Minami Tome

[Aaron Gerow]

In another bit of sad news from the film world, Minami Tome, the 
long-active film editor, died on the 16th of old age. She was 93 years 
old. Minami first entered PCL in 1933 as script girl (and a famous 
"moga") and worked on a variety of early films by Kimura Sotoji, Naruse 
Mikio, and Yamamoto Kajiro. She transferred to the film editing section 
in 1936, but quit when she married the film producer Kawai Tokuichi in 
1938. She became well known as a dress maker and during the war became 
active with Ichikawa Fusae and others on women's issues. She returned 
to film editing in 1953 and, after her divorce, made editing her 
full-time job, specializing especially on editing negative film. Her 
recent work included such blockbusters as Inugami-ke no ichizoku and 
many of Kurosawa's last films, such as Ran, Dreams, and Madadayo.

As a female pioneer in the film industry,she has been the subject of 
many interviews and articles and the recipient of numerous awards. 
There is a website devoted to her work (in Japanese) that includes a 
filmography and bibliography:

http://www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/nanan/

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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