User:Klasalvia/sandbox

https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/tazuko-sakane/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt16r0hfm.14

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-hvzm-a486\

Style and Influence
A large part of Sakane's experience with filmmaking came from assisting and editing films under the tutelage of Kenji Mizoguchi. As a woman, she was very rarely taken seriously and often belittled by the men who dominated the industry. Her first attempt at becoming a director was overshadowed by rumors established by colleagues who had assumed the only way she could have made this promotion possible was through "having an affair with Mizoguchi" and so "Sakane's petition for promotion was eventually rejected." Similar to this experience, Sakane fell under scrutiny following her first film as a director, New Clothing(1936)[1], in which her personal life, including intimate topics such as her virginity, was publicly criticized and shamed in an article merely in the studio's effort to gain attention. [2]

By adhering to colonial standards was Sakane's only choice in order to regain her position as a director in Japan. In doing so, she left Mizoguchi and began a project, Fellow Citizens in North(1941), under the Tokyo Riken Film Company. Despite being enlisted as a director in an effort to create a propagandic film that documented Japan and assertion that the country was "one nation, one people," Sakane's personal intentions interfered. Due to wanting to maintain her personal style in spite of the colonialist assignment, Sakane created a film that documented the loss of history and native culture within Japan. However, she was made to fix and reshoot in order to create a film that met colonialist standards. Sakane never allowed political affiliations or war to affect how she filmed or role within these topics as a filmmaker. She merely used these situations as a means of establishing herself as a filmmaker. [2]

It wasn't until Japan fell into war that Sakane found herself developing a sense of personal filming style that was not under the control of the studios she worked under. Due to the patriarchal restrictions of Japan that were tightening up due to the war, Sakane transferred over to the Manchuria Film Association in 1942. It was there that a majority of Sakane's films were focused on providing educational material for female audiences that didn't exist prior to her directorial debut. Despite having arrived in the association as an editor it was under the belief that only women can direct for women that she returned to that role. Sakane having stated in an interview that "given the necessity to make films for women in the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and that only women can make films for themselves, I was promoted again to director." It was here that her style became evident in reestablishing what exactly domestic relationships looked like and how women existed alongside men in Japanese and Chinese society. [2]