ReFocus: The Films of Kon Ichikawa

Provides new scholarship on the career of the prolific Japanese filmmaker, Kon Ichikawa

• This is the first English-language collection on Kon Ichikawa published by an academic press
• This collection establishes the quality and the importance of Ichikawa’s work across various media and time periods, with references to Japanese-language and English-language sources
• The contributors take an interdisciplinary approach to Ichikawa, exploring his work from various methodological vantage points and with reference to myriad issues in and between film studies, media studies and cultural studies
• The analyses across the various chapters connect scholarship on Ichikawa and Japanese cinema to current debates and discourses in media theory and aesthetic philosophy

Bringing together scholars from around the world, ReFocus: The Films of Kon Ichikawa features 12 original chapters exploring the prolific career of the Japanese director.

In addition to an introduction which provides comprehensive biographical information and an extensive chronicle of Ichikawa’s impressively expansive and influential eight decades in the film industry, the chapters range over his filmmaking philosophies and methods, his collaborations with such important figures as his wife and screenwriting partner Natto Wada and renowned cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, his fondness for animation and manga, and his adaptations of famous novels by such prominent authors as Yukio Mishima, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, and Seishi Yokomizo.

Featuring new and groundbreaking work on one of the most important and influential of all Japanese filmmakers, ReFocus: The Films of Kon Ichikawa is a much-needed addition to film studies and the history of Japanese cinema.