Donald Richie

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Donald Richie (2009)

Donald Richie (born April 17, 1924 in Lima , Ohio , † February 19, 2013 in Tokyo ) was a writer and journalist born in the United States who was best known for his writings on the Japanese and Japanese cinema . He spent much of his life in Japan.

Life

During World War II , he served on Liberty freighters as a purser (supply) and as a medical officer. In 1947 Richie went to Japan with the American occupation force , where he wrote as a civilian writer for the Pacific Stars and Stripes , which was an opportunity for him to escape a monotonous life in his birthplace. During his stay in Tokyo he became fascinated with Japanese culture, especially Japanese film art. As a result, he soon wrote reviews for the Stars and Stripes . In 1948 he met Kashiko Kawakita , who introduced him to Yasujiro Ozu . During his long friendship with Kashiko Kawakita, he worked closely with her to promote Japanese films in the West.

After returning to the States, he enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies in 1949 , and received his Bachelor's degree in English in 1953.

Richie returned to Japan, became a film critic for The Japan Times, and spent most of the second half of the 20th century there. In 1959 he published his first book: The Japanese Film: Art and Industry with the participation of Joseph L. Anderson. In the work he differentiated approaches to filmmaking into those of the representational type and the presentational type . From 1969 to 1972 he was a curator at the New York Museum of Modern Art . In 1988 he was invited to the Telluride Film Festival as the first guest director .

In 2004 he worked as a composer, painter and author of novels, essays and travel books and lived in Japan. Over the course of 50 years, he has published nearly 40 books on Japan.

Books

Many of the personally held books tell of empathy and understanding for the people and landscapes of Japan. Mention should be made of The Inland Sea , a travel classic , and Public People, Private People , an exploration of the most important or most down-to-earth people in the country. He put together two collections of essays on Japan: A Lateral View and Partial Views . On the occasion of 50 years of involvement with Japan, a collection of his writings was called The Donald Richie Reader. The Japan Journals: Published 1947-2004 with longer excerpts from his diaries .

He worked strikingly on Tokyo, and on objects as diverse as the intricacies of the kitchen , architecture of Japanese houses, traditional horticulture , Buddhist temples, Japanese gods, Godzilla and tattoos . He sees himself as a writer who also works on the cinema, more as a flaneur than as an academic and above all as an observer.

In 1991 the filmmakers Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir produced an adaptation of The Inland Sea , voiced by Richie himself. Produced by Travelfilm Company , the film won several awards such as Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival (1991) or the Earthwatch Film Award . It was screened at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival .

Tom Wolfe described Richie as: “the Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish and bewitchingly clear-sighted mediator of two cultures that interpenetrate: the Japanese and the US.” (“The Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish , and deceptively lucid medium between two cultures that confuse one another: the Japanese and the American. ")

Japanese film

Richie's most recognized achievement remains his analysis of Japanese cinema. From the first published book on, he was concerned not only with the films to be discussed, but also with his own research methods.

Gradually he broke away from concentrating on film theory and focused more on the conditions of creation. The distinction between the presentational nature of Japanese cinema and the representative nature of the West has remained constant. His publication, A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film , was provided with interesting comments on how to get to the films discussed at all. Director Paul Schrader said in the foreword: “What we in the West know about Japanese cinema, and how we know it, we most likely get from Donald Richie.” Richie dealt extensively with Yasujiro Ozu (1974) and Akira Kurosawa (1965 ).

Honors

See also

further reading

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Donald Richie: The Japan Journals. P. VII. Limited preview in the Google Book search
  2. ^ Obituary: Japan expert, writer Donald Richie dies at 88.
  3. ^ A b 3sat film editorial team: Secret looks - Donald Richie and the film. 3sat .com, October 15, 2004 filed by the original on 25 October 2004 ; Retrieved November 25, 2008 .
  4. ↑ Donald Richie: Remembering Madame Kawakita. In: A wreath for Madame Kawakita. Kawakita Memomorial Film Institute, Tokyo 2008, pp. 5-7.
  5. ↑ Janet Pocorobba: Just Looking. A Journey with Donald Richie. In: Metropolis. Archived from the original on January 17, 2002 ; accessed on November 26, 2008 (English).
  6. ^ The Japan Journals. SX
  7. ^ Howard W. French: An Expatriate Who Can't Resist Telling His Mount Fuji Story Again; Donald Richie Offers a Collection of His Writings on Japan . In: The New York Times . August 8, 2001 (English, nytimes.com ).
  8. ↑ Vincent Canby : Review / Film; Searching for Japan, In a Sea, in a Mind And in Metaphor . In: The New York Times . June 17, 1992 ( nytimes.com [accessed November 25, 2008]).
  9. ^ The Donald Richie Reader. stonebridge.com, archived from the original on May 25, 2001 ; Retrieved November 25, 2008 .
  10. ↑ cf. Dave Kehr : Tokyo on the Hudson. In: The New York Times . September 4, 2005, accessed November 26, 2008 .
  11. ^ National Society of Film Critics: Past Awards 1970 on nationalsocietyoffilmcritics.com
  12. ^ Awards and Special Prizes. In: The Japan Foundation . jpf.go.jp, accessed November 25, 2008 .
personal data
SURNAME Richie, Donald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-Japanese writer, journalist, and critic
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Lima , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 2013
Place of death Tokyo , Japan