo, before and after the Fukushima disaster. Theater 1 & 2 (2012) a 5h40 epic on playwright Oriza Hirata and the essence of theatre. Oyster Factory (2015) and Inland Sea (2018) on the fishing town of Ushimado and its older inhabitants.
Questions to Kazuhiro SODA (filmmaker) :
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How did you make the switch from religious studies (at Tokyo University, Japan) to the School of Visual Art (in NYC, USA) ? How do religious studies inform your documentary practice, if they do ?
Kazuhiro SODA : When I was graduating from Tokyo University, I didn't really know what to do with my life. But I had a vague feeling that maybe I've been wanting to be a film director. It's strange because I wasn't a cinema lover or anything, but for some reasons, I just felt filmmaking was something I've been wanted to do. And I was so young that I didn't really think carefully. The next moment, I found myself in New York to study fiction filmmaking.
For the graduation thesis paper at the University of Tokyo, I joined a cult group called Cosmo-mate to do a participant-observational study. I pretended that I was a believer of the religion, and used my body and mind to experience what the members of the group went through. In a sense, I'm still doing the same thing with my camera instead of using a pen.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Was your experience as a TV director for the NHK (Japanese Public Network Television) between 1997 and 2005 the opportunity to learn how not to make feature films ? Or were all these portraits you made a learning curve to best approach subjects as you do now with « Observational films »?
Kazuhiro SODA : It gave me a lot of training. Between 1998 and 2001, I was a director of a 20 minute weekly documentary series called New Yorkers aired on NHK.
For this program, we had 4 directors on the rotation including myself, which means I needed to finish a 20 minute-documentary every 4 weeks. It may sound OK, but it's actually a very tough schedule.
In the fist week, I had to find a subject, do a pre-shoot interview, write a script, and get an approval from the TV executive. In the second week, I shot it on location. In the third week, I did the off-line editing. In the fourth week, I wrote narration, translated subtitles, picked musics, mixed sound, and completed the documentary. And the following week, I had to start the same process all over again for another show. I was doing this routine for 3 years.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : You cite Frederick WISEMAN, Tatsya MORI and Makoto SATO as your influences. What did you learn from them ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I enjoyed making TV documentaries for a few years, but I became frustrated with the way TV shows were being made. I began to think that we should not use any narration because the viewers are not so stupid. Also, I was not a big fan of this process of doing a lot of research to write a detailed script before shooting. The TV executives always demanded this process but I really hated it because I felt stuck with my own preconception and planning. It was hard to discover something I didn't know because I was bound to shoot whatever I already knew.
So when I accidentally watched Domestic Violence by Frederick Wiseman at the Film Forum in New York City, I was really shocked. It was a film that I've been dreaming to make! And he's been making such films since 1960's!
I have to say I was really ignorant. I didn't even take a single documentary class at the film school because I was only interested in fiction filmmaking back then. That's why I was making documentary shows without knowing Wiseman.
Since I saw Domestic Violence, I started my own private Wiseman Film Festival at a booth of New York Public Library. I studied his films shot by shot. I closely analyzed how they were constructed. I learned so much from his films.
Tatsuya Mori inspired me to actually make my own films. He was a TV director like myself and made his debut film "A" using a small digital camera VX1000. He showed that you could make a compelling, meaningful, cutting edge film without a big crew or a big budget.
I was influenced by Makoto Sato mostly by his books. He was a great filmmaker but also a great writer. His book The Horizon of Documentary Films opened my eyes on documentary filmmaking. Like I said, I had no formal education on documentary, but his book gave me that.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Are you aware of « Contemporary Contemplative Cinema » , a family of films defined by « Plotlessness, Wordlessness, Slowness, and Alienation » ? With filmmakers (in the realm of behaviourist documentaries) such as Lisandro ALONSO, Chantal AKERMAN, Nikolaus GEYRHALTER, Vérena PARAVEL & Lucien CASTAING-TAYLOR (at the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab), Abderrahmane SISSAKO… ? You may find them very familiar to your work. Would you consider your « Observational films » a bit contemplative ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I know their works but I didn't know they were being categorized as Contemporary Contemplative Cinema. I'm a good friend of Vérena PARAVEL & Lucien CASTAING-TAYLOR, and I introduced their great films to the Japanese public by connecting them to my distributor Tofoo. They distributed four of their films in Japan.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How much of your endless takes do you keep on the editing table ? How long is long enough for a shot in the final cut ? What does constitute an unworthy take ?
