Дзюдзо Итами: Жизнь и творчество японского актера и режиссера

Japanese actor, screenwriter, and film director

Juzo Itami (伊丹 十三), born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi (池内 義弘), was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films (one short and ten features), all of which he wrote himself. He is the namesake of the Juzo Itami Award, founded in 2009 to honor his legacy.

Itami was born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi in Kyoto. The name Itami was passed on from his father, Mansaku Itami, a renowned satirist and film director before World War II. In his childhood, he went by the name Takehiko Ikeuchi (池内 岳彦). At the end of the war, when he was in Kyoto, Itami was chosen as a prodigy and educated at ("the special scientific education class") as a future scientist who was expected to defeat the Allied powers. Among his fellow students were the sons of Hideki Yukawa and Sin Itiro Tomonaga. This class was abolished in March 1947. He moved from Kyoto to Ehime Prefecture when he was a high school student. He attended the prestigious Matsuyama Higashi High School, where he was known for being able to read works by Arthur Rimbaud in French. Due to his poor academic record, he had to remain in the same class for two years; it was here that he became acquainted with Kenzaburō Ōe, who later married his sister. When he was unable to graduate from Matsuyama Higashi High School, he transferred to Matsuyama Minami High School and graduated thereafter. After failing the entrance exam for the College of Engineering at Osaka University, Itami worked at times as a commercial designer and writer, illustrator, television reporter, and essayist. He was also the editor in chief for the 1980s psychoanalytic magazine Mon Oncle. In his early acting days, Itami lived in London. By the time he became a director, he spoke English near flawlessly, although preferred to use an interpreter during interviews. Itami was the brother in law of Kenzaburō Ōe and an uncle of Hikari Ōe.

Itami studied acting at an acting school called Butai Geijutsu Gakuin in Tokyo. In January 1960 he joined Daiei Film and was given the stage name (伊丹 一三) by Masaichi Nagata. In May 1960, Itami married Kazuko Kawakita, the daughter of film producer Nagamasa Kawakita. He first acted on screen in Ginza no Dora Neko (1960). In 1961 he left Daiei and started to appear in foreign language films such as 55 Days at Peking. In 1965 he appeared in the big budget Anglo American film Lord Jim. In 1965 he published a book of essays which became a hit, Yoroppa Taikutsu Nikki ("Diary of Boredom in Europe"). In 1966 he and Kazuko agreed to divorce. In 1967, when working with director Nagisa Ōshima on the set of Sing a Song of Sex (Nihon Shunka Kō) he met Nobuko Miyamoto. He and Miyamoto married in 1969 and he became the stepfather to her two children. Around this time, he changed his stage name to "伊丹 十三" (Itami Jūzō) with the kanji "十" (ten) rather than "一" (one), and with 十三 meaning "thirteen", and worked as a character actor in film and television. In 1968 he played Saburo Ishihara, the father of Takeshi and Koji during the second season of the children's series Cometto san. He became well known for this role in many Spanish speaking countries, along with Yumiko Kokonoe who played the lead role. In the 1970s, he joined the TV Man Union television production company and produced and presented documentaries for television, which influenced his later career as a film director. He also worked as a reporter for a TV program called Afternoon Show. In 1983, Itami played the father in both Yoshimitsu Morita's The Family Game and in Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters, roles for which he won the Hochi Film Award and Best Supporting Actor at the Yokohama Film Festival. Along with his acting career, he translated several English books into Japanese, including Papa, You're Crazy by William Saroyan, The Kitchen Sink Papers: My Life as a Househusband by Mike McGrady, and The Potato Book by Myrna Davis and Truman Capote.

