"Minamata disease as medicine" - Minamata disease as medicine

Currently, most of the "documentaries" that are produced in various ways in accordance with cultural, political, and economic circumstances in various countries around the world have been absorbed by television, and are being transformed into the new "mass media" of "television documentaries," and into "public opinion" and "reportage" through images. In this situation of "popularizing documentaries," Japanese documentary films, which continue to carry out the pure and difficult independent screening movement, seem to have begun to have a "new perspective" with Tsuchimoto Noriaki's "Minamata Disease as Medicine" trilogy (1975) and Ogawa Shinsuke's "Nippon Country: Old House Village" (1982). Tsuchimoto defines his "unknown documentary" as something that can only be achieved through "(1) trust in humanity on a historical scale, (2) independence as a filmmaker, and (3) above all, the use of science to consolidate the surrounding data and elevate that science to the level of art as an expression," and he imposes these three absolute conditions on himself, proclaiming his "new film methodology" by saying that "the factors that distinguish it from the so-called objective reporting of regular TV stations, which lists opinion A and opinion B, in addition to the three points above, are the determination to maintain a relationship between the two, whether positive or negative."

*Some of the terminology used to refer to "Minamata disease as a medical science" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…　現在では，世界の各国で文化的･政治的･経済的事情に従って多種多様につくられている〈ドキュメンタリー〉の大部分はテレビジョンに吸収され，〈テレビ･ドキュメンタリー〉として新しい〈マス･メディア〉，映像による〈世論〉や〈ルポルタージュ〉に転換しつつある。こうした〈ドキュメンタリーの大衆化〉状況のなかで，なお純粋な苦しい自主上映運動をつづける日本のドキュメンタリー映画は，《医学としての水俣病》三部作(1975)の土本典昭と《ニッポン国･古屋敷村》(1982)の小川紳介において，一つの〈新たな視点〉をもちはじめたかにみえる。土本はその〈未知のドキュメンタリー〉を，〈(1)歴史的な尺度での人間への信頼，(2)映画人としての独立，(3)そして何より，科学をもって四囲のデータをかため，その科学を表現としての芸術に高める〉ことによってのみ到達しうるものと定義しつつみずからにその三つの絶対条件を課し，〈いわゆる通常TV局の客観的報道なるもの，Aの意見，Bの意見をならべるといったものと画然と区別されるファクターは，右の3点のほかに，両者ともに正負にせよ関係を持続しぬく覚悟であろう〉とその〈新しい映画方法論〉を表明している。…

※「《医学としての水俣病》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報