Kazuhiro SODA : There's always only one take because I don't ask my characters to repeat what they did. Every take is unique and the only one. The desired length of the shots really depends. Sometimes it needs to be 10 minutes long, but sometimes it needs to be 6 seconds long. It really depends on the nature of the shot and its context.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Could you define the frontier between a distant observer and the Japanese concept of « Looking and Listening » that you often refer to ?
Kazuhiro SODA : The English word "observation" implies that you are kind of distant or a third party. But I don't really mean it that way when I say observation is important for documentary filmmaking. The Japanese word for observation is "Kansatsu". It means looking and understanding. That's exactly what I mean by observation.
"Kansatsu" is especially important today because we are living in this terrible culture of distraction dominated by smart phones and social media. We stopped looking and listening attentively. We've lost patience. We cannot stay in the moment. It's comical and tragic at the same time.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How different is the experience for an audience watching « Observational films », scripted documentaries or classical fiction films ? What are the unique qualities an « Observational Film » can show that other documentaries can not ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I cannot really speak for the audience, but I think one of the unique qualities of my films is that they are shot completely spontaneously without any planning or agenda.
Many documentary filmmakers set their theme first and look for their perfect subjects which fit their theme, but my process is completely the opposite.
For example, we met Wai-chan on that shore by accident. He wanted me to shoot his catch of the day because he noticed I had a camera, and that's why we ended up shooting the first scene of Inland Sea.
As you can see, he was a charming person, and he said he was fishing tomorrow, so we decided to shoot that as well. Then we ended up following him to the fish market where the auction suddenly began. How can we not shoot that?
And among the bidders, we recognized Mrs. Koso because we always bought fish from her store. We realized that Wai-chan's fish go to her store, so we felt we should just follow her. So without knowing it, we ended up shooting this ancient, simple economic circle in Ushimado, and we realized that it was not sustainable anymore.
That's how one of the themes of the film emerged and discovered. It's very natural and organic. In a traditional documentary, the process is the opposite. They set up the theme first and find/use the characters to prove their theme. In that sense, the characters become like tools for the filmmakers. I didn't really feel good when I was making such documentaries for TV. I felt I was using my characters for my agenda.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Are you attracted more to faces and hands or to the labor being done, the gestures at work ? Is it a dilemma to only pick one of the two at once with one single camera?
Kazuhiro SODA : Not really. I try to recreate what I'm witnessing with images and sounds, and that dictates my camera work. One cannot see many things at the same time. It's always one at a time. Thus I usually need only one camera. It makes sense to have only one camera.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : You describe Kumi as a « hole » to explore, could you explain what you mean by that ?
Kazuhiro SODA : In Alice in Wonderland, Alice chases a white rabbit, falls into the hole, and experiences something magical and unexpected. The hole is a connection between this world and the wonderland. I felt like Alice when I followed Kumi to the hill. She was a connection to the other world, in a sense.
Question to Kiyoko KASHIWAGI (producer) :
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Ushimado is the hometown of your (grand)mother – where you went on vacation with your husband Kazuhiro SODA (thus you decided to film Oyster Factory then Inland Sea at this location). Do you have childhood memories of this place ? How has it changed over the years until what we see in the films ?
Kiyoko KASHIWAGI : Actually, Ushimado is my grandfather's hometown. My grandmother is from Hiroshima but left after atomic bombing in 1945, then my mother was born in Ushimado. My grandfather was from fisherman's family and he was a half fisherman. The community in Ushimado was (is) very tight, especially between fishermen. My grandfather passed away before I was born so I've never met him, but I grew up eating lots of sashimi because many fishermen brought the freshest fishes right direct from the sea to feed me when I visit my grandmother. I heard many stories about my grandfather from them. There were so many fishermen all over the town and I often got on board their ships. There were many kids swimming and playing around on the beach. My childhood memory of Ushimado was festive all year round. When I went on vacation with Soda in 2012, I couldn't believe how quite the town became. I didn't see fishermen, ships, even children.
He's the author in Japan of 7 books (2 on politics and 5 on cinema).
