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A 52’ documentary by MAUD GUILLAUMIN MACARTHUR FATHER OF A NEW JAPAN AB INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION PRESENTS
A 52’ documentary by MAUD GUILLAUMIN
MACARTHURFATHER OF A NEW JAPANMACARTHURFATHER OF A NEW JAPAN
AB INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION PRESENTS
On September 2nd, 1945, the GIs disem-bark on the Japanese shores. At the end of the Pacifi c War, the General Douglas MacArthur, having had a commanding role in the deployment, stands before a colos-sal endeavour: managing Japan, a totali-tarian state having committed numerous war atrocities. Aware of the aspects of this complex terri-tory, and concerned with keeping in place the revered Emperor, MacArthur must show a tactful course of action.
Far from limiting ourselves to the Ame-rican propaganda flaunting its own methods, we are going to discover why MacArthur is often referred to by the Japanese as the ‘White Shogun’. Why, far from being hated as the terrible occupant, the proud Japanese even accepted him. They understood his reforms, and adopted the constitution imposed by the American giant. A constitution that to this day is still applied and appreciated by the popula-tion.
Beyond American propaganda and the acceptance of the Japanese, how has this occupation truly been perceived?
If some historians underline the fact that the Japanese people, exhausted from years of war, where also eager to obtain peace, others suggest that Japan, just as Germany, benefi ted of having Uncle Sam as benefactor. This will be the central element to this documentary, as with the Marshall plan in Europe, the USA created a new world in Asia by stimulating the agriculture, indus-try, and economy of the country in order to have it rise from the ashes as soon as possible.An occupation that created a relation of trust between two former enemies now become allies, eventually becoming one the of the key points on the international diplomatic chessboard with the Soviet Union.
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Seven years of American guardianship
INTRODUCTION
After the traumatic attack on Pearl Har-bour, and the apocalyptic image of the kamikazes, determined to die for their country, the American soldiers are expec-ting a fierce resistance upon disembarking on the Japanese shores.
To their big surprise, on the day of the landing, the GIs encounter almost no resistance. Upon their beaching, armed to the teeth and fear in the stomach, the American soldiers don’t encounter a single Japanese warrior. Instead? Women calling them and a few men saluting them respectfully. Before their eyes, a country devastated by intensive bombing and two atomic explosions.
THE FILM
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This documentary will focus on one of the major events in Japanese history called the ‘Gyokuon-Hoso’ (literally: ‘The Jewel Voice Broadcast’).Fifteen days prior to this landing, on the 15th of August 1945, the 70 million inhabi-tants turned on their radio at noon sharp. For the fi rst time in history, the Emperor will speak to his people. The Japanese have never heard his voice, and especially, have never seen him, not even on a photo. They are ready to die if such is the will of the Emperor. This is a part of their culture. After the chiming of their national anthem, they hear a strange voice, expressing itself in a hardly understandable archaic voca-bulary: the recorded voice of the Emperor Hirohito. Despite his obsolete style of no-menclature, hardly understood by most, the Japanese have caught on to the essen-tial part of his message. The country of the Rising Sun must not be obliterated. The decision has been taken in the high places not to ‘counter-attack’.
In this country where individual will does not exist, where only the collective spi-rit prevails, no opposition takes place, at least almost none. Only a few military men try a political coup by attempting to stop the Emperor’s broadcast but are quickly arrested
Envisioning The Landing.
The landing and ensuing occupation of Ja-pan could have taken place on the same day as the Emperors broadcast. But the General MacArthur leading the operations is opposed to this early deployment. He wants to give the country more than two weeks to organise before this embarras-sing capitulation.
At the age of 65 years, the old army man is aware that it is essential to be accepted by this country that has been beaten, hu-miliated, and destroyed. Fortunately, he is quite familiar with this complex culture. His father had been a military attaché in Japan in 1904. In October 1905, MacArthur, already a young offi cer, receives the order to go to Tokyo to function as non-commis-sioned offi cer for his father. Though it will be a brief stay in this otherwise very closed country, MacArthur is able to comprehend the Japanese mentality.
He knows that the Japanese are very res-pectful of authority and won’t risk opposing themselves to the will of their supreme leader. He only fears the extremists in the military that know very well that they will be condemned for their war crimes. He therefore wishes to give the population a chance to deal with this confl ict internally and makes the decision to delay the lan-ding.
