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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2016 |
OTHER CITY SYMPHONIES – 2 |
| Film Title |
FUKKÕ TEITO SHINFONI |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[Sinfonia della ricostruzione della metropoli imperiale] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[Symphony of the Rebuilding of the Imperial Metropolis] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
|
| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
1929 |
| Production Co. |
Tokyo shisei chosa kai [Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research] |
| Director |
Tokyo shisei chosa kai [Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research] |
| Format |
|
Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
|
16 |
| |
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| Footage |
|
Time |
| 570 m. |
|
32' |
| Archive Source |
National Film Center of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo |
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| Print Notes |
did./titles: JPN |
| Other Information |
| Copia stampata nel 2009 dall’ internegativo 35mm ricavato dal nitrato 35mm rimpatriato dalla LIbrary of Congress. / Print struck in 2009, from the 35mm intermediate negative transferred from the 35mm nitrate print repatriated from the Library of Congress in Washington, DC |
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| Program Notes |
The film Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni focuses on the rebuilding of Tokyo in the 1920s as its central theme. On 1 September 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo, causing an enormous fire that burned 36 square kilometers to the ground and killed 68,000 people. Following the disaster, the master commission for rebuilding the city seized the opportunity to make extensive changes in regulations affecting the cityscape, most importantly replacing traditional modes of wooden construction and introducing new architectural styles and materials, such as reinforced concrete and steel. Tokyo was rebuilt, re-emerging as a modern metropolis. In October and November 1929, the Tokyo shisei chosa kai (Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research), which was established in 1922 by Tokyo Mayor Shinpei Goto, organized an exhibition, “Teito Fukko” (Rebirth of the Imperial Capital), to document and display the progress achieved thus far. For this exhibition the Institute also produced the film Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni, which was screened at the city hall in Hibiya.
The film follows the city symphony dawn-to-dusk structure, portraying a day in the life of the rebuilt Japanese metropolis. We see the city’s bridges over the Sumida River, modern means of transportation, streets, markets, factories, residential, office, and government buildings, work, leisure activities, and neon lights at night, as well as other characteristic city symphony motifs. In addition, further rebuilding activities are underlined. The film also includes a return trip from Tokyo to Yokohama, showing different urban zones and the city’s spatial expansion.
In its structure and content of modern urban life, Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni relates to other city symphonies of the era. Its filmmakers were most probably familiar with Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin, as it was widely screened in Japan in 1928 and was proclaimed a great work of art, even though contemporary critics were split between a celebration and a sharp critique of the film.
I would like to acknowledge Chris Dähne’s research on this film. My notes are based on her writings (Die Stadtsinfonien der 1920er Jahre, 2013, and “Cinematic Urbanism and Architecture of Tokyo in Times of Epochal Upheaval,” in Eselsohren 2, 2014). – Eva Hielscher |
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