The Funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi
About The Funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi
On 16 December 1910 a funeral procession for Tomijiro Kobayashi, founder of the Kobayashi store that became Lion Corporation, leaves his home and shop on Yanagihara-gashi in Kanda. More than a thousand mourners follow a hearse for a kilometre, across Yanagihara Bridge and through Sudacho, to the Tokyo YMCA hall in Kanda-Mitoshirocho.
More about The Funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi
Yoshizawa Shoten, a forerunner of Nikkatsu, filmed the procession on 35mm the day of the funeral. Kobayashi had died on 13 December 1910. The company delivered the negative to the Kobayashi firm.
Themes
Background
Kobayashi's soap and toothpaste business was already a Tokyo firm in 1910. The film was ordered as a record of his funeral, not as a story.
In film history
In June 2011 the negative and print were designated an Important Cultural Property, the third film given that status in Japan. The negative is treated as the oldest surviving Japanese original camera negative.
Making
The camera stays with the procession from the shop door to the hall. It does not go inside the service.
Look
A 35mm camera follows the procession through Kanda streets in daylight.
Preservation
Lion found the camera negative and a projection print in 2003. They were restored in 2005, shown at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, and designated an Important Cultural Property on 27 June 2011. The National Film Archive of Japan holds them.
Notes
- The hearse has a karahafu roof.
- The route ends at the red-brick Tokyo Christian Youth Hall, later the Kanda YMCA.
- Lion Corporation found the original negative and a print in 2003, in a paulownia box with Yoshizawa's delivery note.
- The negative is 436 feet 13 frames. The print is 444 feet 13 frames.
- Projected at 16 frames a second, the print runs 7 minutes 20 seconds.
Scenes
- The hearse and a line of mourners more than a kilometre long cross Yanagihara Bridge.
Also available
- The Meiji Period on Film, National Film Archive of Japan