Biographer of original ‘Godzilla’ director to speak at Glendale Central Library

On Thursday, the Glendale Central Library will host writer and Glendale resident Steve Ryfle for a discussion about his new book “Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film from Godzilla to Kurosawa,” which chronicles the life and films of the original “Godzilla” director.

Ryfle’s book, co-written by Ed Godziszewski, is the first major English-language biography about Honda. A half-hour discussion on the director’s work will start the event, looking at his contributions to Japanese cinema and his relationship with Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. A screening of Honda’s “King Kong vs. Godzilla” will follow the discussion.

‘Honda existed in the shadow of the monster he helped to create and make popular around the world,” Ryfle said. “It’s remarkable, though, the output he left behind. His legacy is this entire body of work that continues to find new audiences, not just in Japan but around the world.”

A fan since childhood, Ryfle encountered “Godzilla” and similar films during Sunday afternoon “Creature Feature” programs. Although the lack of timely distribution of Godzilla films to the United States kept the monster out of the foreground of Ryfle’s life as a young adult, he later rediscovered the films and better absorbed their post-war message about the horrors of atomic disasters.

Ryfle has since contributed analysis to home-video releases of various Godzilla films, including the British Film Institute’s edition of the original “Godzilla.” In 2008, he and Godziszewski produced a documentary about the history of the visual effects behind the classic Godzilla films.

It was a chance encounter in Japan while working on that documentary that eventually pushed Ryfle into writing Honda’s biography.

“We accidentally bumped into Honda’s son and struck up conversation with him. We hit it off immediately after he saw that we loved his dad’s work and then he suggested we write a book about [his father],” Ryfle said.

With the help of translators and a research assistant who had previously spoken with Honda over the years, Ryfle and Godziszewski interviewed about 25 friends, co-workers and colleagues of the director in order to craft the biography.

“Only now, in the last decade or so, that Honda’s films are available in the original Japanese, people and critics are starting to understand his significant body of work,” Ryfle said. “I’m hoping through the book that people understand these films also have something to teach us.”

Ryfle’s talk will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St.

For more information, visit bit.ly/2hrJhoX.