Making Movies and Community of Talent

Abstract: Staff members at a movie company Daiei, known for presumably the world’s best film technology, continued to produce movies for several months even after the company went bankrupt. It was because they desired to make outstanding films. A director can create a high-quality film by combining the skills and ideas of such staff. Akira Kurosawa named the group that could produce excellent works the “Community of Talents”. By using research on a community as a clue, this paper aims to highlight how the “Community of Talents” is organized. First I point out that a “Community of Talents” is formulated primarily by the labor of the staff based on Kumazawa’s “Community on the Shop Floor”. The paper subsequently refers to research by Heinrich Nicklish, a representative researcher on the study of community in Germany, in an attempt to verify that the community is a group of people established on functions. Lastly, the paper explores Guido Fisher’s research to reveal the role of democratic leadership centered on the director who transforms the objectified staff in the organization into an independently-minded presence and help them prove their abilities. The paper continues to emphasize the significance of leadership in the formation of the “Community of Talents”.

Key words: community; community of talents; labor union; leadership; film making

JEL code: Z