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| Donald Richie obituary | Donald Richie obituary |
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| Donald Richie, who has died aged 88, wrote extensively on Japan, his adopted homeland after his arrival in 1947 with the US occupation forces. He was best known for his books on cinema, including The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (1959), the first major English-language study of the subject, co-written with Joseph L Anderson; The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965); Ozu: His Life and Films (1974); and A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (2001). Richie played a pivotal role in introducing the director Yasujiro Ozu to foreign audiences and curated, in 1963, the first international Ozu retrospective, at the Berlin film festival. In 1983, he received the first Kawakita award, for individuals or organisations that have contributed to Japanese film culture. | Donald Richie, who has died aged 88, wrote extensively on Japan, his adopted homeland after his arrival in 1947 with the US occupation forces. He was best known for his books on cinema, including The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (1959), the first major English-language study of the subject, co-written with Joseph L Anderson; The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1965); Ozu: His Life and Films (1974); and A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (2001). Richie played a pivotal role in introducing the director Yasujiro Ozu to foreign audiences and curated, in 1963, the first international Ozu retrospective, at the Berlin film festival. In 1983, he received the first Kawakita award, for individuals or organisations that have contributed to Japanese film culture. |
| Though recognised as the most important figure in introducing Japanese cinema to the west, Richie saw himself as a writer foremost and a film critic secondarily. His fictional work includes Memoirs of the Warrior Kumagai: A Historical Novel (1999), A View from the Chuo Line and Other Stories (2004) and Tokyo Nights (2005). His interests stretched to topics as diverse as the country's literature (Japanese Literature Reviewed, 2003), modern fashion (The Image Factory, 2003) and travel. Twenty years after its publication, his personal travelogue The Inland Sea (1971) was turned into an award-winning documentary by Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir. Richie narrated the film himself. | Though recognised as the most important figure in introducing Japanese cinema to the west, Richie saw himself as a writer foremost and a film critic secondarily. His fictional work includes Memoirs of the Warrior Kumagai: A Historical Novel (1999), A View from the Chuo Line and Other Stories (2004) and Tokyo Nights (2005). His interests stretched to topics as diverse as the country's literature (Japanese Literature Reviewed, 2003), modern fashion (The Image Factory, 2003) and travel. Twenty years after its publication, his personal travelogue The Inland Sea (1971) was turned into an award-winning documentary by Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir. Richie narrated the film himself. |
| He cultivated the persona of a stranger in a strange land, self-consciously positioned between two cultures. His early posting as a civilian administrator with the occupation forces provided an escape route from the small-town provinciality of Lima, Ohio, where he was born. Richie openly embraced the country that would fuel his art over the next six decades, flouting rules against fraternising with the locals. As he wrote in a 1947 entry in his candid memoir Japan Journals (2004): "Little America, try though it does to impart democracy and individualism, is always a territory where the Japanese are worried over, and are made objects of condescension … I soon see I will experience nothing, learn nothing if I stay within these commodious and American folds." | He cultivated the persona of a stranger in a strange land, self-consciously positioned between two cultures. His early posting as a civilian administrator with the occupation forces provided an escape route from the small-town provinciality of Lima, Ohio, where he was born. Richie openly embraced the country that would fuel his art over the next six decades, flouting rules against fraternising with the locals. As he wrote in a 1947 entry in his candid memoir Japan Journals (2004): "Little America, try though it does to impart democracy and individualism, is always a territory where the Japanese are worried over, and are made objects of condescension … I soon see I will experience nothing, learn nothing if I stay within these commodious and American folds." |
