Kon Ichikawa

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Kon Ichikawa (市川 崑, Ichikawa Kon^?, November 20, 1915 – February 13, 2008) was a prominent Japanese film director.

Contents 1 Early career 2 Natto Wada 3 1950–1965 4 After 1965 5 Legacy 6 Filmography 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early career

In the 1930s Ichikawa attended a technical school in Osaka. Upon graduation, in 1933, he found a job with a local rental film studio, J.O. Studio, in their animation department. Eventually he was moved to the feature film department as an assistant director when the company became a complete production company, working under such luminaries as Yutake Abe and Nobuo Aoyagi.

In the early 1940s J.O. Studios merged P.C.L. and Toho Film Distribution, forming Toho Film Company. Ichikawa moved to Tokyo. It was at Toho that he met Natto Wada. Wada was a translator for Toho. They agreed to marry sometime after Ichikawa completed his first directorial effort. They were both the products of previous failed marriages.

His first film, in 1946, was a puppet play, A Girl at Dojo Temple (Musume Dojoji), which was confiscated by the interim U.S. Occupation authorities under the pretense that it was too traditional. Thought lost for many years, it is now archived at the Cinémathèque Française.

Ichikawa started as a cartoonist, and he later told Donald Richie, "I'm still a cartoonist and I think that the greatest influence on my films (besides Chaplin, particularly The Gold Rush) is probably Disney."^[1]

[edit] Natto Wada

Ichikawa's wife, Natto Wada's original name was Yumiko Mogi. She was born September 13, 1920 in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. She graduated with a degree in English Literature from Tokyo Women's Christian University. She married Kon Ichikawa on April 10, 1948, and died on February 18, 1983 of breast cancer^[2].

[edit] 1950–1965

It was after Ichikawa's marriage to Wada that the two began collaborating, first on Design of a Human Being (Ningen moyo) and Endless Passion (Hateshinaki jonetsu) in 1949. The period 1950–1965 is often referred to as Ichikawa's Natto Wada period. It's the period that contains the majority of his most highly respected works.

The majority of his most highly regarded films were screenwritten by his wife. This partnership began in 1949 with Design of a Human Being (Ningen moyo) and continued through to 1965 with Tokyo Olympiad. She wrote 34 screenplays during that period, most of which were adaptations. Wada had a talent for adapting other sources to the screen and that's where most of their partnership concentrated.

He gained western recognition during the 1950s and 1960s with a number of bleak films—two antiwar films with The Burmese Harp and Fires on the Plain, Alone on the Pacific (Taiheiyo hitori-botchi) and the technically formidable period-piece An Actor's Revenge (Yukinojo henge) about a kabuki actor.

Of his many literary adaptations, works including Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's The Key (Kagi), Natsume Sōseki's The Heart (Kokoro) and I Am a Cat (Wagahai wa neko de aru), about a mouse turned into a cat viewing the world from its unique perspective, and Yukio Mishima's Conflagration (Enjo), in which a priest burns down his temple to save it from spiritual pollution, were brought to the screen.

[edit] After 1965

After Tokyo Olympiad Wada retired from screenwriting and it marked a significant change in Ichikawa's films from that point onward. Concerning her retirement, he spoke, "She doesn't like the new film grammar, the method of presentation of the material; she says there's no heart in it anymore, that people no longer take human love seriously."^[3]

Of the change Wada's departure marked, it is hard to extricate her from his work. The two worked very closely and shared many ideals. Whereas Ichikawa can be said to be responsible for much of the black wit in his films (that trend certainly continued beyond Wada's departure), she also had a sardonic side, as evidenced in many of her essays. Whereas people will attribute much of the humanity of his earlier films to Wada, humanity is still a major theme in the post-Wada films. About the only thing critics can agree on is that post-Wada Ichikawa films had a definite lesser quality to them (with a few notable exceptions).

Ichikawa died at age 92 in Ujiyamada, Mie Prefecture.^[4][5]

[edit] Legacy

Ichikawa's films are marked with a certain darkness and bleakness, punctuated with sparks of humanity.

It can be said that his main trait is technical expertise, irony, detachment and a drive for realism married with a complete spectrum of genres. Some critics class him with Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu as one of the masters of Japanese cinema.

[edit] Filmography

• A Girl at Dojo Temple (1946)
• The Lovers (1951)
• Mr. Pu (1953)
• The Burmese Harp (1956)
• Punishment Room (1956)
• Bridge of Japan (1956)
• The Men of Tohoku (1957)
• Enjo (1958)
• Odd Obsession (1959)
• Fires on the Plain (1959)
• A Woman's Testament (1960)
• Ten Dark Women (1961)
• The Sin (1962)
• Being Two Isn't Easy (1962)
• An Actor's Revenge (1963)
• Alone in the Pacific (1963)
• Money Talks (1963)
• Tokyo Olympiad (documentary) (1965)
• The Tale of Genji (1966)
• Visions of Eight (documentary) (1973)
• The Wanderers (1973)
• I Am a Cat (1975)
• The Inugamis (1976)
• Rhyme of Vengeance (1977)
• Hi no Tori (The Phoenix) (1978)
• The Devil's Island (1978)
• The Makioka Sisters (1983)
• The Burmese Harp (remake) (1985)
• Princess from the Moon (1987)
• 47 Ronin (1994)
• The 8-Tomb Village (1996)
• Shinsengumi (2000)
• Dora-heita (2000)
• Kah-chan(2001)
• Yume jûya (2006)
• Inugamike no ichizoku (2006)

[edit] References

• James Quandt (ed.), Kon Ichikawa, Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto, 2001 (ISBN 0-9682969-3-9).

[edit] External links

• Obituary in The Times, 11 March 2008
• Kon Ichikawa at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Strictly Film School: Kon Ichikawa
• (Japanese) Kon Ichikawa at the Japanese Movie Database