Passages

[Drucker]

Rick Huxley of Dave Clark Five

[Perkins Cobb]

Richard Collins, last of the Hollywood 19, writer of Song of Russia, husband of Dorothy Comingore, HUAC fink.

[bsmit]

Music producer Shadow Morton (Shangri-Las).

[zedz]

The genius behind (among many other things) this ridiculously sublime and sublimely ridiculous single.

[dx23]

Country singer Mindy McCready.

[MichaelB]

Richard Briers, an actor indelibly associated with the 1970s BBC sitcom The Good Life as far as his compatriots were concerned, but whose career had a subsequent late flowering courtesy of Kenneth Branagh, who cast him in all his Shakespeare adaptations, often in memorably high-profile parts (Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Polonius in his 70mm Hamlet).

[dx23]

L.A. Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

[antnield]

Donald Richie (no link as yet, but reported on Twitter by the Japan Times)

[Forrest Taft]

I just picked up his book Tokyo Megacity less than two hours ago! I also held one of his novels in my hand, but decided to put it back.

[manicsounds]

Japan Times on Donald Richie's passing

[sidehacker]

I didn't always agree with Richie but he was absolutely an inspiration. He was often the only person who wrote about particular films I had/have an interest in seeing and also he was from northwest Ohio. He will be missed.

[vsski]

When I first became interested in Japanese films it seemed like Mr. Richie was the only non-Japanese source to turn to. His influence of and support for Japanese movies in the West is immeasurable. He will be sorely missed - RIP!

[knives]

He was so fantastic in that he could always make a topic compelling and special. We're losing a fantastic promoter of cinema with this news.

[Michael Kerpan]

Donald Richie played an invaluable role in introducing Japanese cinema to American audiences -- and in encouraging others in their study of Japanese cinema.

[dx23]

So sad to hear about Richie's passing. His writing on Kurosawa films is one of the things that made me seek and watch them.

[zedz]

He was a formative influence for me, simply because he was the gateway (and only access, in most cases) to a world of films I could only read about but never hope to actually see.

[kinjitsu]

This is very sad news, indeed. Richie hadn't contributed to his Japan Times Asian Bookshelf column since October, 2009, and I've known since late 2010 that (according to Kim Hendrickson) he had "decided to slow down after a series of physical set-backs ... and ... needed to rest and take time away from his many engagements," I nevertheless had hoped that he would recover and get back to his usual routine.

NYT's obituary

Kim Hendrickson remembers.

[Michael Kerpan]

According to Stuart Galbraith, Donald Richie was the victim of very serious medical malpractice back in 2009 (and never really recovered fully afterwards)

[Fred Holywell]

Donald Richie's passing will be much missed by me on a professional as well as personal level. We won't see his like again.

[Dansu Dansu Dansu]

I'm truly saddened by this news. In fact, I've been dreading it. I love Richie, and have several of his books, including his excellent The Japan Journals. Just to add to what several have mentioned, not only did I admire his writings and intellect, I felt encouraged by him, which was extremely important to me in my early twenties as just another guy discovering Kurosawa while looking for some answers.

Here's an excellent, hour-long interview with Richie on fora.tv, which offers an overview of his life along with some exceptional anecdotes.

[bottled spider]

James Merrill wrote a haibun sequence called Prose of Departure, about a visit to Japan, and a dying friend back in the states. The sequence is dedicated to Donald Richie, whom he visited. Here is one of the haibun:

DONALD'S NEIGHBORHOOD

Narrow streets, lined with pots: wistaria, clematis, bamboo. (Can that be syringa-- with red blossoms?) Shrines begin. A shopkeeper says good day. Three flights up in the one ugly building for block around, Donald welcomes us to his bit of the planet. Two midget rooms, utilitarian alcoves, not trace of clutter. What he has is what you see, and includeds the resolve to get rid of things already absorbed. Books, records. His lovers he keeps, but as friends-- friends take up no space. He now paints at night. Some canvases big as get-well cards bedeck a wall. Before we leave he will give the nicest of these to Peter.
. . What are we seeing? Homages to Gris, Cornell, Hokusai, Maxfield Parrish. Three masters of compression and one of maple syrup. Without their example, whe mightn't his own work have gone? (Would he have painted at all?) As for his album of lovers, without the archetypal Uncle Kenny to seek throughout the world, who mightn't he have loved? And what if he hadn't settled in Japan forty years ago? Living here has skimmed from his features the self-pity, cynicism and greed which sour his Doppelgänger in that all too imaginable jolly corner of Ohio.
. . Later-- stopping first at a bookstore to buy what they have of Donald's in stock-- we proceed to the projection room, where at our instigation wer are to be shown six of his films. No clutter about them either. The program is over in just ninety minutes. What have we seen?

. . . . . Boy maybe eighteen
. . . . . bent over snapshots while his
. . . . . cat licks itself clean.

. . . . . Naked girl, leading
. . . . . suitors a merry chase: she'll
. . . . . leave them stripped, bleeding--

this last to courtly music by Rameau. And finally

. . . . . a dead youth. the shore's
. . . . . gray, smooth, chill curve. His flesh a
. . . . . single fly explores.

-- from Prose of Departure, in The Inner Room

One of the films referred to is on YouTube: Boy with a Cat (1966)

[antnield]

Kevin Ayers.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Park Chul-soo

[maxcherry]

Aleksei German

[colinr0380]

I know that I was quite harsh on Mark Cousins' The Story of Film: An Odyssey when it was shown a year or so ago, but one of the high points of that messy series were the brief appearances of Donald Richie as one of Cousins' selected 'gurus of cinema/balancing voices of reason'.