Filmmaker Juzo Itami

Juzo Itami was a filmmaker who achieved what only a handful of Japanese directors have managed--he made films with a distinctly Japanese flavor that also reached out to the rest of the world and attracted audiences in Japan and elsewhere. Yet, Itami's life included a number of terrors for the man leading in time to his suicide. The suicide seems all the more inexplicable in the West given the relatively mild scandal that seems to have been acing him at the time. However, in this Itami shows himself to be more traditionally Japanese than his satiric films might make the viewer believe, for there is a certain tradition of suicide in Japanese culture that has a long history.

Juzo Itami had connections in the film industry as his father, Mansaku Itami, who died in 1946, was a distinguished director and essayist of the 1930s. However, Juzo did not originally intend to follow in his father's footsteps. His early experience was in such diverse fields as commercial design and boxing, and he was also an actor before becoming a director. he made the change when he was over 50. Itami himself attributed his delayed shift to director to the awe he felt because of his father's reputation. He stated that a father's profession "is like a huge mountain in front of you. It took me 50 years to convince myself I could climb the mountain, too" ("Obituary of Juzo Itami Film Director," 1997). the films itami made were very unlike his father's, and only two of the father's films surviv

Related Essays

Filmmaker Max Ophuls Max Ophuls was a filmmaker who achieved renown in his native Germany, adapted to the different film industry in America and produced a number of important works .... (1718 7 )

Gaslight (1944) The Filmmaker's Intent Was to Convince the Viewer In the 1944 film Gaslight, the filmmaker's intent was to convince the viewer that Paula was going insane. When her husband would .... (721 3 )

Semiology .... Two modes are the observational mode and the interactive mode. The observational mode is limiting and keeps the filmmaker to the moment. .... (1617 6 )

Stranger With A Camera Elizabeth Barret's documentary about a murder of another documentary filmmaker that occurred in eastern Kentucky in 1960 reveals the dilemma of journalists .... (971 4 )

Independent Film Marktng Today's independent filmmaker faces a host of opportunities for financing and marketing films formerly not available to independent filmmakers of the past. .... (1176 5 )

, a comedy on stomach cancer as well as a profound meditation on death, and Supermarket Woman (1996) revealing hidden supermarket malpractices. He also made A Quiet Life (1995) based on the writings of his friend Oe (Kirkup, 1997, 16). Misfortune continued to follow Itami, however, and during a showing of The Great Patient, an ultrarightist slashed the screen in protest against Itami's alleged defilement of the Japanese flag in a film. The police then provided armed guards for Itami and his wife. Itami's selfesteem was tested for the last time when scurrilous gossip about his sex life appeared in Flash, one of the cheap sensational weeklies now common in Japan. It was stated that Itami was involved with a 26yearold girl, and there were paparazzi photos to prove it. Itami knew that this story and the photos were to appear in December 22 issue. Itami denied all the charges, but he wrote in one of his farewell notes that "to prove my innocence" he would jump from the roof of his eightstorey block. He did so and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. It was shown that he had been drinking heavily. He stipulated that no funeral ceremonies should be held and that instead, Oe and his family would watch videos of

Category: People - F