Thursday, February 14, 2008
Ichikawa Kon (1915-2008)
The news wires are flooded with obituaries for director Ichikawa Kon (市川崑監督). Also see Alexander Jacoby's Senses Of Cinema profile here.
I love how many of the great directors here have no concept of "retirement" -- they keep working until the very end. Below is my obituary for Screen from earlier today with a few embedded links added. What's your favourite of his films?
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Director Kon Ichikawa dies aged 92
Jason Gray in Tokyo
14 Feb 2008 08:19
Famed Japanese director Kon Ichikawa has died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital, according to family members. He was 92-years-old.
Born in 1915 in Mie Prefecture, Ichikawa began his career as an animator in the 30s, moving into feature directing with puppet play A Girl At Dojo Temple in 1946 at Toho Studios.
Ichikawa met writer Natto Wada at Toho and they married in 1948. Wada would become Ichikawa's main collaborator, writing the scripts for most of his key works from the late 40s to the mid 60s including literary adaptations Enjô (aka The Temple Of The Golden Pavillion) in 1958, Fires On The Plain (1959) and Robert Towne favourite An Actor's Revenge (1963).
Ichikawa worked in a variety of genres and styles, gaining international acclaim for his work. Anti-war epic The Burmese Harp (1956), produced at Nikkatsu Studios, won prizes in Venice and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.
Ichikawa's films competed for the Palme d'Or two years in a row with The Key (aka Odd Obsession) in 1960 and Otôto in 1961, winning the Jury Prize and Technical Grand Prize respectively.
Ichikawa's widescreen chronicle of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Tokyo Olympiad, won two BAFTA awards and marked one of Ichikawa's final collaborations with Wada, who passed away in 1983.
Ichikawa continued directing into his 70s and 80s, helming commercial successes such as 1975's I Am A Cat, based on Soseki Natsume's novel, and several films based on popular fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi.
Ichikawa's final directing credits included a segment in omnibus film Ten Nights Of Dreams and his own 2006 30-year anniversary remake of 1976's Kindaichi murder mystery The Inugamis, which premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Ichikawa's final film credit will be a cameo appearance as a film director in Fuji TV's upcoming crime comedy The Magic Hour.
4 comments:
Watching Seoul's Nandaemun gate burned on TV and the first thing I thought was about "Enjo".
Now Kon is dead too.
My most favorite Ichikawa film is "Brotherおとうと",a film bleach bypass,an optical effect heavily used in Hollywood in the 90's, was used for the first time.
BTW I never knew 銀残し is bleach bypass in English..
above comment is from Aceface
I'm really glad it didn't end up being a Japanese (or any non-Korean) that set fire to Nandaemun -- would've been a major int'l incident.
I've never seen 「おとうと」 unfortunately but I read (on Wikipedia) that it was the first to use the effect, and that it was invented at Daiei specifically for the film. Interesting! It's also interesting how the English term is exclusionary but the Japanese term refers to retained silver -- nice. I guess 1984 always epitomized the look for me.
Writer/Cinematheque Ontario head programmer James Quandt is an acquaintance (he was presented the Japan Foundation Special Prize for Arts and Culture in 2004 by the Emperor himself). He edited a very good book on Ichikawa which I've just pulled off my shelf to peruse again.
I was watching '85"Burmese Harp" on TV.Wasn't bad.But the way Japanese soldiers were portrayed are definitely weaker than '59"Fieldfire野火".
He also made a lot of great films like
黒い十人の女（１９６１）、穴（１９５７）
and 股旅（１９７３）.
Ichikawa's strength was in long shot and picturesque composition of frames.He shouldn't have made all that Yokomizo mysteries like "Inugami"with so many interior sequenses and close-ups.
I've been thinking he made them just for the money,but he made two more Yokomizo remakes at the end of his life...
I have to say Ichikawa lost all of his creativity after "Tokyo Olympiad" and was working for the rest of his career in inertia.
Somehow when I see picture of Arakawa Yoshiyoshi(I see his face every where nowadays.Like that TV commercial with Nakatani Miki),I think of Ichikawa Raizo in "Enjo",but they don't even look an inch alike!
"Enjo"is ofcourse,cinematization of Mishima Yukio's "The Golden Pavillion金閣寺”,But I prefer another Mishima based film starring Raizo,Mizumi Kenji's（三隅研次）"剣”
Aceface
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