Juzo Itami

[Mark Schilling]

Re Itami. The story in "Flash" was a trigger, not the sole cause. Itami's
interest in and, one might say, intimate relationship with death was hardly
a secret. His first film, "Ososhiki" satirized the Japanese way of death
(Significantly, he gave his manager explicit instructions that, in the
event of his death, no funeral or wake be held, instructions that have been
followed). His sixth film, "Minbo no Onna," which was a cinematic "manual"
on how to deal with gangster extortion, prompted a knifing of Itami by
several gangsters that nearly killed him. His seventh, "Daibyonin,"
depicted Itami's view of a "good death," with the hero expiring on tatami,
with his loved ones gathered round and light streaming in though the
windows. At the time of the film's release, Itami said that he felt "half
dead" and didn't have many more films left in him. He even wrote a series
of columns for the Sports Nippon sports newspaper titled "Boku Nara Ko
Shinu" (This Is  the Way I Want to Die) in which he wrote that he wanted to
make "life's last page a good page." 
     Also, both artistically and commercially, he had clearly reached a
dead end. His attempts to break out of the formula that had built his
success, including "Daibyonin" and "Shizuka no Seikatsu," were panned by
the critics (including, I must admit, this one) and ignored by audiences.
When he returned to that formula, with "Supa no Onna," he found success,
but with "Marutai no Onna," another formula film, he seemed to have both
lost both his directorial bearings and box office touch. A weak reheash of
Itami's all-too-familiar mannerisms, It earned only Y500 million in film
rentals, one-third the total of "Supa no Onna."  
     Finally, he often spoke about the need for Japanese men to take a
stronger moral role in both the family and society. Japan, he told me in an
interview I conducted with him last year for "Winds" magazine, had become a
society totally devoted to the pleasure principle, in which few men were
ready to stand up and say "This is wrong." "I hardly ever see anyone on
television of whom you could say 'he has courage,'" he said. "Ministry of
Health and Welfare Naoto Kan and Yoshiyuki Konno, the man who was falsely
accused in the Matsumoto sarin poisoning case, are about the only two I can
think of recently who have acted courageously. Much more common are the men
who think only of their own self interest or the self interest of their
organization or company. When something goes wrong, they try to cover it up
and deny responsibility.  That's the most common posture of Japanese men --
avoiding responsibility at all costs."  
      Itami evidently decided to practice what he preached, though I deeply
regret that no one was with him on the afternoon of the 20th, when he
decided to take him own lifs, to argue that there were other, better ways,
of "acting courageously" and "taking responsiblity."  

Mark Schilling (schill at gol.com)