Now, let me introduce, the, the film, Letters from Iwo Jima.

released, again in 2006, and I think it was released quite late in

the year. But, at a point in time when it could be

considered for the Oscars the following year.

and that's, that's something that happens reasonably regularly.

We mentioned it in the context of Black Hawk Down.

Now, both Steven Spielberg, who produced, or was the executive producer of Flags of

Our Fathers. And also thinking about Letters From Iwo

Jima considered this as quite an important piece in many respects.

But Clint Eastwood himself as the director, you can look at some of the

interviews he's given around what went on, did say that he became more and more

interested in what was happening with the actual commander of, commander in chief

of the Japanese forces. Tadamichi Kuribayashi.

>> Okay. >> We're going to get various

variations when we're pronouncing that during the course of the day.

As I said previously, for those of you native Japanese speakers, I can only

apologize. And moving on from that, okay?

The, he'd simply become, who was this man?

That actually took the responsibility to defend Iwo Jima, this five-mile island.

I, I think in what, the book, it's described as 22 kilometers square.

So not a very large space. But to defend it, and to defend it with

the intelligence and the sophistication that the Japanese did.

>> Mm. >> And the point being that whereas

with "Flags of Our Fathers", there was a book.

It was James Bradley's account of what was going on.

With Letters of Iwo Jima, actually you had the, the book itself is called

Picture Letters From the Commander In Chief, and it's been given a, a subtitle

of Letters From Iwo Jima to tie in with the movie.

Okay. So we actually have information, a, a

group of letters about Kuribayashi in this regard, but we don't have a Japanese

narrative about what went on. >> No, because it, it's, letters on

structure in the way that the narrative would be.

>>Yep. And, again, its, you know, partly things

you'd consider was a historian, if you take correspondence, how we're actually

going to, make sense of these letters within a, a, archival material, written

correspondence, whatever, in a broader context.

Okay, now so, in terms of citing source material for the film the Picture Letters

from the Commander in Chief is one source.

And the other is written by. >> Kumiko Kakehashi, which was original

published as so sad to fall in battle, an account in war based on a general,

Tadamichi Kuribayashi's letters from Iwo Jima.

Now that was actually retitled to tie in with the film, and has the popular

edition I have here says Letters From Iwo Jima.

Okay. So what you have is source material which

is in some respect primary evidence. In another respect is a narrative, a

historical narrative, around that primary evidence.

I think the letters con, that, constitute the, the, so sad to fall in battle

actually cover about 8 months. It's not a complete, complete narrative

all the way through. but not, not only that, I believe these

letters were discovered at Iwo Jima as unposted.

That they were relics from the battle, so to speak.

they couldn't be distributed off the island.

Because of communications issues and the American onslaught.

>> Mm. >> And I think it's 2005, that these

letters were found again. >>So it's within the arc of the

production of the films that suddenly we have another source coming up that gives

a different perspective on what's going on.

>> I mean the problem with any, any letters, if you'd like, is the idea that

if I'm, you know, sort of lying wounded in a ditch, I'm not going to write home

and tell mom that I'm lying wounded in a ditch.

I'm going to tell her that everything is fine and that I've been promoted, so not

to say that letters aren't valid source or that they need to be taken with a, with a

grain of salt. Or, or, or in this case we,we know that

soldiers will write with military censorship in mind, and will avoid

certain topic. Knowing that the letters may not be

forwarded. All of the lower sections will be blanked out.

Which, which h-, is something that has happened in the past i-, in different

environments. Okay?

So, what we have is, a body of material. We have a director who's very familiar

with the battle. He's working on, a multi stranded film in

terms of Flags of our Fathers. And I've described it as multi.

describe as multi-stranded. Because it does cut backwards and

forwards through the historical narrative.

It is not a continuous chronology, going through.

it the point that many reviewers say. Is that the, the key flag raising

actually take, take place, until around about 90, about 90 minutes into the film.

So, let's just consider the, the issues around us, we have, a committed director.

I think, one of the, I think that the main producer of both movies described

Clint Eastwood as a fearless filmmaker. So, the fact that he doesn't speak

Japanese, doesn't have a consistent source material in the way that he has

for the first book. And has not in the past worked with,

Japanese actors or crews to the degree that Letters from Iwo Jima required,

wasn't a problem for him. It, what it meant was a way of actually

structuring and scripting. Letters of Iwo Jima as initially a

companion piece. But I as I'll say probably the more

lauded and the more respected of the two movies in, in, in it's entirety.

Paul Haggis basically had taken on the responsibility of writing

Flags of our Fathers, with a degree of trepidation.

He, he loved the book. I mean, he, he respected what was written

there. but you hear him commenting in, in the

DVD extras about, Well, you know?

Perhaps I can get you 10 percent there, or 11 percent there, etcetera, etcetera.

And how do you craft a story around this? When it comes to now can we write

something in Japanese. It became problematic and the end

solution was in terms of Iris's participation and what went down on the

actual writing of the script, was to have someone who was American Japanese.

to write it with Paul in terms of the actual context of a story.

Then to write it in English and then to have it translated into Japanese.

So there's a process of it, iteration and I think that that's interesting in taking

a story which is in Japanese and translate it into English.

>>And then converting it back. yeah.

Translation is one thing, but it's also a case of the number of times you're

getting possible compromises along the line.

>>History is written by the victor as we know, so, that's in itself a problem with

general hi-, history writing. >>Mm-hm.

>> But. >> You've got, then, the added thing of

no one has really written about this from the losing side either.

>> Or at least not written it in, written it in the same way and same

consistent way as Flags of Our Father has put it from the American side.

And also there is an issue about the way in which these events are presented to

the Japanese public more generally as well.

So in terms of moving this discussion on, and, and, and the way we might consider

it. we have a, a different arc from page to

screen, because, there isn't, a continuous narrative there.

There isn't a, a set of source material which, gives a story, per se with the

same detail and structure. But what we have is a reflection of that

story from a Japanese perspective. And I know that, some of the characters

in, in the Letters for Iwo Jima were fictionalized.

And this it where it comes to the point well, is it the writing of history or is

it produ-, production of entertainment? And that's something that we can, we can

come back to as we got through this discussion today.

[INAUDIBLE] .

Letters from Iwo Jima

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