On the Road: A Document
| On the Road: A Document | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Noriaki Tsuchimoto |
| Written by | Tokuo Kusunoki |
| Produced by | Masami Makino Kiyoshi Kurahashi Takashi Marumo |
| Starring | Kimio Kawasaki Eiko Minami |
| Cinematography | Tatsuo Suzuki |
| Edited by | Eiko Minami |
| Music by | Minoru Miki |
Production company | Toyo Cinema |
Release date |
|
Running time | 54 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
On the Road: A Document (ドキュメント 路上, Dokyumento rojō) is a Japanese documentary from 1964 directed by Noriaki Tsuchimoto.
Film content[]
The film focuses on the taxi drivers of Tokyo in the year before the Tokyo Olympics and the difficulties they face: construction obstructing traffic, poor working conditions, numerous accidents, and bad pay. It becomes a critique of a changing and modernizing urban Japan.
Production[]
The film was originally commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency as a traffic safety documentary.[1] Tsuchimoto's proposal had won the competition for the project, but he ended up changing the film after cooperating with a cab driver's union which was protesting work conditions.[1] The film was partially scripted and amateur actors played the main roles.[1] The resulting film offended the TMPD, which refused to use it.[1]
Reception[]
The film won several foreign and domestic awards in 1964.[1] The film critic Chris Fujiwara, commenting about the DVD, called On the Road: A Document "a breakthrough film . . . Constantly imaginative and vigorous in depicting movement but never fetishising it in a facile or celebratory way, On the Road has the working-class speed and grimness of an early-1930s Warner Bros film, at the same time reshaping stray observational surprises in the manner of Beat poetry."[2]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Mizuno, Sachiko (2011). "On the Road: A Document". The Documentaries of Noriaki Tsuchimoto. Zakka Films. p. 5.
- ^ Fujiwara, Chris (September 2011). "DVD: Two documentaries by Tsuchimoto Noriaki". Sight and Sound. BFI. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
External links[]
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- 1964 films
- Japanese-language films
- Japanese documentary films
- Japanese films
- 1964 documentary films
- Films directed by Noriaki Tsuchimoto
- Documentary films about cities
- Transport in Tokyo
- Documentary films about road transport
- Documentary film stubs