I ask him about his formative years, his working process, about Contemporary Contemplative Cinema, Observational Films and Inland Sea. (This interview was conducted via emails on December 2nd 2019).
* * *
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How did you make the switch from religious studies (at Tokyo University, Japan) to the School of Visual Art (in NYC, USA) ? How do religious studies inform your documentary practice, if they do ?
Kazuhiro SODA : When I was graduating from Tokyo University, I didn't really know what to do with my life. But I had a vague feeling that maybe I've been wanting to be a film director. It's strange because I wasn't a cinema lover or anything, but for some reasons, I just felt filmmaking was something I've been wanted to do. And I was so young that I didn't really think carefully. The next moment, I found myself in New York to study fiction filmmaking.
For the graduation thesis paper at the University of Tokyo, I joined a cult group called Cosmo-mate to do a participant-observational study. I pretended that I was a believer of the religion, and used my body and mind to experience what the members of the group went through. In a sense, I'm still doing the same thing with my camera instead of using a pen.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Was your experience as a TV director for the NHK (Japanese Public Network Television) between 1997 and 2005 the opportunity to learn how not to make feature films ? Or were all these portraits you made a learning curve to best approach subjects as you do now with « Observational films »?
Kazuhiro SODA : It gave me a lot of training. Between 1998 and 2001, I was a director of a 20 minute weekly documentary series called New Yorkers aired on NHK.
For this program, we had 4 directors on the rotation including myself, which means I needed to finish a 20 minute-documentary every 4 weeks. It may sound OK, but it's actually a very tough schedule.
In the fist week, I had to find a subject, do a pre-shoot interview, write a script, and get an approval from the TV executive. In the second week, I shot it on location. In the third week, I did the off-line editing. In the fourth week, I wrote narration, translated subtitles, picked musics, mixed sound, and completed the documentary. And the following week, I had to start the same process all over again for another show. I was doing this routine for 3 years.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : You cite Frederick WISEMAN, Tatsya MORI and Makoto SATO as your influences. What did you learn from them ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I enjoyed making TV documentaries for a few years, but I became frustrated with the way TV shows were being made. I began to think that we should not use any narration because the viewers are not so stupid. Also, I was not a big fan of this process of doing a lot of research to write a detailed script before shooting. The TV executives always demanded this process but I really hated it because I felt stuck with my own preconception and planning. It was hard to discover something I didn't know because I was bound to shoot whatever I already knew.
So when I accidentally watched Domestic Violence by Frederick Wiseman at the Film Forum in New York City, I was really shocked. It was a film that I've been dreaming to make! And he's been making such films since 1960's!
I have to say I was really ignorant. I didn't even take a single documentary class at the film school because I was only interested in fiction filmmaking back then. That's why I was making documentary shows without knowing Wiseman.
Since I saw Domestic Violence, I started my own private Wiseman Film Festival at a booth of New York Public Library. I studied his films shot by shot. I closely analyzed how they were constructed. I learned so much from his films.
Tatsuya Mori inspired me to actually make my own films. He was a TV director like myself and made his debut film "A" using a small digital camera VX1000. He showed that you could make a compelling, meaningful, cutting edge film without a big crew or a big budget.
I was influenced by Makoto Sato mostly by his books. He was a great filmmaker but also a great writer. His book The Horizon of Documentary Films opened my eyes on documentary filmmaking. Like I said, I had no formal education on documentary, but his book gave me that.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Are you aware of « Contemporary Contemplative Cinema » , a family of films defined by « Plotlessness, Wordlessness, Slowness, and Alienation » ? With filmmakers (in the realm of behaviourist documentaries) such as Lisandro ALONSO, Chantal AKERMAN, Nikolaus GEYRHALTER, Vérena PARAVEL & Lucien CASTAING-TAYLOR (at the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab), Abderrahmane SISSAKO… ? You may find them very familiar to your work. Would you consider your « Observational films » a bit contemplative ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I know their works but I didn't know they were being categorized as Contemporary Contemplative Cinema. I'm a good friend of Vérena PARAVEL & Lucien CASTAING-TAYLOR, and I introduced their great films to the Japanese public by connecting them to my distributor Tofoo. They distributed four of their films in Japan.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How much of your endless takes do you keep on the editing table ? How long is long enough for a shot in the final cut ? What does constitute an unworthy take ?
