Shōhei Imamura

was a Japanese film director. His main interest as a filmmaker lay in the depiction of the lower strata of Japanese society. A key figure in the Japanese New Wave, who continued working into the 21st century, Imamura is the only director from Japan to win two Palme d'Or awards.

Biography

Early life

Imamura was born to an upper-middle-class doctor's family in Tokyo in 1926. For a short time following the end of the war, Imamura participated in the black market selling cigarettes and liquor. He studied Western history at Waseda University, but spent more time participating in theatrical and political activities. He cited a viewing of Akira Kurosawa's ''Rashomon'' in 1950 as an early inspiration, and said he saw it as an indication of the new freedom of expression possible in Japan in the post-war era.

Upon graduation from Waseda in 1951, Imamura began his film career working as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu at Shochiku Studios on films like ''Early Summer'' and '' Tokyo Story''. Imamura was uncomfortable with the "picture-postcard view" (Nigel Kendall) with which Ozu portrayed Japanese society, as well as with his rigid directing of actors, although he later admitted that he profited from his apprenticeship for Ozu in terms of gaining technical knowledge. While Imamura's films were to have a quite different style from Ozu's, Imamura, like Ozu, was to focus on what he saw as particularly Japanese elements of society in his films. "I've always wanted to ask questions about the Japanese, because it's the only people I'm qualified to describe," he said. He expressed surprise that his films were appreciated overseas, even doubting that they could be understood.

Studio director

Imamura left Shochiku in 1954 to join the Nikkatsu studios. There he worked as an assistant director to Yūzō Kawashima, with whom he shared an interest in the "real" Japan with its "uncivilized", amoral protagonists, in opposition to the "official" version (Donald Richie). He also co-wrote the screenplay to Kawashima's '' Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate'', and much later edited a book about Kawashima, entitled ''Sayonara dake ga jinsei da''.

In 1958, Imamura made his directorial debut at Nikkatsu, ''Stolen Desire'', about a travelling theater troupe which combines kabuki with striptease, a film which "characteristically finds some vitality in vulgarity" ( Jonathan Rosenbaum). He continued to direct films the studio had assigned him to, including ''Nishi Ginza Station'', a comedy based on a Frankie Nagai pop song, and the black comedy ''Endless Desire''. ''My Second Brother'', an "uncharacteristically tender film" (Alexander Jacoby), portrayed a community of zainichi in a poor mining town.

His 1961 satire '' Pigs and Battleships'', of which Imamura later said that it was the kind of film he always had wanted to make, depicted black market trades between the U.S. military and the local underworld at Yokosuka. Due to the film's controversial nature and Imamura's overrunning production time and costs, Nikkatsu did not allow Imamura to direct another project for two years, forcing him to concentrate on screenwriting. He followed this hiatus with the 1963 ''The Insect Woman'', which was shown in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the 1964 '' Unholy Desire''. All three films presented female protagonists who were survivors, persevering despite misfortunes. Imamura disliked the self-sacrificing women portrayed in films like Kenji Mizoguchi's ''The Life of Oharu'' and Mikio Naruse's ''Floating Clouds'', arguing that "they don't really exist...My heroines are true to life".

Independent filmmaker

In 1965, Imamura established his own production company, Imamura Productions. His first independent feature was a free adaptation of a novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, ''The Pornographers'' (1966), which is nowadays regarded as one of his best-known films in the West. In 1967, he followed with the pseudo-documentary ''A Man Vanishes'', which, while following a woman searching for her missing fiancé, increasingly blurred the line between non-fiction and fiction. His 1968 film '' Profound Desires of the Gods'' investigated the clash between modern and traditional societies on a southern Japanese island. One of Imamura's more ambitious and costly projects, this film's poor box-office performance led to a retreat back into smaller productions, causing him to direct a series of documentaries over the next decade, often for Japanese television.

'' History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess'' and '' Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute'' were two of these projects, both focusing on one of his favorite themes: Strong women who survive on the periphery of Japanese society. Two others followed Japanese ex-soldiers in Malaysia and Thailand reluctant to returning home, and speaking openly about their past war crimes on camera.

Imamura returned to fiction with the 1979 '' Vengeance Is Mine'', based on the true story of serial killer Akira Nishiguchi. Two large-scale remakes followed, '' Eijanaika'' (1981), a re-imagining of '' Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate'', and '' The Ballad of Narayama'' (1983), a re-telling of Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 '' The Ballad of Narayama''. For the latter, Imamura received his first Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.

'' Black Rain'' (1989) portrayed the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima on a family years after the incident. Film scholar Alexander Jacoby discovered an uncommon, "almost Ozu-like quietism" in this film. '' The Eel'' (1997) again secured Imamura a Palme d'Or, this time shared with Abbas Kiarostami's ''Taste of Cherry''.

Starting with ''The Eel'', Imamura's eldest son Daisuke Tengan worked on the screenplays of his films, including Imamura's contribution to the anthology film ''11'09"01 September 11'' (2002), his last directorial effort. In 2002, Imamura played the role of a historian in the South Korean film '' 2009: Lost Memories''.

Imamura died on 30 May 2006, aged 79.

Themes

Seeing himself as a cultural anthropologist, Imamura stated, "I like to make messy films", and "I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure... I ask myself what differentiates humans from other animals. What is a human being? I look for the answer by continuing to make films".

Legacy

Imamura founded the Japan Institute of the Moving Image () as the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film (Yokohama Hōsō Eiga Senmon Gakkō) in 1975. While a student at this school, director Takashi Miike was given his first film credit as assistant director on Imamura's 1987 film ''Zegen''.

Filmography (selected)

All films are as director except where otherwise noted.

Films

* 1958: ''Stolen Desire''
* 1958: ''Nishi Ginza Station''
* 1958: ''Endless Desire''
* 1959: ''My Second Brother''
* 1961: '' Pigs and Battleships''
* 1962: ''Foundry Town'' (co-writer only)
* 1963: ''The Insect Woman''
* 1964: '' Unholy Desire''
* 1966: ''The Pornographers''
* 1967: ''A Man Vanishes''
* 1968: ''Higashi Shinakai'' (writer and producer only)
* 1968: '' Profound Desires of the Gods''
* 1970: '' History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess''
* 1976: ''The Youth Killer'' (producer only)
* 1979: '' Vengeance is Mine''
* 1981: '' Eijanaika''
* 1983: '' The Ballad of Narayama''
* 1987: ''Zegen''
* 1989: '' Black Rain''
* 1997: '' The Eel''
* 1998: '' Dr. Akagi''
* 2001: ''Warm Water Under a Red Bridge''
* 2002: ''11'09"01 September 11'' (episode "Japan")

Television

* 1971: ''In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Malaysia''
* 1971: ''In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Thailand''
* 1972: ''The Pirates of Bubuan''
* 1973: ''Outlaw-Matsu Comes Home''
* 1975: '' Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute''

Awards

* 1980 Japan Academy Film Prize for Picture of the Year and Director of the Year – ''Vengeance Is Mine''
* 1983 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival – ''The Ballad of Narayama''
* 1980 Japan Academy Film Prize for Picture of the Year – ''The Ballad of Narayama''
* 1989 Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Special Mention, Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival – ''Black Rain''
* 1990 Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year and Director of the Year – ''Black Rain''
* 1997 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival – ''The Eel''
* 1998 Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year – ''The Eel''

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Imamura, Shohei
1926 births
2006 deaths
Deaths from cancer in Japan
Deaths from liver cancer
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year winners
Japanese film directors
People from Tokyo
Waseda University alumni