| In the late 1940s, Richie's articles on such topics as kabuki drama, ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) and Japanese festivals were published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes US military magazine, and marked the beginning of a lifelong exploration of the country's culture and lifestyle. However, he always remained strongly aware of his intermediary status, as he explained when I interviewed him in 2003 for the website Midnight Eye: "My interest in Japan is – in a literal sense of course, but in sort of a metaphorical sense – that I'm using the idea of the outsider, the foreigner, as my own vehicle as well. He flourishes here because he knows he can't join." | In the late 1940s, Richie's articles on such topics as kabuki drama, ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) and Japanese festivals were published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes US military magazine, and marked the beginning of a lifelong exploration of the country's culture and lifestyle. However, he always remained strongly aware of his intermediary status, as he explained when I interviewed him in 2003 for the website Midnight Eye: "My interest in Japan is – in a literal sense of course, but in sort of a metaphorical sense – that I'm using the idea of the outsider, the foreigner, as my own vehicle as well. He flourishes here because he knows he can't join." |
| Upon returning to Japan in 1954, after taking a degree in English from Columbia University, he supported himself by teaching at Waseda University, in Tokyo, and writing film and literary criticism for the Japan Times, which he continued to do until suffering from a stroke in 2009. Over the decades he mingled with the novelists Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata, the actor Toshiro Mifune, the composer Toru Takemitsu, the Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetz Suzuki and another great western chronicler and translator of Japanese culture, Edward Seidensticker. Richie also played host to foreign guests including Truman Capote, Igor Stravinsky, W Somerset Maugham, Susan Sontag and Francis Ford Coppola. Yet, apart from his marriage to the American writer Mary Evans between 1961 and 1965, the openly bisexual Richie spent his time in Tokyo living alone. | Upon returning to Japan in 1954, after taking a degree in English from Columbia University, he supported himself by teaching at Waseda University, in Tokyo, and writing film and literary criticism for the Japan Times, which he continued to do until suffering from a stroke in 2009. Over the decades he mingled with the novelists Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata, the actor Toshiro Mifune, the composer Toru Takemitsu, the Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetz Suzuki and another great western chronicler and translator of Japanese culture, Edward Seidensticker. Richie also played host to foreign guests including Truman Capote, Igor Stravinsky, W Somerset Maugham, Susan Sontag and Francis Ford Coppola. Yet, apart from his marriage to the American writer Mary Evans between 1961 and 1965, the openly bisexual Richie spent his time in Tokyo living alone. |
| From 1969 to 1972, he was curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Richie's own experimental short films, such as Wargames (1962) and Five Filosophical Fables (1967), revealed a more ribald side, often hidden in his writings on Japanese culture, and inspired visual artists such as Takahiko Iimura, Yoichi Takabayashi and Nobuhiko Obayashi, alongside whom he received a group award at the Knokke-le-Zoute experimental film festival in Belgium in 1964. In 2007, an exhibition of Richie's paintings from the 1970s and early 1980s was held at the Nippon Gallery in Tokyo. | From 1969 to 1972, he was curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Richie's own experimental short films, such as Wargames (1962) and Five Filosophical Fables (1967), revealed a more ribald side, often hidden in his writings on Japanese culture, and inspired visual artists such as Takahiko Iimura, Yoichi Takabayashi and Nobuhiko Obayashi, alongside whom he received a group award at the Knokke-le-Zoute experimental film festival in Belgium in 1964. In 2007, an exhibition of Richie's paintings from the 1970s and early 1980s was held at the Nippon Gallery in Tokyo. |
| For generations of scholars, critics and artists who have made Japan their field, Richie was a hugely influential and inspirational presence, opening a window on a ceaselessly fascinating world. Those who knew him personally will remember him for his endless approachability, enthusiasm, energy and generosity with his time, even in his final years of illness. | For generations of scholars, critics and artists who have made Japan their field, Richie was a hugely influential and inspirational presence, opening a window on a ceaselessly fascinating world. Those who knew him personally will remember him for his endless approachability, enthusiasm, energy and generosity with his time, even in his final years of illness. |
| Richie is survived by a sister, Jean. | Richie is survived by a sister, Jean. |
| • Donald Richie, author, film critic and artist, born 17 April 1924; died 19 February 2013 | • Donald Richie, author, film critic and artist, born 17 April 1924; died 19 February 2013 |
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