On September 2nd, 1945, the represen-tatives of the Japanese Empire sign the terms of their unconditional surrender in the Bay of Tokyo.
An occupation without any notable collisions.
MacArthur imposes a strict ruling and threatens to hang any contravening GI.Beyond a strict control of the troops, it is essential to lighten the burden of everyday life for the Japanese. The Americans put in place vaccination campaigns, quarantine arrangements to limit the proliferation of disease, and in the space of a few mon-ths, the population can see a considerable improvement on their sanitary conditions. Furthermore, without any prior notice to the transitional government, the general recovers food stocks from a landing that never took place. Millions of tons of de-hydrated hamburgers, peanut butter etc. arrive to Japan.
As in Europe, soldiers handing out candy to children and gifts to the women benefi t of a good public image. Very quickly, the little boys are not making samurai helmets with folded newspapers, but GI hats, which they wear with pride. The American propaganda in its numerous fi lms emphasise this posi-tive acceptance.
One thing is certain: the country once so closed from foreign infl uence is now slowly opening to the culture made in the USA: baseball becomes a national sport. The American Hollywood stars are the new re-ference – a big step away from the cult of the Geishas.
«Gyokuon-Hoso»
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The relations between americans and the japanese.
On their side, the American soldiers are extremely pampered. In order to avoid rapes, brothels are put in place where women, widows or women having lost all their family and support find themselves to provide ‘comfort to soldiers’. Three-star barracks are created with swimming pool, baseball court and American food ad libi-tum.To be stationed in Japan is not at all the dreaded hell!Though the Japanese live in a state of ab-solute destitution, the contrast could have been striking. But MacArthur is keen to LIMIT the contact between his soldiers and the general population above all. His objective: to leave the reconstruction of the country in the hands of the Japanese.
This in spite of installing profound econo-mic reform. The country formerly in the hands of the nobility is now redrawn. The big monopolies, the shiatsu’s, are dissol-ved, and the factories are redistributed between the big companies. This economic purge is aimed at the 1930 conglomerates at the heart of the Japanese expansionism. An antitrust law is put in place to reinforce this scattering of competition so dear to the Yankees.
But the Cold War puts a halt to these ef-forts. The Americans were pushing for strong unions, frowned upon in the US, in order to counterbalance the emergence of all-powerful leaders. And trouble brews quickly: a general strike orchestrated by the communist unions is posing a menace to the country. MacArthur sees this immi-nent danger: the communists are receiving aid from the USSR present in the Kuril Is-lands.Major turnaround – at the end of the 1950ies, new big conglomerates see the light of day again in order to limit the power yielded by the unions.
The revolution of ideas also applies to the farmers. The farmlands are confis-cated from the nobles and redistributed to the small farmers who can now purchase land at the mere price of four cartons of cigarettes.
Macarthur, the new Shogun.
MacArthur’s general quarters is installed at the headquarters of the insurance com-pany Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance in Tokyo. The Japanese appreciate seeing him exiting his domain and salute him with respect. He steadily becomes a public figure that attracts the crowd in a positive fashion. Though he refuses to present him-self as the leader of the country, he stills yields an immense power over the country. But far from boasting, he tries to lead a normal life with his wife and son.
MacArthur also wants to put forward Hi-rohito. The Emperor, once such a secret figure must now adopt a much more pu-blic role as the head of power to ‘erase’ the presence of the GIs. In order to accomplish this, he makes sure that the allied troops appear as little as possible in the medias and the theatres. On the other hand, he in-cites the Emperor to tour the country. The documentary will focus largely on this Emperor of another age, for decades com-pletely disconnected from the reality of his people.For the first time, this short, near sighted man solely impassioned by his butterfly collection discovers Japan and its territo-ry. MacArthur wants to use him to reassure the population. The aim is to convince the people that it isn’t the occupation force that tries to impose a deep democra-tic change to Japan, but indeed Hirohito himself.
A new Constitution...
Everything comes from the Emperor... It’s effectively him who announces the ins-talment of the new constitution that strips him of his political power, abolishes nobi-lity, and stipulates that Japan ‘renounces to war as a sovereign right of the nation’. Effective from May 3rd, 1947, the constitu-tion prohibits Japan from having a standing army. Moreover, the constitution emanci-pates women, prohibits racial discrimi-nation et decentralises the police and the administration.
