1. Itami as author
Description
This article is from the ITAMI Juzo, OZU Yasujiro, and the Japanese Cinema FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu with numerous contributions by others.
1. Itami as author
Itami has written [more than 20?] books in Japanese.
to my knowledge, nothing Itami has written has been
translated into English.
Itami's books contain lots of interesting trivia about
the following topics:
Itami lived in Paris and London.
he had a British sports car (MG?).
in London itami was a friend of Peter O'Toole.
Itami likes cooking (surprise!).
Itami's father was a famous film director.
Itami was a womanizer.
Itami talks about acting, films, making TV shows, and
child-rearing.
itami was into psychoanalysis, esp. Freud and Lacan.
so he talks about those things alot in later books.
---- allusions in "Tampopo"
Tampopo is funny, playful, allusive, and artsy (e.g. use of
Mahler toward the end).
i like allusive movies. (allusive anything, really)
--- the whole setup is from Shane. and some other Westerns.
(Kurosawa's Yojinbo was also mentioned.)
--- i think there's a frame that's exactly like the one in High Noon.
--- the gangster guy in white is prob. from some Chicago gangster movie.
--- the scene with fast-moving train is from French Connection
--- i'm told that the kid with a sign in front is from an
early Ozu film.
--- one more i can't remember now.
all this creates a certain expectation. e.g. the scene with
the sea-girl (cf. Prufrock) has this legendary quality to it,
like Ulysses.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
i found a New Yorker article that had several interesting
things to say.
among them, the notion that Yamazaki (Goro) in the bath tub
wearing a cowboy hat was a "tip of the hat" to a scene where
Dean Martin does the same. actually that scene reminded me of
a similar scene in Fellini's "La Vita Dolce" (or maybe "8 1/2")
but i'm sure such scenes abound in Westerns.
From: John Harkness <jgh@netcom.ca>
>
> Dean Martin wore his hat in the bathtub in Some Came
> Running, which was decidedly not a Western. Michel
> Piccoli does the same thing in explicit homage to the
> Minnelli film in Godard's Le Mepris.
--- i remembered that when i watched the Cohen brothers' movie
"Raising Arizona", the big chase scene in the supermarket
reminded me of the similar scene in Tampopo.
i've read many of Itami's books and perhaps in some future
time, i'll write an article on Tampopo for publication, as a
tribute to him.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
i've explained the following about "Tampopo" to non-Japanese
people in the past:
--- several old people die from mochi-choking every year,
like in the film.
two common things to do to rescue them:
1. pull on the ears.
2. use a vacuum cleaner, as in the film.
--- the finishing school in the film is called Hanayome Gakkou
(bride school). i guess these are rare in the USA now.
Continue to:
My Books
