Neil Gaiman

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FOOD IN MOVIES

TAMPOPO (1985) dir. Juzo Itami

You haven’t seen Tampopo? It’s like a western, one of those stories in which a stranger rolls into town and helps a family down on their luck. Only it isn’t that at all. Such an inspiring, cheering, sensible film.

Also, directed by Juzo Itami. We would have many more amazing films by him if he hadn’t been murdered by the Yakuza.

From Wikipedia:

Itami died on December 20, 1997 in Tokyo, after falling from the roof of the building where his office was located. On his desk was found a suicide note stating that he had been falsely accused of an affair and was taking his life to clear his name. Two days later, a tabloid magazine published a report of such an affair.

However, no one in Itami’s family believed that he would have taken his life or that he would be mortally embarrassed by a real or alleged affair. In 2008, a former member of the Goto-gumi, a yakuza group, told a reporter, Jake Adelstein: “We set it up to stage his murder as a suicide. We dragged him up to the rooftop and put a gun in his face. We gave him a choice: jump and you might live or stay and we’ll blow your face off. He jumped. He didn’t live.”