Multimedia auteurism in early television documentary: Japan Unmasked and Non-Fiction Theatre

ABSTRACT With the rise of television in late 1950s and 1960s Japan, television documentary became the focus of multiple debates as a fledgling genre. This article examines two television documentary series, Japan Unmasked (Nihon no sugao) and Non-Fiction Theatre (Non-fikushon gekijō), and the discourse surrounding them, particularly the Japan Unmasked debate. In the debate, Hani Susumu emphasized that the political significance of television documentary lies in amateurs’ attempts to capture their experiences using the unfamiliar camera and microphone. This emphasis on amateurism, however, involved problems: the growth of amateurs into professionals and their loss of an autonomous position within the corporate structure. Calling upon the legacy of left-wing political avant-garde work, Ushiyama Jun’ichi, the father of Non-Fiction Theatre, responded to the issue by inviting filmmakers with political voices such as Ōshima Nagisa to television documentary. The debates, from amateurism in Japan Unmasked to auteurism in Non-Fiction Theatre, sought the political possibility of television documentary as a changing force on people’s views towards the everyday world. This article argues that the resulting implementation of multimedia auteurism, television documentary made by a political auteur, was integral to continuing audio-visual experimentation in the new-born genre, which was in danger of being lost in the development of the television industry.