Kon Ichikawa ( 市川 崑 , Ichikawa Kon , 20 November 1915 – 13 February 2008) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter . His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), to the documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965), which won two BAFTA Film Awards , and the 19th-century revenge drama An Actor's Revenge (1963). His film Odd Obsession (1959) won the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival .
46-556: At his death in 2008, The New York Times recalled that " The Globe and Mail , the Canadian newspaper, called him in 2001 “the last living link between the golden age of Japanese cinema, the spunky New Wave that followed and contemporary Japanese film.”" Ichikawa was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture as Giichi Ichikawa (市川儀一). His father died when he was four years old, and the family kimono shop went bankrupt, so he went to live with his sister. He
92-463: A heart attack on 30 July 1965, shortly after celebrating his 79th birthday. His grave is at the temple Hōnen-in, in Kyoto. The Tanizaki Prize is one of Japan's most sought-after literary awards. Established in 1965 by the publishing company Chūō Kōronsha, it is awarded annually to a work of fiction or drama. Before Haruki Murakami had achieved wide renown, Tanizaki was frequently considered one of
138-556: A mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city council of 28 members. Ise contributes four members to the Mie Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the city is part of Mie 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan . Ise has 23 public elementary schools and ten public middle schools operated by the city government and six public high schools operated by
184-479: A Tokyo hospital. He was 92 years old. The Magic Hour marked Ichikawa's last appearance and was dedicated to his memory. (This message can be seen in the end of this film.) In this film, a movie director played by Ichikawa is shooting Kuroi Hyaku-ichi-nin no Onna ('A hundred and one dark women'), a parody of Ten Dark Women . Ichikawa's films are marked with a certain darkness and bleakness, punctuated with sparks of humanity. It can be said that his main trait
230-718: A host of awards. Until his death, he was widely regarded as Japan's greatest contemporary author. He won the prestigious Asahi Prize in 1948, was awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 1949, and in 1964 was elected to honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the first Japanese writer to be so honoured. His first major post-war work was Shōshō Shigemoto no haha ( Captain Shigemoto's Mother , 1949–1950), which includes
276-443: A one-act stage play, was published in a literary magazine that he had helped found. Tanizaki's name first became widely known with the publication of the short story Shisei ( The Tattooer , 1910). In the story, a tattoo artist inscribes a giant spider on the body of a beautiful young woman. Afterwards, the woman's beauty takes on a demonic, compelling power, in which eroticism is combined with sado-masochism . The femme-fatale
322-605: A priest burns down his temple to save it from spiritual pollution. The Key , released in the United States as Odd Obsession , was entered in the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, and won the Jury Prize with Antonioni 's L'Avventura . After Tokyo Olympiad Wada retired from screenwriting, and it marked a significant change in Ichikawa's films from that point onward. Concerning her retirement, he said "She doesn't like
368-403: A restatement of Tanizaki's frequent theme of a son's longing for his mother. The novel also introduces a new theme, of sexuality in old age, which reappears in later works such as Kagi ( The Key , 1956). Kagi is a psychological novel in which an aging professor arranges for his wife to commit adultery in order to boost his own sagging sexual desires. Tanizaki returned to Atami in 1950, and
414-758: A search for cultural identity in which constructions of the West and Japanese tradition are juxtaposed. He was one of six authors on the final shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, the year before his death. Tanizaki was born into a well-to-do merchant class family in Nihonbashi , Tokyo , where his uncle owned a printing press , which had been established by his grandfather. His parents were Kuragorō and Seki Tanizaki. His older brother, Kumakichi, died three days after his birth, which made him
460-558: A technical school in Osaka . Upon graduation, in 1933, he found a job with a local rental film studio, J.O Studio , in their animation department. Decades later, he told the American writer on Japanese film Donald Richie , "I'm still a cartoonist and I think that the greatest influence on my films (besides Chaplin , particularly The Gold Rush ) is probably Disney ." He moved to the feature film department as an assistant director when
506-519: Is 1,870.8 mm (73.65 in), with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 27.2 °C (81.0 °F), and lowest in January, at around 4.8 °C (40.6 °F). Per Japanese census data, the population of Ise has remained relatively steady over the past 50 years. Ise's history is directly linked to that of Ise Grand Shrine. Ise Grand Shrine
