tendency film

...In what follows, I will discuss "tendency films," which occupy a unique and important position in Japanese film history.
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"Tendency films" refers to a trend in Japanese films from the early Showa period (late 1920s to early 1930s) that were made within capitalist companies but had a "tendency" toward socialist or left-wing ideology. It is sometimes translated into English as "left-wing tendency film" or simply "tendency film," but the origin of the term is said to be a literal translation of "Tendenzfilm," which was given to a group of German films from the late 1920s (which continued until the Nazis came to power and suppressed democratic projects), such as GW Pabst's "Streets Without Joy" (1925) and Gerhard Lamprecht's "The Fifth Estate" (1925). "Tendency films" were the first Japanese films, which had been entirely dependent on American films, to be influenced by the "montage" technique of European films, especially Soviet films (Tsuneo Hasumi, "Fifty Years of Film"), and were also the product of an era when the "left leaning" of the intellectual middle class was becoming a social phenomenon, as seen in the new drama movement by the Tsukiji Little Theater, the translation of Marx's "Das Kapital," and the organization of the proletarian art movement (the All-Japan Proletarian Art League (NAP) was formed in 1928).

*Some explanations of terms that mention "tendency film" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…以下，ここでは日本映画史に独自の重要な地位を占める〈傾向映画〉について述べることとする。
［傾向映画］
　〈傾向映画〉とは，資本主義的な企業のなかでつくられながら，社会主義的あるいは左翼的イデオロギーに〈傾向〉した昭和初期(1920年代末から30年代初頭)の日本映画の流れで，left‐wing tendency filmあるいは単にtendency filmとの英訳もされるが，呼称の語源は1920年代後半の一群のドイツ映画(ナチスが政権をとって民主的な企画が弾圧されるまでつづいた)，すなわちG.W.パプスト監督《喜びなき街》(1925)，ゲアハルト･ランプレヒト監督《第五階級》(1925)等々に冠せられたTendenzfilmの直訳といわれる。　〈傾向映画〉は，アメリカ映画一辺倒だった日本映画が，初めてヨーロッパ映画，とくにソビエト映画の〈モンタージュ〉の手法の影響を受けてつくられたもの(筈見恒夫《映画五十年史》)であると同時に，築地小劇場による新劇運動，マルクスの《資本論》の翻訳，プロレタリア芸術運動の組織化(1928年には〈全日本無産者芸術連盟(ナップ)〉が結成)など，知識的小市民層の〈左傾〉が社会的現象になってきた時代の産物でもあった。…

※「tendency film」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。

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