Kon Ichikawa Biography
Kon Ichikawa was born in Ujiyamada in 1915. Passionate about drawing, he studied at a technical institute in Osaka before joining the studios of the JO company, which would later become part of Tōhō. Initially he worked on animation but was subsequently included in the group of assistant directors. In 1946, he directed his first film, Musume Dōjōji (The Maiden at Dōjō Temple), a puppet film inspired by traditional bunraku theater, which he considers one of his most successful films to date. In the early 1950s, Ichikawa's name was primarily associated with a series of Hollywood-influenced noir comedies, which also addressed social issues. However, it was his two anti-militarist films from this period, Biruma no tategoto and Nobi, that gave his cinema international recognition. The first tells the story of a soldier who, after the war, decides not to return home and, dressed as a Buddhist monk, buries the bodies left on the battlefield. The latter, based on a novel by Ōoka Shōhei, follows a group of soldiers who survive by practicing cannibalism. Later, Ichikawa lost his creative spark and, although he directed a large number of films of all types and genres, some of them interesting, he did not regain the continuity of the period between the 1950s and 1960s. From the next phase of his career we can remember the commercial success of Inugami ke no ichizoku (1976, The Inugami Family), based on a mystery novel by Yokomizo Seishi, a popular author whose works have been adapted several times for the cinema. Other notable works include Sasame yuki (1983, The Makioka Sisters), based on Tanizaki's masterpiece, and the remake of Biruma no tategoto (1985). Ichikawa distinguished himself from Kurosawa Akira, Kinoshita Keisuke, and Kobayashi Masaki by his greater eclecticism, a propensity toward harsh and biting comedies, often steeped in cynicism and black humor, and by his frequent use of great works of modern and contemporary Japanese literature. Although linked to classical representation models, on several occasions he stood out for the originality of his expressive solutions, in particular in the use of widescreen, deep focus and colour.