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#1732782345490552-452: Is a theme repeated in many of Tanizaki's early works, including Kirin (1910), Shonen ( The Children , 1911), Himitsu ( The Secret , 1911), and Akuma ( Devil , 1912). Tanizaki's other works published in the Taishō period include Shindo (1916) and Oni no men (1916), which are partly autobiographical. Tanizaki married his first wife, Chiyo Ishikawa, in 1915, and his only child, Ayuko,
598-475: Is a tragicomic exploration of class, sexual obsession, and cultural identity. Tanizaki made another trip to China in 1926, where he met Guo Moruo , with whom he later maintained correspondence. He relocated from Kyoto to Kobe in 1928. Inspired by the Osaka dialect , Tanizaki wrote Manji ( Quicksand , 1928–1929), in which he explored lesbianism, among other themes. This was followed by the classic Tade kuu mushi ( Some Prefer Nettles , 1928–29), which depicts
644-618: Is in front of the JR exit of Iseshi Station. Sanco used to manage a tram service around Ise, in particular a line called the "Shinto Line" that ran from Iseshi Station to the Inner Shrine. It was closed in 1961 and was replaced by buses. Ise has a direct ferry link to Central Japan International Airport . [REDACTED] Media related to Ise, Mie at Wikimedia Commons Jun%27ichir%C5%8D Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Tanizaki ( 谷崎 潤一郎 , Tanizaki Jun'ichirō , 24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965)
690-555: Is reflected in some of his early writings. Tanizaki had a brief career in silent cinema , working as a script writer for the Taikatsu film studio. He was a supporter of the Pure Film Movement and was instrumental in bringing modernist themes to Japanese film. He wrote the scripts for the films Amateur Club (1922) and A Serpent's Lust (1923) (based on the story of the same title by Ueda Akinari , which was, in part,
736-591: Is separated into two main parts: The Inner Shrine and the Outer Shrine. Despite the names, these are actually two physically separate shrines approximately six kilometers apart. Ise began with small settlements that had sprung up around the two shrines. During the Edo period , Ise was a major destination for pilgrimages which were called "o-Ise-mairi" (literally, "Coming to Ise") and thus, these settlements grew larger and developed into small villages. The village around
782-465: Is technical expertise, irony, detachment and a drive for realism married with a complete spectrum of genres. Some critics class him with Akira Kurosawa , Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu as one of the masters of Japanese cinema. The Kon Ichikawa Memorial Room, a small museum dedicated to him and his wife Natto Wada displaying materials from his personal collection, was opened in Shibuya in 2015, on
828-454: The Kami ". As of 31 July 2021 , the city had an estimated population of 123,533 in 55,911 households and a population density of 590 people per km². The total area of the city is 208.53 square kilometres (80.51 sq mi). Ise is located on the northern half of Shima Peninsula in far eastern Mie Prefecture. The northern part of the city is flat land and faces Ise Bay on
874-506: The 2600th anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese empire. The significance of the Ise Grand Shrine to State Shinto made Ujiyamada a target for six air raids during World War II , the largest of which was on July 28, 1945 when 93 Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped incendiaries, burning 39% of the city. On January 1, 1955 Ujiyamada absorbed the villages of Toyohama, Kitahama, Shigō and Kida and
920-564: The Inner Shrine was named Uji, and the village around the Outer Shrine was named Yamada . Because of the religious importance of Ise Grand Shrine, the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo period viewed the area as politically significant and installed a magistrate in Yamada. During the Meiji period , these two villages were merged with the establishment of the modern municipal system to form
966-665: The Mie Prefectural Department of Education. The city also has one private middle school and four private high schools. The Shinto -affiliated Kogakkan University is located in Ise. Ise is easily accessible by rail due to the popularity of Ise Grand Shrine as a tourist attraction. Kintetsu offers direct service to Ise from Kyoto , Osaka and Nagoya in the form of regular express trains (once or twice an hour) and limited express trains (usually twice an hour). The ride from Osaka takes about 135 minutes (105 minutes on
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#17327823454901012-501: The Pacific Ocean. In the south, the land rises to form hills and mountains with an elevation of 100 to 500 meters. Most of the city is within the geographic limits of Ise-Shima National Park . Mie Prefecture Ise has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa ) characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The average annual temperature in Ise is 15.6 °C (60.1 °F). The average annual rainfall
1058-471: The company closed its animation department, working under directors including Yutaka Abe and Nobuo Aoyagi . In the early 1940s J.O Studio merged with P.C.L. and Toho Film Distribution to form the Toho Film Company . Ichikawa moved to Tokyo. His first film was the puppet play A Girl at Dojo Temple ( Musume Dojoji 1946), which was confiscated by the interim U.S. Occupation authorities under
