Cinema lost another gifted voice when Japanese filmmaker Jun Ichikawa, director of award-winner, Tony Takitani, among others, died after collapsing at lunch on Friday, Sept. 19. He was 59. “No assessment of Ichikawa’s work can ignore the influence of Yasujiro Ozu, whom the younger director idolised,” writes Ronald Bergan in the Guardian. “What Ichikawa shared with Ozu was the intimate scale, understated humanism, economy of shot composition, low camera placement, deliberate pace – and the dominance of the family as a theme.”
“There’s no point trying to copy Ozu’s methods. But what I wanted to learn from him was the spirit of a movie director – protect what we believe, and to stick to what we want to speak about.” Jun Ichikawa
Variety has additional details, here.
FILMMAKER 