Donald Richie

Known for Directing

Donald Richie was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also directed a number of experimental films. (Wikipedia)

Born

April 17, 1924

Died

February 19, 2013 (age 88)

Birthplace

Lima, Ohio, USA

Filmography

30 films

Movie DirectorRelease Date ↓All GenresAll ErasAny RatingAny Runtime

TMDB2.3

Cybele: A Pastoral Ritual in Five Scenes

1969 · 20m

country: Japan

A documentary of an avant-garde theatre performance, presents an orgiastic rite of sex, degradation, and bloody sacrifice, performed by Zero-Jigen.

TMDB3.3

Five Filosophical Fables

1967 · 47m

country: Japan

Donald Richie’s classic is, in the words of Yukio Mishima, an outrageous farce, and a pitiless indictment of all our false ‘human’ values. As an allegory of an ‘all-consuming’ Tokyo family cannibalizing each other in a Tokyo park, it attains the highest reaches of black humour.

Dead Youth

TMDB3.3

Dead Youth

1967 · 14m

country: Japan

The homoerotic poetry of Mutsuo Takahashi sets the stage for these associated images based on male desire.

TMDB3.2

Boy with Cat

1966 · 6m

country: Japan

A cat's inquisitive look interferes with the pleasurable sensations of a boy while masturbating.

Life

1964 · 3m

country: Unknown

Short film for the "A Commercial for Myself" programme.

Futari

1963

country: Japan

Love affair between an older European woman and a younger Japanese man.

Wargames

TMDB2.9

Wargames

1962 · 22m

country: Japan

A group of boys playing near the seashore in Tokyo find a goat, kill it in a tug of war for ownership, bury it with ceremony, and, except for one boy, run off in heedless laughter ready for more games.

TMDB3.5

Atami Blues

1962 · 20m

country: Japan

A young woman arrives at a resort and is soon pursued by a young man. Initially, he appears to be infatuated with her, but it becomes clear he simply wants to seduce her.

Sacrifice

1959 · 10m

country: Japan

Filmed only a few months after Tatsumi Hijikata’s first explosive public butoh performance, “Gisei” features Hijikata and members of his Asbestos Hall Troupe in a brutal allegory of a closed society. Shot by noted Japanese film scholar Donald Richie, “Gisei” still conveys the shock that Japanese audiences in 1959 must have felt at the birth of Hijikata's ankoku butoh, or "dance of darkness". Richie met Hijikata through mutual friend Yukio Mishima. They decided to collaborate on a film about segregation. Richie memorialized the film in his diary: “It is more than ever about the death of an individual, a distinct kind of human sacrifice.”

Life Life Life

1953 · 6m

country: Unknown

Fifteen years before Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Richie anticipated the animation of Terry Gilliam in this early 8mm film. He cut up Life magazine and animated the clippings through clever use of strings and editing. These “Four American Fables” offer up a slicing critique of gender and 1950s consumerism.