was a Japanese

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Academic criticism by film scholars, who study the composition of film theory and publish their findin ...

and

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

. He has been called "a leader who established film criticism and film research in Japan".

Career

After graduating from the Tokyo Prefectural First Middle School (now

Hibiya High School is a public high school located in Nagata-chō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1878 as the . It was well known in the 1950s and 1960s for the large proportion of graduates who gained admission to the prestigious University of Tokyo; ...

), he attended the Third High School (later becoming part of

Kyoto University , or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...

), where he shared a room with Motojiro Kajii. Iijima had already begun publishing film criticism even before he graduated from the Department of French Literature at the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

in 1929, joining the editorial board of ''

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

'' in 1922. He published his first book, ''Shinema no ABC'', in 1928, which included both his own theoretical writings and criticism as well as translations of French film theory. In addition to film criticism, he also helped edit literary journals and published novels, poetry, and theatrical plays. He even wrote screenplays for television dramas in the early years of the medium. His range of interests was broad, as he even studied Hungarian. He joined the faculty of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

in 1946 and rose to professor in 1957. His book ''Zen'ei eiga riron to zen'ei geijutsu'' (1971) earned him a doctorate from Waseda.

Awards

Iijima received the Minister of Culture award for criticism at the Geijutsu Senshō in 1970. In 1993, he received the 11th Kawakita Award, and at the 50th

Mainichi Film Awards The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by '' Mainichi Shimbun'' (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of ...

, he received a posthumous Special Award for his contributions to film criticism.

References

External links

Iijima Tadashi
''Terebi Dorama Dētabēsu'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Iijima, Tadashi Japanese film critics 1902 births 1996 deaths University of Tokyo alumni Academic staff of Waseda University 20th-century Japanese screenwriters