I'm rarely nervous these days. But the prospect of sitting down with author, academic, film scholar and art critic Donald Richie has me ever so slightly on edge. Movies like Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," seen as a student in England, were profound in effect. Forty years on and here I am with the man reputed to know more about Japanese film than any other Westerner in the world.
This weekend he is in London, lecturing at a monthlong retrospective of Japanese film. The British Film Institute asked him to design it, and with today Kurosawa Day, he will be giving the keynote speech. "I'm taking along his favorite leading lady, Yukiko Nogami, who will talk about assisting in the making of 'Rashomon.' "
Feb. 26, back in Tokyo, he will introduce "Japanese Film in Focus," the title of the three-day annual lecture series sponsored by the College Women's Association of Japan. With CWAJ featuring so many aspects of Japanese history, art and culture over the last 36 years, the subject is well overdue. "Movies are objects with a lot of facets. They teach you things." It also coincides with his book "A Hundred Years of Japanese Film," published by Kodansha International in October.