Biography for
Kon Ichikawa More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

20 November 1915, Mie, Japan

Date of Death

13 February 2008, Tokyo, Japan (pneumonia)

Birth Name

Giichi Ichikawa

Mini Biography

Kon Ichikawa has been influenced by artists as diverse as Walt Disney and Jean Renoir, and his films cover a wide spectrum of moods, from the comic to the overwhelmingly ironic and even the perverse. Ichikawa began his career as a cartoonist, and this influence is apparent in his skillful use of the widescreen, and in the strong, angular patterns seen in many of his compositions. He has directed Mr. Pu (1953), a popular film based on Junichi Yokoyama's "Mr. Pu" comic strip. At various points in his career Ichikawa has shown that he is capable of appealing to a popular audience without compromising his artistry. A great visual stylist and perfectionist, Ichikawa excels at screen adaptations of literary masterpieces, including Soseki Natsume's Kokoro (1955), Yukio Mishima's Enjô (1958), Junichirô Tanizaki's Kagi (1959) and Wagahai wa neko de aru (1975) and Tôson Shimazaki's The Outcast (1962). He has also remade film classics, such as Yutaka Abe's The Woman Who Touched the Legs (1926) (Ichikawa's version: 1952) and Teinosuke Kinugasa's Yukinojo henge (1935) (Ichikawa's version: 1963), transposing them to contemporary settings.

The West was first introduced to Ichikawa when his The Burmese Harp (1956) won the San Giorgio Prize at the 1956 Venice Film Festival. His epic documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965) (released the following year) and Alone on the Pacific (1963) explore, with dignity and imagination, the limits of human endurance. He has also worked in the thriller genre, with Ana (1957), Inugami-ke no ichizoku (1976) and Gokumon-to (1977). Ichikawa tends to present strongly etched, complex characters: the stuttering acolyte who desires to preserve the "purity" of the Golden Pavilion (ENJO); the elderly husband who resorts to injections and voyeurism in order to remain sexually active (KAGI); the member of a pariah class who tries to deny his identity and to "pass" in regular society (HAKAI). More recently, Actress (1987) is a tribute to the fiercely independent Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, who starred in many of Kenji Mizoguchi's films and was herself a director in later life. On the lighter side, Ichikawa's characters also include a 19th-century cat; a good-hearted, hapless teacher; and a baby who narrates how the world looks from his vantage point. He is especially adept at mixing comedy and tragedy within the same story. Until 1965, Ichikawa's close collaborator was his wife, screenwriter Natto Wada, with whom he produced most of his finest films.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Daniel Yates <kamerad76@hotmail.com>

Spouse

Natto Wada

(1948 - 18 February 1983) (her death) 2 children

Trivia

Education: Ichioka Commercial School, Osaka (animation)

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 442-451. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

Out of all his own films, he likes Enjo the best.

Personal Quotes

I just make any picture I like or any that the company tells me to do.

[If he has advice for young directors] No, no advice. The film industry has changed tremendously. The movies they are making now are very different from the ones I made when I was young. I can't say whether people in the industry are happier or unhappier as a result. Everything has changed so much.

I've made various types of films: period dramas, modern dramas, films set in the Meiji period. But I don't make any distinctions between them - they're all films. True, with a period drama, there are certain conventions. With a modern drama, there is a different style of shooting. So you have to make changes according to the genre, but I never think, "This is a period drama, so I have to shoot it in such and such a way." Films are films. If you don't understand that, then you start filming lies.