Kon Ichikawa
Kon Ichikawa ( Japanese 市 川 崑 , Ichikawa Kon ; born November 20, 1915 in Ise , Mie Prefecture , † February 13, 2008 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese film director , screenwriter and film producer .
biography
Born in 1915 with real name Giichi Ichikawa ( 市 川 儀 一 ), Kon Ichikawa made his first experiences in the film business as an animator and then became an assistant to Tamizo Ishida. His first known work was the five-minute animated film Yowamushi Chinsengumi ( 弱 虫 珍 選 組 ), which was found again in 2014.
His marriage to screenwriter Natto Wada was decisive for his career , with whom he made a number of socially critical films of overwhelming aesthetic beauty and balance, especially Enjo and Hakai, until her death in 1983 . During this phase Ichikawa also frequently worked with cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa , who had created famous films such as Rashomon - The Pleasure Grove and Ugetsu - Tales under the Rain Moon with Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa . His first independent works were mostly satirical comedies, until he was taken seriously as an artist with Friends to the Last , an anti-war film about a soldier who becomes a monk to bury his fallen comrades.
Ichikawa then enjoyed extensive artistic freedom. He lived this out by making a film with Bonchi in which a family dominated by women needs an heir, which is why the women decide to marry off the only male offspring. In doing so, Ichikawa and Wada turn social relations into their opposite and contrast the nefarious, cold-blooded and power-oriented women with typical images of girls from Japanese culture. The juxtaposition of beauty and violence becomes the central artistic element in Hakai . This is about a pariah, a member of the Burakumin class, who, as a small school teacher in rural Japan, suffers from discrimination and contempt. The desolate circumstances of the teacher are contrasted again and again with the overwhelming beauty of the landscape: Beauty covers the dark sides of reality. For the final scene of Hakai , Ichikawa waited two weeks for snow in the mountains, which made the cost of the film skyrocket, which is why he then had to take on some less artistically demanding commissioned work for his studio. After the death of his wife, he rarely made films of great artistic importance.
Filmography (selection)
- 1935: Yowamushi Chinsengumi
- 1946: Musume no Dōjōji
- 1947: Tōhō sen'ichi-ya
- 1949: Hateshinaki jōnetsu
- 1949: The Diversity of Man (Ningen moyō)
- 1952: The woman whose foot touched mine (Ashi ni sawatta onna)
- 1956: Friends to the last (Biruma no tategoto)
- 1956: Katsumi, the rebel (Shokei no heya)
- 1958: The Temple of the Golden Hall (Enjō)
- 1959: Kagi
- 1959: Nobi
- 1960: Bonchi
- 1962: I am two years old (Watashi wa nisai)
- 1962: Hakai
- 1963: Taiheiyo hitori-botchi
- 1963: Yukinojo's revenge (Yukinojō henge)
- 1965: Tokyo 1964 (Tōkyō orimpikku)
- 1966: Genji monogatari
- 1973: Munich 1972 - 8 famous directors watch the games of the XX. Olympiad (Visions of Eight) - Documentary with seven other directors
- 1983: The Daughters of the House of Makioka (Sasame yuki)
- 1987: The Legend of the Moon Princess (Taketori monogatari)
- 1994: 47 Ronin (Shijūshichinin no shikaku)
Web links
- Kon Ichikawa in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- “Japanese filmmaker Kon Ichikawa dies” , obituary on CBC.ca, February 13, 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ronald Bergan: Obituary: Kon Ichikawa. In: The Guardian . February 14, 2008, accessed October 1, 2016 (English, obituary).
- ↑ Oldest Surviving Anime Short by Phoenix Film's Kon Ichikawa Found. In: Anime News Network. April 23, 2014, accessed April 23, 2014 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ichikawa, Kon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 市 川崑 (Japanese); Ichikawa Giichi (real name); 市 川 儀 一 (Japanese, real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 20, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ise , Mie Prefecture |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 13, 2008 |
| Place of death | Tokyo |