ABSTRACT
The first showing of Cinerama in Japan was in early 1955. This new type of film, titled This Is Cinerama, introduced in documentary style some main features of a number of countries. The part on Japan, represented as usual by Mount Fuji and geisha girls, was too repulsive to me. But the United States was shown in the last segment as a country of iron and steel, which somehow stuck in my memory. A sharp, wide-angle picture of a rust-covered iron bridge under construction conveyed the image of the United States as an industrial superstate. The image of a steel-framed bridge as a symbol of America overwhelmed me, perhaps, because as a graduate student I was thinking of specializing in industrial economics. At the same time, it overlapped with the image of “frail” Japanese industry.
