THE PROPOSAL FOR FILM “NANKING”

I heard from the news that the documentary film “Nanking” was produced and this film would be seen for the first time in Sundance Film Festival(Jan.18-) .  This film’s producer is Mr.Ted Leonsis.  According to his words,  He was impressed to read Iris Chang’s “The Rape of Nanking” and he decided to make film “Nanking” on the basis of “The Rape of Nanking”.  Is Mr.Ted Leonsis enough naive to be deceived by the fiction?  or he doesn’t have any knowledge about Japanese history and Japanese culture? Mr.Ted Leonsis seems to be tender…

“The Rape of Nanking” was published in 1997 and sold over 500,000 in the United States.  After that,  this book’s author,  Iris Chang planed to publish this book also in Japanese.  However she abandoned the plan on the way of  translation.  The main cause is that more than 90 errors were pointed out from people who were interested in Nanking Incident.  “All of  photos that Iris used were fake” “Things are different from the fact.” “Lack of knowledge on Japanese culture.”  “the strong inferior complex to Japan” …etc.   If this book was published in Japanese,  so many Japanese would know this book’s strangeness and so many Japanese might have noticed that Nanjing Massacre was just only fantasy earlier.  Anyway,  this book is utterly out of common sense as low level as Japanese people are surprised to read. I wrote the following proposal on this film and sent to his blog,  but he did not accept it. 
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I have the proposal on your film “Nanking” in order to constructively dialogue.  The proposal is…Could you please put descriptions on each photo that your film used?  Each description mainly includes the following things,

1) When was the photo taken?

2) Who took the photo?

3) Where was the photo taken?

I believe the essence of documentary film is the journalistic mind.  The journalistic mind appears the attitude to search for the truth.  To pursue the truth to the greatest extent possible is the achievement of the documentary film.  The finest documentary films have been evaluated from viewpoint of achievement level how they approached the truth.
 
To pursue the truth needs “details”. “Details” that I want to say here is just “description” on each photograph.  In case that you could not find the above 3 (when/who/where) though you made effort to search for them, you should put descriptions “UNKNOWN” on each photo.  It is necessary to put them on each photo in order to be fair.

If you use those photos without descriptions “UNKNOWN” though you could not find the above 3 (when/who/where), your documentary film will be out of the journalistic mind.  In short, your documentary film will be evaluated not as documentary film but as a kind of propaganda film.  It is forecasted that many people who are pursuing the truth of “Nanking Incident” will criticize your attitude at time of interview after your film’s screening.   I would appreciate if you could accept the above my proposal on your film sincerely if possible.

Film”Nanking”をプロデュースしたテッド・レオンシス。08年1月18日からアメリカで開催されるサンダンス映画祭で初公開される。映画の構成は、南京市民20数万人を日本軍の暴虐から救った南京の欧米人たちの人間愛にあふれた献身的な活動をインタビューと当時の記録フィルムによって追っていく。特にナチス党員であったジョン・ラーべの日記に焦点が当てられるらしい。はっきり言って、杉原千畝をそっくり焼き直したようなお話に仕上げられているのかもしれない。すでにFilm”Nanking”の公式ホームページでは南京事件とは関係のない写真が使用されている。

TAMAGAWABOAT    

TOP PAGE OF “AS SUBJECTIVELY AS POSSIBLE” 

| PHOTOS OF NANKING MASSACRE |  THE NEWS OF NANJING MASSACRE |  THE TRUTH OF NANJING MASSACRE  | ANTI-JAPAN EDUCATION IN CHINA |  THE PEACEFUL NEW YEAR 1938 IN NANJING  | “RAPE OF NANKING” is “FAKE OF NANKING” |  NOBODY WITNESSED MURDERS ACTUALLY  | RABE IS NANJING’s SUGIHARA!? NO WAY!! | TESTIMONY IS NOT EVIDENCE | TED LEONSIS SCATTERS THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION |JAPAN FOUGHT AGAINST NAZIS IN CHINA | THE PROPOSAL FOR FILM “NANKING”  |“NANKING” is Documentary or Propaganda?  |