Kon Ichikawa

Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who was active from 1936 to 2008. He was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture, as Giichi Ichikawa, and moved to Tokyo after graduating from a technical school in Osaka. He started his career as an animator, but later switched to the feature film department as an assistant director. He married Natto Wada, a translator and scriptwriter, in 1948, and they collaborated on many of his films until she retired in 1965. Ichikawa's 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. He was also known for his adaptations of various works of Japanese literature, such as The Makioka Sisters (1983) and The Key (1959). He was influenced by Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, and Akira Kurosawa, among others, and was regarded as one of the most versatile and innovative filmmakers in Japanese cinema. He received many honors and awards, including the Order of the Rising Sun, the Japan Academy Prize, and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival. He died of pneumonia in 2008 at the age of 92.