Vanilla, but certainly not plain

When you're watching old movies, and I mean really old movies, especially in a modern, or perhaps not so modern, theater, there's a tendency to treat them with a kind of reverential awe. I remember clearly how when Colleen and I went to see the restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, we were shushed by a woman whose silent movie experience was obviously being ruined by our muffled conversation. If the historinos are correct, this is the polar opposite of what the silent movie experience used to be, namely a rather raucous affair.

Though this practice never existed in the US, in Japan (and, I have it on good account, Poland as well) there is to this day a tradition of performing a silent film as it's being projected. This is to say the katsu benshi would tell a story of what is happening in the film not merely supply dialogue to the beat of the actors' mandibular gesticulation. The benshi is literally reading the movie to the audience as they watch.

But now that movies have blow your ass off digital sound, you can imagine there isn't much need for the benshi anymore. As a result, they tend to be quite the character. The young woman pictured above is Yamazaki Vanilla--yes, her name is Vanilla--who, despite having majored in Spanish literature at university, became a benshi and voice actor (and recently a beginner's rank professional shogi player) after graduating. Each benshi generally has a specialization, and Vanilla's is Buster Keaton films, though she has performed Chaplin as well as numerous early animated shorts. She plays taisho to accompany many of her performances and speaks surprisingly good English (live in Japan for awhile and you will know what that means).

She's most well known for her extremely high pitched voice. Most think it an affectation; benshi tend to do odd things to stand out (like change their name to vanilla and wear nothing but brightly colored kimono). On a talk show, once the host finally stopped giggling, she was asked what her normal speaking voice is like. Her response: this is my normal voice.