Mansaku Itami (伊丹万作; real name Yoshitoyo Ikeuchi 池内義豊; 2 January 1900 – 21 September 1946) was a Japanese

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

known for his critical, sometimes satirical portraits of Japan and its history. He is the father of the director

Juzo Itami , born , was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films (one short and ten features), all of which he wrote himself. Early life Itami was born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi in Kyoto. The name Itami was passed on from his fath ...

Career

Originally from

Matsuyama, Ehime 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan and also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243541 househo ...

, Itami joined the

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

studio in 1927, but the very next year moved to the actor

Chiezō Kataoka (March 30, 1903 – March 31, 1983) was a Japanese film and television actor most famous for his starring roles in jidaigeki. Career Born in 1903 in Gunma Prefecture (his real name was Masayoshi Ueki), he was raised in Tokyo. As a child he began ...

's company, Chiezō Productions, where he made his directorial debut with ''Adauchi Ruten''. His

samurai films , also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of '' ...

diverged from the norm in that they were not heroic epics of the sort which had by that time become formulaic, but rather

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

s that used the established symbols and iconography of the samurai culture to comment on both historical and modern society. His work was championed by the film critic

Fuyuhiko Kitagawa (3 July 1900 – 12 April 1990) was a Japanese poet and film critic. His real name was . While born in Shiga Prefecture, he was raised in Manchukuo in China due to his father's work on the South Manchurian Railway, and then graduated from To ...

. His most famous work is '' Akanishi Kakita'', which is based on a story by

Naoya Shiga was a Japanese writer active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan, whose work was distinguished by its lucid, straightforward style and strong autobiographical overtones. Early life Shiga was born in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, ...

and still survives (unlike many of his other films). In 1937, he collaborated with director

Arnold Fanck Arnold Fanck (6 March 1889 – 28 September 1974) was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as '' The Holy Mountain'' (1926), '' The White He ...

on a German-Japanese co-production, starring the young

Setsuko Hara Setsuko (written: or in hiragana) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, later of Japan *, actress *, Japanese volleyball player *, Japanese actress and model *Setsuko Klossowska de Rola (born 1942), Japane ...

. This eventually became two slightly different films: ''Atarashiki Tsuchi'' (''The New Earth'') in Japan, while ''Die Tochter des Samurai'' (''Daughter of the Samurai'') was the German version. He died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

in 1946. His screenplays' popularity endured, however, and he is credited as a writer as recently as 1986's ''Kokushi Muso'', a remake of his 1932 film of the same name.

Family

His son Yoshihiro Ikeuchi, who later changed his name to

, followed in his footsteps, becoming one of the pre-eminent Japanese filmmakers of the late 20th century. His daughter Yukari married

Kenzaburō Ōe is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, i ...

, the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning novelist. Ōe edited a collection of his father-in-law's essays.

Filmography

*''Adauchi Ruten'' (仇討流転) (1928) *''Zoku Banka Jigoku: Dai Ippen (Elegy of Hell)'' (1928) *'' The Peerless Patriot'' (国士無双 Kokushi musō) (1932) *''Chuji Uridasu'' (1935) *''Akanishi Kakita (Capricious Young Man)'' (1936) *''Furusato (Hometown)'' (1937) * ''

The Daughter of the Samurai ''The Daughter of the Samurai'' (german: Die Tochter des Samurai, Japanese: ) is a 1937 German-Japanese drama film directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Starring Setsuko Hara, Ruth Eweler and Sessue H ...

'', co-directed with

(1937) *'' Kyojin-den'' (1938)

Additional Screenwriting Credits

*''Tenka Taiheiki (Peace on Earth)'' (1928) *''Hōrō Zanmai'' (The Wandering Gambler) (1928) *''Muhomatsu no Issho'' (the 1958 version is also known as ''

Rickshaw Man , also released as ''Muhomatsu, the Rickshaw Man'' or ''The Rikisha-Man'', is a 1958 color Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. It is a remake of his own 1943 film. In the 1943 version Tsumasaburo Bando played the role of Muhōmatsu. In Oct ...

''; the others are also known as ''The Life of Matsu the Untamed'') (1943, 1958, 1965) *''Te o Tsunagu Kora'' (Children Hand in Hand) (1948, 1963) *''Ore wa Yojimbo (I'm the Bodyguard)'' (1950) *''Kokushi Muso'' (1986)

References

External links

Mansaku Itami's grave
* *

at

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, literally the "Blue Sky Library", also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-o ...

(in Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Itami, Mansaku Japanese film directors 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis 1900 births 1946 deaths People from Matsuyama, Ehime German-language film directors 20th-century Japanese screenwriters Tuberculosis deaths in Japan