…and Democratising an indoctri-nated country.
As in Germany, the United States take on the mission of expunging the country of its war criminals.
To shield the Emperor, during the trial against the war criminals, the general decides not to have the royal family stand trial. A decision that will be widely criti-cised in the United States.Approximately 4300 war criminals are condemned, of which 1000 to death. The chief prosecutions concern events like the Nankin massacre, the death march of Baa-tan and the Manilla massacre.
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Thwarting the Soviet danger
By the end of 1945, the USSR has already negotiated the occupation of the Ku-ril Islands. But Stalin puts pressure on the United States to occupy the island of Hokkaido also. General MacArthur fi rmly rejects this motion as he knows this may very well harm American interests in the future. He knows to what extent the Rus-sian-Japanese war of 1905 has marked the people’s spirit and refuses to have them suffer another insult by the soviet enemy. In the face of the general’s fi rmness, Stalin is forced to yield. Though they won’t voice this, the Japanese will from this day forward be very thank-ful that he had avoided another occupation from one of their former foes.
From 1948, three years only after their victory, the United States rely on this new partner to whom they provide raw ma-terials and capital. This procures them good opportunities for their own economy. Beyond this, it halts the expansion of Com-munists in Asia. They continue their expan-sion in Korea, Vietnam and China. Japan must become a leading state, partner of the free world.
The new constitution is submitted to the Japanese government on February 13th, 1946. Amongst its democratic novelties, starting autumn 1945, women are now allowed to vote. We will discover how this ‘democracy’ is steadily put in place and if the country truly understands what changes it implies.
Still through the voice of the Emperor, the Japanese will also come to meet the re-form of the education system and a sim-plifi cation of their grammar. All these mea-sures that will be met without any form of opposition within the general population.
A new Japan?
We will be able to appreciate that three master strokes by MacArthur are to have taken good care of the population, to have stood his ground in face of the hated Rus-sian foe, and to have leaned on the Empe-ror to pass the needed reforms.
The Americans will also help in bringing home some 6 million soldiers scattered around the pacifi c, who in turn will disco-ver this new Japan, unimaginable to them. Modern factories, a redesigned form of agriculture, a suppler education: Japan has changed.
1952: The end of the protectorate
In the eyes of the US, the mission is accom-plished. The danger now lies elsewhere.The geostrategic landscape has changed considerably. The tensions in Korea and the 1949 rise to power of Mao in China are accelerating the process.
Foreseeing a conflict that will arise in Korea the following year and profoundly disturb the power balance in Asia, MacAr-thur organises a progressive withdrawal of the American troops.It’s in this context that six years after the second world war, the representatives of some forty different countries gather to discuss the sovereignty of Japan. Signed in 1951, the treaty of San Francisco turns this ‘democratised’ Japan into an independent state. Shortly before, in April, ‘the White Emperor’ left the country of the ‘Rising Sun’ to start managing the country of ‘Early Morning’, now at war.
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DIRECTOR’S NOTE
This documentary is based on a thorough enquiry, rooted in a report I made for the magazine GEO-Histoire in 2016.This minacious analysis aims to display the American and Japanese mentalities. Two worlds that will need to understand one another in order to reach a swift improve-ment of the general situation. The stakes for this film rely on a fine psychological un-derstanding of two antagonistic visions of society and two different cultures: one new, liberal, and dynamic. The other, ancestral, and recluse.
This archive film will also feature clips shot in Japan. We will be visiting Tokyo, Hiro-shima, and the military base of Okinawa. But also, we will pass by the United States to get a glimpse of the general staff and the at the time very young GIs present there.For the first time, we will come across both the American and Japanese views of this occupation. What did the GIs think of this country? Where they eager to get their re-venge after Pearl Harbour?
Getting an insight of MacArthur’s character is equally exciting. This highly decorated military man faced a major challenge. He had never had a politi-cal role. But this time, he found himself in charge of country with a large population. In order to properly understand his course of action and strategy, it will be important to turn back the clocks to his time in Japan at his father’s side at the beginning of the century. An experience that will show it-self to be vital - to act without jostling the Japanese culture.
