On the Road: A Document

1964 Japanese film

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

* 1964 (1964)

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

[edit]

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

[edit]

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

[edit]

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

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e Mizuno, Sachiko (2011). "On the Road: A Document". The Documentaries of Noriaki Tsuchimoto. Zakka Films. p. 5.
2. ^ Fujiwara, Chris (September 2011). "DVD: Two documentaries by Tsuchimoto Noriaki". Sight and Sound. BFI. Archived from the original on September 9, 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2011.

## External links

[edit]

* On the Road: The Document at IMDb

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