1104-527: The couple both had failed marriages behind them. She graduated with a degree in English literature from Tokyo Woman's Christian University . She married Kon Ichikawa on 10 April 1948, and died on 18 February 1983 of breast cancer . Ichikawa was among the first group of Toho staff that broke from the labor union during the Toho strikes , which became part of Shintoho . Due to a shortage of directorial talent at
1150-473: The cultural-identity crises common to earlier Tanizaki characters. When he began to serialize the novel, the editors of the literary magazine Chūō Kōron were warned that it did not contribute to the needed war spirit and, fearful of losing supplies of paper, cut off the serialization. Tanizaki relocated to the resort town of Atami, Shizuoka in 1942, but returned to Kyoto in 1946. After World War II , Tanizaki again emerged into literary prominence, winning
1196-414: The daughter of his third wife, Matsuko Morita. In 1918, Tanizaki toured Chōsen , northern China, and Manchuria . In his early years he became infatuated with the West and all things modern. In 1922, he relocated from Odawara , where he had been living since 1919, to Yokohama , which had a large expatriate population, living briefly in a Western-style house and leading a bohemian lifestyle. This outlook
1242-445: The eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji and in his masterpiece Sasameyuki (literally "A Light Snowfall," but published in English translation as The Makioka Sisters , 1943–1948), a detailed characterization of four daughters of a wealthy Osaka merchant family who see their way of life slipping away in the early years of World War II . The sisters live a cosmopolitan life with European neighbors and friends, without suffering
1288-661: The gradual self-discovery of a Tokyo man living near Osaka, in relation to Western-influenced modernization and Japanese tradition. Yoshino kuzu ( Arrowroot , 1931) alludes to Bunraku and kabuki theater and other traditional forms even as it adapts a European narrative-within-a-narrative technique. His experimentation with narrative styles continued with Ashikari ( The Reed Cutter , 1932), Shunkinshō ( A Portrait of Shunkin , 1933), and many other works that combine traditional aesthetics with Tanizaki's particular obsessions. His renewed interest in classical Japanese literature culminated in his multiple translations into modern Japanese of
1334-634: The inspiration for Mizoguchi Kenji 's 1953 masterpiece Ugetsu monogatari ). Some have argued that Tanizaki's relation to cinema is important to understanding his overall career. Tanizaki's reputation began to take off in 1923, when he moved to Kyoto after the Great Kanto earthquake , which destroyed his house in Yokohama (at the time Tanizaki was on a bus in Hakone and thus escaped injury). The loss of Tokyo's historic buildings and neighborhoods in
1380-511: The limited express), the ride from Nagoya takes about 100 minutes (85 minutes on the limited express). JR Central , offers direct service to Ise from Nagoya once an hour on the Mie Rapid , which takes about 90 minutes. [REDACTED] Kintetsu Railway - Yamada Line [REDACTED] Kintetsu Railway - Toba Line [REDACTED] JR Tōkai - Sangū Line Sanco operates a number of buses to and through Ise. The main bus hub in town
1426-461: The main JR station in town, Yamada Station, to Iseshi Station . Some things were never renamed, such as Ujiyamada Station , Ise's largest train station, and Ujiyamada High School, Ise's first high school. On September 26, 1959: The Ise-wan Typhoon , Japan's strongest-recorded typhoon, hit Ise and surrounding areas. On November 1, 2005: Ise absorbed the towns of Futami and Obata and the village of Misono (all from Watarai District ). Ise has
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1472-497: The new company, he made his debut as director with A Thousand and One Nights with Toho . It was after Ichikawa's marriage to Wada that the two began collaborating, first on Design of a Human Being ( Ningen moyo ) and Endless Passion ( Hateshinaki jonetsu ) in 1949. The period 1950–1965 is often referred to as Ichikawa's Natto Wada period. It's the period that contains the majority of Ichikawa's most highly respected works, such as Tokyo Olympiad ( Tōkyō Orinpikku ), for which he
1518-503: The new film grammar, the method of presentation of the material; she says there's no heart in it anymore, that people no longer take human love seriously." His final film, 2006's Inugamis , a remake of Ichikawa's own 1976 film The Inugami Family , was entered into the 29th Moscow International Film Festival . Also in 2006, Ichikawa was the subject of a feature-length documentary, The Kon Ichikawa Story , directed by Shunji Iwai . Ichikawa died of pneumonia on 13 February 2008 in
1564-476: The next eldest son of the family. Tanizaki had three younger brothers: Tokuzō, Seiji (also a writer) and Shūhei, as well three younger sisters: Sono, Ise and Sue. Tanizaki described his admittedly pampered childhood in his Yōshō Jidai ( Childhood Years , 1956) . His childhood home was destroyed in the 1894 Meiji Tokyo earthquake , to which Tanizaki later attributed his lifelong fear of earthquakes. His family's finances declined dramatically as he grew older until he
