The adoption grew out of a friendship that started in 2006, and eventually led to Mr. Uehara’s moving into Mr. Keene’s Tokyo home and helping the older man out with things like keeping his large collection of books organized.
For generations of scholars, critics and artists who have made Japan their field, Richie was a hugely influential and inspirational presence, opening a window on a ceaselessly fascinating world. Those who knew him personally will remember him for his endless approachability, enthusiasm, energy and generosity with his time, even in his final years of illness.
Richie suggested a title change to Kore eda’s wonderful life to After Life. (Japan times – Master Critic)
Donald R had a high praise for Still Walking calling the film..a staggering achievement..(previous post - Still Walking)
“It is, in fact, an injustice to call Richie a writer on Japan; really, he is a writer on artifice and time and death, on being human. And most of all he’s a writer on the particularly modern art of learning how to be a foreigner.”
In the introduction, Iyer goes on to place Richie in the company of literary figures such as Graham Greene, Jan Morris, Paul Bowles and Somerset Maugham.
Paul Schrader says “Whatever we in the West know about Japanese film, and how we know it, we most likely owe to Donald Richie.” Richie also penned analyses of two of Japan’s best known filmmakers: Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.
Richie wrote the English subtitles for Akira Kurosawa’s films Kagemusha (1980), Red Beard, and Dreams
Among those he counted as his friends and intimates were the writers Marguerite Yourcenar, Susan Sontag, Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Thwaite, and Angela Carter. (Inclined View – Japan times)
Watch viedo here..Life in Japanese film Donald Richie
Citizen Kane opend his eyes.. he got a camera.
On Mishima was still taboo in Japan according to Donald R.
Yamato damashi – religion of Japan.. they believe in themselves.
Drunken Angel was his first introduction to Japanese film.
Individuality in Kurosawa. (Dostoevsky in Kurosawa).
On Kagemusha.
Katsu Shintaro..was considered – Shintaro brought his own camera crew..the fight erupted.
the part went to Nakadai Tatsuya..Richie saw it as a mistake..
(miscast).
Why women are great actresses .. they practice duplucity in Japanese culture.
Women in Ozu real woman
Women in mizoguchi.. women as victims..
Naruse has a dark view of women
Strong women in Imamura they do whatever…
Ozu Menekata sisters not a good film according to Ritchie..
He also said Simone Beauvoir was better philosopher than Sartre, Colette better writer than Scott Fitzgerald.
Yamada Isuzu (5 February 1917 – 9 July 2012) was a Japanese actress whose career on stage and screen spanned eight decades.
Sisters of gion, (Mizoguchi)
Osaka elegy, (Mizoguchi)
The Throne of blood (Kurosawa)
Tokyo Twilght (Ozu)
Black River
The Lower Depth, (Kurosawa)
Yojinbo (Kurosawa)
She died in 2012 at age 95.
In 1983, Oshima returned to Cannes with “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” A WWII P.O.W. camp drama based on the experiences of writer Laurens van der Post, the pic starred Tom Conti, David Bowie, composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also supplied the soundtrack music) and helmer-to-be Takeshi Kitano as a brutal camp guard.
Nagisa Oshima launched Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano onto the world stage with “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”, both Kitano and Sakamoto had supporting roles to David Bowie. (see more images -scroll down Gohatto)
“Death by Hanging” (1968), about a Korean man sentenced to death for rape and murder, addresses the prejudicial treatment of the Korean minority in Japan. (NYtimes)
When I was a college student, I went to see the film directed by Nagisa Oshima “KOSYUKEI（Death by hanging)” . After the film screening, Mr. Oshima appeared, and debated with audiences. There was a young man asked a question to Mr. Oshima. Then, Mr. Oshima, answered “Stupid!”. When the young man asked “What? Is it stupid? What do you mean?” Mr. Oshima shouted in a loud voice “I said just You are stupid!” and Mr. Oshima went away and left the hall quickly.
He was always angry in front of the media. I think the “energy of anger” become the source of his works. He was always angry, however, people say that he had never even once a fight with his wife.
Shomei Tomatsu, Brookman noted, “transformed the notion of documentary photography from more formal concerns…into a much more emotional image-making…He didn’t simply settle into one style.”
The latter, combined with Tomatsu’s reluctance to travel abroad, may help explain his relative obscurity in the west.”
One of Shindo’s notable fans is actor Benicio Del Toro. Last year Del Toro presented retrospectives of Shindo’s work both in Los Angeles and Puerto Rico as well as filming an interview with the director and coming to Japan to celebrate Shindo’s 100th birthday.
