修士研究フォーラムの発表要旨

Kegare Body Narratives: Radical Representation of “Unclean” Bodies within the Documentary Cinema of Hara Kazuo

The concept of Kegare, a Japanese shinto term alluding to uncleanliness, defilement, traditionally took the body of the Emperor, in concept a living god, as a dichotomy. That is to say, to be cleansed of kegare required proximity, acknowledgement, or pardon, from the Emperor. The sacredness of a living god embodied in the Emperor imbued the man who holds this station with an ablative power. After the surrender of Japan to the allied forces at the end of World War II, Emperor Hirohito was made to deliver what is known as the “Humanity Declaration,” a radio broadcast declaring that he was no longer a deity, but in fact a flesh and blood human. With this one declaration, his body underwent a symbolic transformation, from god to representative of the nation-state, and was at once realigned to the will of the newly emerging Western super powers and their aims within the Cold War.

We wish to explore the results of this transformation through “body narratives,” that is to say through approaching specific depictions of the body as “texts” which reveal the affects of the Cold War. We will be using two primary documentary sources, “Tokyo Olympiad” (1964) and the first three films of Hara Kazuo.

This project attempts to map out the cultural concept of “Kegare,” as told through different “body narratives” from the decades following the end of World War II in Japanese cinema in order to situate where this term lies within the reconstruction period context, and hopefully, within the current context. This project will be done in three parts; firstly, a programmed screening of relevant film works. This will include our primary “texts,” the Tokyo Olympiad, (1964), and the first three kegare-centric films of documentary film maker Hara Kazuo, as well as other cinema reference points pertaining to these topics. Secondly, there will be a written body of text which will contain the results of our research, spelling out specifically our findings, as well as various interviews, and relevant research materials, and primary sources. Lastly, there will be an exhibition which will attempt to bring these ideas into a physical space. The exhibition will take place in Taipei will feature the early photographic works of Hara Kazuo, arguably the prototype to his “Kegare Cinema,” as well as the photographic works of Chou ChingHui, works that are the result of his years long relationship with the LeSeng Leper Sanatorium in Taipei, a result of the Japanese colonial project of modernization through hygiene. These two bodies of work complement each other in their varied approaches to representing something which, as we will establish, is inherited through Kegare.

Much of what we wish to accomplish is contingent on our ability to secure interviews, gain access to materials, and the ability to get approval for screening. If obstacles arise that prevent us from realizing the project in this complete way, we will need to re-strategize our approach in sharing these research materials.