Itami's debut as director was the movie The Funeral (Osōshiki) in 1984, at the age of 51. This film proved popular in Japan and won many awards, including Japanese Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. However, it was his second movie, the 1985 "noodle western" Tampopo, that earned him international exposure and acclaim. His following film A Taxing Woman (1987) was again highly successful. It won six major Japanese Academy awards and spawned a sequel A Taxing Woman's Return in 1988. The central character, played by his wife Nobuko Miyamoto who appeared in all his films, became a pop culture heroine. This was followed by his fifth film A Ge Man: Tales of a Golden Geisha. Itami directed the anti yakuza satire Minbo: the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion as his sixth feature. On May 22, 1992, six days after the release of the film, Itami was attacked, beaten, and slashed on the face by five members of the Goto gumi, a Shizuoka based yakuza clan, who were angry at Itami's film's portrayal of gang members. In an interview with the New York Times, he described the attack, saying, "They cut very slowly; they took their time. They could have killed me if they wanted." This attack led to a government crackdown on the yakuza. During a showing of this film in Japan, a cinema screen was slashed by a right wing protester. Before his death, he directed another three films: A Quiet Life (based on the Kenzaburō Ōe novel), Supermarket Woman, and Woman in Witness Protection.

Itami died on December 20, 1997 in Tokyo after falling from the roof of the building where his office was located. On his desk was found a suicide note written on a word processor stating that he had been falsely accused of an affair and was taking his life to clear his name. Two days later, a tabloid magazine published a report of such an affair. However, no one in Itami's family believed that he would have taken his life or that he would be mortally embarrassed by a real or alleged affair. In 2008, a former member of the Goto gumi yakuza group told reporter Jake Adelstein: "We set it up to stage his murder as a suicide. We dragged him up to the rooftop and put a gun in his face. We gave him a choice: jump and you might live or stay and we'll blow your face off. He jumped. He didn't live." The attack is thought to have been due to the topic of Itami's next film, which was rumored to have been focusing on connections between the Goto gumi and the cult like Soka Gakkai religious group.

His brother in law and childhood friend Kenzaburō Ōe wrote The Changeling (2000) based on their relationship. There is a Juzo Itami museum in Matsuyama. The memorial museum was designed by architect Yoshifumi Nakamura and contains a special exhibition, rotating its displays every 1–2 years, a permanent exhibition, divided up into thirteen sections to reflect the "thirteen" meaning of Itami's name, and an outdoor courtyard. It also houses a cafe named "Café Tampopo" after the film.

Year Title Role Notes1960 Ginza no dora neko 1961 A False Student Soratani (as Ichizō Itami) 1961 Her Brother Son of Factory Owner Uncredited1961 The Big Wave Toru 1961 Ten Dark Women Hanamaki 1963 Onna no tsuribashi Saburô Ôki (Episode 2)1963 55 Days at Peking Col. Shiba 1964 Shûen Takuji Yoshii 1965 Lord Jim Waris 1966 Otokonokao wa rirekisho 1967 Sing a Song of Sex Ôtake 1967 Choueki juhachi nen: kari shutsugoku 1968 Shôwa genroku Tokyo 196X nen 1968 Ah kaiten tokubetsu kogekitai 1968 Ah, yokaren Miyamoto 1969 Kinpeibai Hsi Men Ching 1969 Eiko e no 5,000 kiro 1969 Heat Wave Island Iino 1970 Hiko shonen: Wakamono no toride Ishizaka 1971 Yasashii Nippon jin 1973 Kunitori Monogatari Ashikaga Yoshiaki TV series1973Shinsho Taikōki Araki Murashige TV series1974 Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance Ransui Tokunaga 1974 Imôto Kazuo Wada 1974 Waga michi 1975 Wagahai wa neko de aru Meitei 1979 Collections privées (segment "Kusa Meikyu")1979 No More Easy Life Takamizawa Landlord 1979 Grass Labyrinth Principal / Priest / Old man Short1980 Yūgure made Sasa 1981 Slow na boogie ni shitekure Lawyer 1981 Shikake nin Baian Sahei Oumiya 1981 Akuryo To Ryuhei Ochi 1982 Kiddonappu burûsu (Kidnap Blues) 1983 The Makioka Sisters Tatsuo Makioka, Tsuruko's husband 1983 The Family Game Mr. Numata, the father 1983 Meiso chizu Itakura 1983 Izakaya Chōji Kawara 1984 Make up Kumakura 1984 MacArthur's Children (Setouchi shonen yakyu dan) Hatano 1985 The Excitement of the Do Re Mi Fa Girl Professor Hirayama 1985 Haru no Hatō Itō Hirobumi TV series1989 Sweet Home Yamamura (final film role)