Donald Richie
Donald Richie ( born April 17, 1924 in Lima, Ohio, † February 19, 2013 in Tokyo ) was a native of the U.S. writer and journalist who was best known for his writings on Japanese and Japanese cinema. He spent much of his life in Japan.
Life
During World War II he served on Liberty freighters as Purser ( supply) and as a medical officer. 1947 Richie went to the American occupation force in Japan, where he wrote as a civilian writer for Pacific Stars and Stripes, which was an opportunity for him to escape a humdrum life in his birthplace. During their stay in Tokyo, his fascination with the Japanese culture, especially Japanese cinema was born. As a result, he soon wrote reviews for the Stars and Stripes. In 1948, he learned Kashiko Kawakita know who introduced him Yasujiro Ozu. During his long friendship with Kashiko Kawakita, he worked closely with her to make known Japanese films in the west.
After returning to the States, he enrolled in 1949 at the Columbia University School of General Studies, and received his bachelor 's degree of English in 1953.
Richie went back to Japan, has been a film critic for The Japan Times and spent almost the entire 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 retired approaches to filmmaking in such kind of representational and the presentational nature. From 1969 to 1972 he was curator at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1988, he was invited as the first Guest Director for the Telluride Film Festival.
In 2004, he worked as a composer, painter and author of novels, essays and travel books and lived in Japan. In the course of 50 years, he has published nearly 40 books on Japan.
Many of personally held books tell of empathy and understanding of the people and landscapes of Japan. To be mentioned are 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 compiled two collections of essays on Japan: A Lateral View and Partial Views. On the occasion of 50 years of employment with Japan was a collection of his writings as The Donald Richie Reader. The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 published with longer excerpts from his diaries.
Distinctive he worked on Tokyo, and so many objects, such as the intricacies of kitchen, architecture Japanese houses, traditional horticulture, Buddhist Temple, Japanese gods, Godzilla and tattoos. He sees himself as a writer who also works on the cinema, more than flaneur than as academics and especially as an observer.
1991 produced the filmmakers Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir an adaptation of The Inland Sea, spoken by Richie itself Produced by Travel Film Company was able to film some of the awards posted as Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival ( 1991) and the Earthwatch Film Award. He presentation was held at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992.
Tom Wolfe describes Richie as: " the Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish safer and bewitching clear-sighted mediator between two cultures, the permeate. , The Japanese and the U.S. " (the Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish, and deceptively lucid medium in between two cultures did confuse one another: the Japanese and the American ).
Japanese film
Richie's most recognized performance remain his analysis of Japanese cinema. From the first book published on, he dealt not only with the film works to be discussed, but also with their own methods of investigation.
Gradually he moved away from the focus on film theory and put more on the formation conditions. The distinction between the display ( presentational ) nature of Japanese cinema as opposed to the deputy ( representational ) of the West is itself, however, remained constant. His release A Hundred Years Of Japanese film was provided with interesting notes on how to get to the discussed film works at all. Director Paul Schrader said in the preface: ". What we in the West know by Japanese cinema, and as we know it, we have most likely by Donald Richie" Richie employed in detailed form with Yasujiro Ozu (1974) and Akira Kurosawa (1965 ).