Shindo’s final film, WWII drama Postcard, won the special jury prize at the 2010 Tokyo International Film Festival and was selected as Japan’s official entry for the best foreign-language film category of the Academy Awards last year. It was also nominated for best film and screenwriter at this year’s Asian Film Awards.
The female lead was invariably played by Nobuko Otowa, who became the married Shindo’s lover in the late 1940s. (They married in 1977 on the death of his first wife.) Otowa appeared in all but one of the 41 features Shindo directed from 1951 until her death in 1994. (This creative film partnership is surpassed only by Yasujiro Ozu’s 53 films made with Chishu Ryu.)
When interviewed by Mellen after the release of the film Kuroneko, Shindo stated that there was “a strong Freudian influence throughout all of his work.”
The strongest and most apparent themes in Shindo’s work involve social criticism of poverty, women and sexuality. Shindo has described himself as a socialist. Tadao Sato has pointed out that Shindo’s political films are both a reflection of his impoverished childhood and the condition of Japan after World War II, stating that, “Contemporary Japan has developed from an agricultural into an industrial country. Many agricultural people moved to cities and threw themselves into new precarious lives.
Faced with a bout of ill health, global traveller, western-educated novelist Kafu Nagai (1879-1959) began to chronicle sundry episodes in his life, as well as thoughts and observations of contemporary Japanese society, in a series of intimate journals that would eventually span the early half of 20th century.
Yasuhiro Ishimoto June 14, 1921 – February 6, 2012 was an influential Japanese-American photographer.
From 1942 to 1944, he was interned with other Japanese Americans at the Amache Internment Camp (also known as Granada Relocation Center) in Colorado. It was here that he began to learn photography
While still a student at the Institute of Design in the early 1950s, Ishimoto’s teacher Harry Callahan introduced his work to The Museum of Modern Art photography curator Edward Steichen, who would exhibit it in the seminal 1955 Family of Man group show and a later solo show in 1961.
Update: Hirokazu Koreeda’s new film is called Air Doll or Love will Tear us Apart via (Globus Film Series)
His 2009 film, Air Doll, examines loneliness through the eyes of a blow-up doll come to life. Bae Doona stars as Nozomi, a plastic sex toy owned by Hideo (Itsuji Itao), a restaurant worker who treats her like his wife, telling her about his day, sitting with her at the dinner table, and making love to her at night. But suddenly, one morning, Nozomi achieves consciousness, discovering that she has a heart, and she puts on her French maid costume and goes out into the world, learning about life by wandering through the streets and working in a video store, always returning home before Hideo and pretending to still be the doll.
Born on Feb 18, 1903, Okada Tokihiko was a charismatic actor who died of tuberculosis a month and two days before turning 31 years of age. He made 5 films directed by Ozu Yasujiro. His stage name was given by Tanizaki Junichiro. (via) Well respected actress Okada Mariko was one year old when her father died. (Okada Mariko who appeared in two films directed by Ozu and one of which was his last film Akibiyori..see her photo and a review here )
Combining three prevalent genres of the day—the student comedy, the salaryman film, and the domestic drama—Ozu created this warmhearted family comedy, and demonstrated that he was truly coming into his own as a cinema craftsman
Beyond the family-oriented exchanges that anyone who’s had to raise children on a limited income can easily relate to, Tokyo Chorus offers a variety of other pleasures, including some nice vintage exteriors from the old city of Tokyo, before it had been transformed even further into the gleaming neon metropolis we’ve known for the past several decades. And it’s also easy to admire Ozu’s social conscience and earnest desire to boost the morale of Depression-era Japan.
The Lady and the Beard is the second teaming of Ozu, Kitamura, and Okada. The cast of the famous beau Eipan (Okada’s nickname) in a very masculine part (with beard) was a weird, but successful idea of Kitamura. The audience has the great pleasure to see his handsome face after he shaves the beard. In the autumn of 1929, Okada had changed from Nikkatsu to Shochiku. The Lady and the Beard is his third film with Ozu, after That Night’s Wife and Young Miss. This film was shot in a mutual effort in a mere 8 days (including overnight work).(Via)
Okada as Judge
from Water Magician/Taki no Shiraito
Taki no Shiraito (Water Magician with English subtitles – youtube)
Donald Richie writes that this was the first of Mizoguchi’s “woman’s pictures.” By this, he is referring to the many movies that Mizoguchi made which featured female lead roles and heroines.
Tokyo Chorus is a must see for Ozu fans and Okada gave his finest performance, as for the Water Magician the film belonged to the actress Irie Takako who produced this film.
(Previous post shows Takamine in Mistress based on