1610-598: The pretext that it was too "feudal", but some sources suggest the script had not been approved by the occupying authorities. Thought lost for many years, it is now archived at the Cinémathèque Française . It was at Toho that he met Natto Wada . Wada was a translator for Toho. They agreed to marry sometime after Ichikawa completed his first film as director. Natto Wada's original name was Yumiko Mogi (born 13 September 1920 in Himeji , Hyōgo Prefecture , Japan);
1656-454: The quake triggered a change in his enthusiasms, as he redirected his youthful love for the imagined West and modernity into a renewed interest in Japanese aesthetics and culture, particularly the culture of the Kansai region (around the cities of Osaka , Kobe and Kyoto ). His first novel after the earthquake, and his first truly successful novel, was Chijin no ai ( Naomi , 1924-25), which
1702-587: The site of his former home. Ise, Mie Ise ( Japanese : 伊勢市 , Hepburn : Ise-shi ) , formerly called Ujiyamada (宇治山田), is a city in central Mie Prefecture , on the island of Honshū , Japan . Ise is home to Ise Grand Shrine , the most sacred Shintō shrine in Japan. The city has a long-standing title – Shinto (神都) – that roughly means "the Holy City", and literally means "the Capital of
1748-412: The technically formidable period-piece An Actor's Revenge ( Yukinojo henge ) about a kabuki actor. Among his many literary adaptations were Jun'ichirō Tanizaki 's The Key ( Kagi ), Natsume Sōseki 's The Heart (Kokoro) and I Am a Cat ( Wagahai wa neko de aru ), in which a teacher's cat critiques the foibles of the humans surrounding him, and Yukio Mishima 's Conflagration ( Enjo ), in which
1794-472: The town of Ujiyamada. The town was upgraded to city status on September 1, 1906. In 1909, the forerunner to the JNR connected Ujiyamada by train, followed by the forerunner of Kintetsu Railway in 1930. These lines were responsible for a large increase in pilgrims and tourists visiting Ise Grand Shrine, peaking with an estimated eight million visitors in the year 1940, per government-sponsored ceremonies celebrating
1840-412: Was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature . The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portrayals of the dynamics of family life within the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently, his stories are narrated in the context of
1886-729: Was awarded the Olympic Diploma of Merit , as well as the BAFTA United Nations Award and the Robert Flaherty Award (now known as the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary ). It is also during this period that Wada wrote 34 screenplays, most of which were adaptations. He gained Western recognition during the 1950s and 1960s with two anti-war films, The Burmese Harp and Fires on the Plain , and
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1932-673: Was born in 1916. However, it was an unhappy marriage, and in time he encouraged a relationship between Chiyo and his friend and fellow writer Haruo Satō . The psychological stress of this situation is reflected in some of his early works, including the stage play Aisureba koso ( Because I Love Her , 1921) and the novel Kami to hito no aida ( Between Men and the Gods , 1924). Even though some of Tanizaki's writings seem to have been inspired by these and other persons and events in his life, his works are far less autobiographical than those of most of his contemporaries in Japan. Tanizaki later adopted Emiko,
1978-718: Was designated a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government in 1952. He suffered from paralysis of the right hand from 1958, and was hospitalized for Angina pectoris in 1960. Tanizaki's characters are often driven by obsessive erotic desires. In one of his last novels, Futen Rojin Nikki ( Diary of a Mad Old Man , 1961–1962), the aged diarist is struck down by a stroke brought on by an excess of sexual excitement. He records both his past desires and his current efforts to bribe his daughter-in-law to provide sexual titillation in return for Western baubles. In 1964, Tanizaki moved to Yugawara, Kanagawa , southwest of Tokyo, where he died of
2024-561: Was forced to reside in another household as a tutor. Despite these financial problems, he attended the Tokyo First Middle School , where he became acquainted with Isamu Yoshii . Tanizaki attended the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University from 1908, but was forced to drop out in 1911 because of his inability to pay for tuition. Tanizaki began his literary career in 1909. His first work,
2070-508: Was given the name Kon by an uncle who thought the characters in the kanji 崑 signified good luck, because the two halves of the Chinese character look the same when it is split in half vertically. As a child he loved drawing and his ambition was to become an artist. He also loved films and was a fan of " chambara " or samurai films. In his teens he was fascinated by Walt Disney 's " Silly Symphonies " and decided to become an animator. He attended
2116-544: Was renamed Ise City. The reason for this change is to avoid naming confusion with the later-formed cities of Uji in Kyōto Prefecture and the city of Yamada (now the city of Kama ) in Fukuoka Prefecture . The name "Ise" was chosen because it was already recognized throughout Japan due to Ise Grand Shrine. However, the renaming phase took some time around the city. For example, it took four years to rename
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