We will also focus on the psychological as-tuteness of MacArthur, who never wanted to draw too much attention to himself. He kept a low profile and tried to lead a normal life with his wife and son. He knows that this protectorate isn’t for him to make a personal gain. This important spectrum of MacArthur’s vi-sion will be at the heart of my film. We will analyse how he will manage to free himself of his general staff that doesn’t quite un-derstand the Japanese, step by step. Wit-hout imposing the American rules, he will leave the Japanese the freedom (though guided of course) to find their own way.
Other key element to the film: his partnership with Hirohito.This dusty Emperor is an intriguing ele-ment that will give this documentary a whole new appeal. MacArthur is very far away from this little man, impaired by his sight, who doesn’t have the faintest idea of the trials and tribulations endured by his people.
A Japanese population that never com-plains. To decrypt the mindset of the time, we will rely on the numerous stock footage formerly used by the US army for their pro-paganda, which they utilised to prove the efficiency of their methods.
A vision very far from reality. That is also the original aspect of this movie. The Ame-ricans have for a long time pushed forward the narrative that if the population is do-cile, does that not prove that the protecto-rate has been accepted as is? Is that truly the case? Or is it in fact the Japanese ten-dency to self-denial and their capacity to adapt to new circumstances that are at the core of this achievement?
It’s the leap from this almost feudal Japan to modernity that we will illustrate.
We will also film a baseball game in Ja-pan to show (through the use of stock foo-tage) how the American culture was able to spread in spite of a natural opposition from the Japanese people, who were very bound to their particularities and millen-nial culture.
We will also be relying on the crucial in-terviews of the witnesses of this period as well as their children to discover how that time was then being presented to them.However proud the Japanese may be of how Japan has turned out to be as a country, they do not forget the humiliation they had suffered, nor that the Americans have not yet issued an apology for having dropped the two atomic bombs. But we will also be underlining the attitude of the Americans on their own territory who see the Japanese as the pure devil, and who depict them in a highly excessive caricatural way throughout the 40ies and 50ies.
We will meet journalists and historians who will describe how the symbolic actions of MacArthur have had a decisive impact in facilitating the acceptance of Japan to profoundly change its ways without losing its soul.
Far from limiting ourselves to a chronolo-gical feature describing a seven-year occu-pation, we will go back and forth, showing flashbacks of MacArthur’s life, we will re-discover the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Kamikazes, so traumatic to the GIs. This non-linear story will focus on the breaking points and points of no return. Not to let ourselves be held by chronology will leave us much more freedom to get too the bot-tom of this tale of an occupation that for too long has been reduced to a day-to-day description.
Therefore, we will bring the viewer behind the scenes. Thanks to the intertwining tes-timonials, we will explain what is happe-ning in the background, how the present forces feel the political, economic, and so-cial evolution of the country.
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POTENTIAL SPEAKERS
Eiji Takemae, professor of political science at Tokyo Keizai University and author of The Allied Occupation of Japan
Ikuhiko Hata, historian
Hirofumi Hayashi, historian on modern Japanese history
Princess Akiko of Mikasa, member of the imperial family
Rinjiro Sodei, MacArthur political specialist
Naoki Inose,journalist
John W. Dower, American author and historian
Robert H. Ferrell, American author and historian
Richard Frank, American lawyer and military historian.
Frank Gibney,former GI and Time Magazine Journalist
Susumu Kaho, VP Dai-Ichi Public Relations
Margaret Shapiro, correspondent for the Washington Post in Japan
THE DIRECTOR
Maud Guillaumin
After studying literature and then journa-lism (higher education preparatory classes, IEP, CELSA Paris-Sorbonne), Maud Guil-laumin began her career at Europe 1, then worked in the political department at France-Soir to cover the presidential elec-tion. After becoming a political reporter on France 5, she published a book in 2010 on the «Mitterrand Generation» entitled Les Enfants de Mitterrand and then adapted it into a 52’ documentary. «C’était la Géné-ration Mitterrand» was broadcast on LCP and selected for FIPATEL 2012.
TV host for special coverage of the 2012 presidential race on LCP, Guillaumin then wrote and directed a documentary entitled «Les hommes de l’Elysée,» and «War of the Roses» about the 30-year opposition in the Socialist Party between Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royal. Her last work “Jackie Kennedy: fi ghting for civil rights” (2018) has been broadcasted on Toute l’Histoire, RTBF, Radio Canada, RTS, RSI, HRT N1 and RTVE.
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