Donald Richie Movies

The feature-length documentary Magnificent Obsession: Frank Lloyd Wright's Buildings & Legacy in Japan explores a little-known historical episode with far-flung implications. In the early '20s, preeminent architect Frank Lloyd Wright -- fleeing from ignominy and ostracism in North America -- briefly resettled in Japan, where city planners commissioned him to design and erect the Tokyo Imperial Hotel, extant until 1976. Fascinatingly, Wright's relationships with Tokyo-based designers, engineers, and builders impacted these individuals so indelibly that his imparted lessons created a ripple effect, visible in generations of Japanese architecture. Magnificent Obsession recounts the original circumstances surrounding Wright's migration to the East and the episodes of his visit, then traces the architect's enduring legacy in Japan. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

This documentary profiles the creative aspects of innovative Japanese film music composer Toru Takemitsu. Takemitsu has been composing film scores since the 1960's. Included are clips from 16 movies he scored, interviews with the composer and his friends, and movie directors. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Acclaimed director and headmaster of the Sogestsu school of flower arranging Hiroshi Teshigahara helms this elegant historical drama about tea master Sen no Rikyu. A Buddhist priest who talks of the beauty of a single flower or the shape of a hand holding a teacup, Rikyu (played by Rentaro Mikuni) not only perfected the art of the tea ceremony, but he was one of the primary arbiters of taste during his age. That era was a bloody one, culminating in the uniting of Japan's disparate kingdoms by a series of strong leaders. The most ambitious and the most extravagant was Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), who favored flashy displays of wealth as much as he did violent conquest. Hideyoshi thought of the tea ceremony not as an art but as a show of refinement and power. In 1587 he held a ten-day tea-drinking orgy in Kyoto and Osaka. Hideyoshi chose Rikyu to oversee it and soon the buffoonish, violent leader and the reserved master were engaged in a thinly veiled clash of wills. Rikyu eventually does teach Hideyoshi that beauty is found in the minute. Yet when Hideyoshi receives both guns and a globe from Portuguese missionaries, he is overwhelmed with Napoleonic visions. When Rikyu expresses his reservations about Hideyoshi's impending invasion of Korea and China, the potentate demands an apology. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

This semi-biographical documentary focuses on the career of Willard Van Dyke, a photographer, filmmaker, and chief curator of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for many years. Van Dyke discusses his work and his reasons for switching from still photography to film and briefly delves into his commitment to social activism, the decline of the political documentary in the 1950s, and his subsequent entry into the academic and museum world. The director Amalie Rothschild adds lively interviews with Ralph Steiner, Donald Richie, and Joris Ivens to round out the entertaining and interesting picture presented by Van Dyke himself. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi