EMPTY SEATS

Southland Times, Issue 23287, 25 August 1937, Page 9

EMPTY SEATS

Theatre Problems In Japan AUDIENCES LIKE FOREIGN PICTURES The difficulties which beset movingpicture producers in Japan were vividly outlined in a recent lecture by Ichijo Kobayashi, one of the country’s best known moving-picture and theatrical “entrepreneurs,” writes a correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor. Despite the chronic overcrowding of the leading moving-picture theatres in Tokyo, which has recently elicited a series of protesting letters in one of the local English-language newspapers, Mr Kobayashi asserted that the film business is far from profitable. Many promotors and companies have gone to the wall. With a view of studying the industry in western countries, Mr Kobayashi recently made a tour of Europe and America. While tie recognized that the technique there was far ahead .of Japan’s, he carried away a gloomy impression of financial conditions. In the United States, he declared, many leading companies were in receivership. Nowhere could he find first-class pictures released at a low admission charge. Turning to Japan’s problems he pointed out that last year 30,000,000 adults and 1,000,000 children visited the moving-picture houses of Tokyo. This represented a per capita average of six moving-picture entertainments a year for every resident of the capital. A LOSING BATTLE But Mr Kobayashi reckoned that, on the basis of these figures, only 30 per cent, of the seating capacity of the theatres was utilized. Matters were still worse in the provinces, he said, where only 15 per cent, of the seats were filled. In an effort to attract the public provincial managers were showing more films and charging lower prices than they could afford, thereby fighting a losing battle. In view of the tremendous overcrowding of the more popular theatres in Tokyo it is hard to understand Mr Kobayashi’s claim that so many seats are left unoccupied. The explanation probably lies in the fact that among the 230 moving-picture houses in Tokyo the 10 or 12 which feature foreign films are filled to capacity; whereas there are many vacant seats in the smaller houses which show less popular films. For the Japanese, despite the. current wave of nationalism, unmistakably prefer foreign films to their own productions. On holidays.it. is almost impossible to gain admission to the theatres which show foreign. films and fans may be seen standing in line from 8 or 9 in the morning in order to buy tickets for a matinee performance.

There are several reasons for the preference for foreign films. There are the attractions of novelty and superior technique. Then the action of the foreign production is swifter and more dramatic, without the prolonged monologues which are a. familiar feature of Japanese movingpictures, as of the Japanese . theatre. Most important of all, the foreign films bring in the element of personal romance which is so lacking in Japanese drama and in the traditional Japanese way of life. And the younger Japanese generation, especially in Tokyo and other large cities, is a little weary of the old themes of devotion to a feudal lord and sacrifice to uphold the traditions of a family. A shrewd and observant Japanese woman once told me that, in her opinion, foreign films had contributed more than any other western innovation to the weakening of the strict old-fashioned Japanese family inhibitions and practices. Young men and women who absorb romantic ideas from the foreign films are inclined to chafe under the system, which still holds good for probably 90 per cent, of the marriages in Japan, under which matches are made by negotiations between families, with the aid of an experienced go-between, the wishes of the prospective groom, and still more of the prospective bride, receiving scant consideration.