Kazuhiro SODA : There's always only one take because I don't ask my characters to repeat what they did. Every take is unique and the only one. The desired length of the shots really depends. Sometimes it needs to be 10 minutes long, but sometimes it needs to be 6 seconds long. It really depends on the nature of the shot and its context.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Could you define the frontier between a distant observer and the Japanese concept of « Looking and Listening » that you often refer to ?
Kazuhiro SODA : The English word "observation" implies that you are kind of distant or a third party. But I don't really mean it that way when I say observation is important for documentary filmmaking. The Japanese word for observation is "Kansatsu". It means looking and understanding. That's exactly what I mean by observation.
"Kansatsu" is especially important today because we are living in this terrible culture of distraction dominated by smart phones and social media. We stopped looking and listening attentively. We've lost patience. We cannot stay in the moment. It's comical and tragic at the same time.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : How different is the experience for an audience watching « Observational films », scripted documentaries or classical fiction films ? What are the unique qualities an « Observational Film » can show that other documentaries can not ?
Kazuhiro SODA : I cannot really speak for the audience, but I think one of the unique qualities of my films is that they are shot completely spontaneously without any planning or agenda.
Many documentary filmmakers set their theme first and look for their perfect subjects which fit their theme, but my process is completely the opposite.
For example, we met Wai-chan on that shore by accident. He wanted me to shoot his catch of the day because he noticed I had a camera, and that's why we ended up shooting the first scene of Inland Sea.
As you can see, he was a charming person, and he said he was fishing tomorrow, so we decided to shoot that as well. Then we ended up following him to the fish market where the auction suddenly began. How can we not shoot that?
And among the bidders, we recognized Mrs. Koso because we always bought fish from her store. We realized that Wai-chan's fish go to her store, so we felt we should just follow her. So without knowing it, we ended up shooting this ancient, simple economic circle in Ushimado, and we realized that it was not sustainable anymore.
That's how one of the themes of the film emerged and discovered. It's very natural and organic. In a traditional documentary, the process is the opposite. They set up the theme first and find/use the characters to prove their theme. In that sense, the characters become like tools for the filmmakers. I didn't really feel good when I was making such documentaries for TV. I felt I was using my characters for my agenda.
About Inland Sea (2018) :
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Are you attracted more to faces and hands or to the labor being done, the gestures at work ? Is it a dilemma to only pick one of the two at once with one single camera?
Kazuhiro SODA : Not really. I try to recreate what I'm witnessing with images and sounds, and that dictates my camera work. One cannot see many things at the same time. It's always one at a time. Thus I usually need only one camera. It makes sense to have only one camera.
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : You describe Kumi as a « hole » to explore, could you explain what you mean by that ?
Kazuhiro SODA : In Alice in Wonderland, Alice chases a white rabbit, falls into the hole, and experiences something magical and unexpected. The hole is a connection between this world and the wonderland. I felt like Alice when I followed Kumi to the hill. She was a connection to the other world, in a sense.
Question to Kiyoko KASHIWAGI (producer) :
UNSPOKEN CINEMA : Ushimado is the hometown of your (grand)mother – where you went on vacation with your husband Kazuhiro SODA (thus you decided to film Oyster Factory then Inland Sea at this location). Do you have childhood memories of this place ? How has it changed over the years until what we see in the films ?
Kiyoko KASHIWAGI : Actually, Ushimado is my grandfather's hometown. My grandmother is from Hiroshima but left after atomic bombing in 1945, then my mother was born in Ushimado. My grandfather was from fisherman's family and he was a half fisherman. The community in Ushimado was (is) very tight, especially between fishermen. My grandfather passed away before I was born so I've never met him, but I grew up eating lots of sashimi because many fishermen brought the freshest fishes right direct from the sea to feed me when I visit my grandmother. I heard many stories about my grandfather from them. There were so many fishermen all over the town and I often got on board their ships. There were many kids swimming and playing around on the beach. My childhood memory of Ushimado was festive all year round. When I went on vacation with Soda in 2012, I couldn't believe how quite the town became. I didn't see fishermen, ships, even children.
* * *
Read also my reviews of :
Comments