A Story of Tobacco
About A Story of Tobacco
A tiny man on a desk tells a girl wearing a traditional Japanese hairstyle that women descended from tobacco. She laughs and traps him under a glass. He blows pipe smoke at her; she takes the cigarette and puts it under her book. When he points a gun she throws the cigarette into the yard, and the gun does not fire. He then starts to tell her how tobacco began. The print stops there.
Cast & crew
More about A Story of Tobacco
Noburō Ōfuji made Kemurigusa monogatari (煙り草物語) by combining paper cut-outs with live action. The 1926 censor record lists one reel, 174 meters, six minutes. Some accounts place the film in 1924, just after his test The Stupid Old Man (のろまな爺). Japan Search also names Tokyo Jiyū Eigasha.
Themes
Technique
Cut-out figures are combined with live action: the man is small enough to stand on a desk and be shut under a glass, and he blows drawn smoke at the actress.
Preservation
The second half is missing. What remains is the three-minute print Yae Ōfuji gave the National Film Center in 1971. The 1926 censor record describes the original as 174 meters, about six minutes.
Notes
- The National Film Center print was given in 1971 by Yae Ōfuji, the director's elder sister.
- At a 2010 gallery talk for the exhibition "Noburo Ofuji, Pioneer of Animation," Mieko Okada said the woman on screen might be Yae.
- A photograph in the November 1926 issue of Fujin Graph, captioned "Ichii Ofuji, Princess of Chiyogami Eiga," points instead to his younger sister Ichii, and the caption says she appeared in chiyogami films.
- The surviving copy is black and white and tinted.
Scenes
- The girl laughs and claps a glass over the tiny man on her desk.
- He aims a gun after she throws his cigarette into the yard, and it does not fire.
Also available
- Japanese Animated Film Classics (work 41025)
- Wikimedia Commons (A Story of Tobacco (1926).webm)
Quotes
Women descended from tobacco.
