was a Japanese

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

. Yamamoto was born in

Kagoshima City , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 583,966 in 285,992 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Etymology While the kanji used to sp ...

. After leaving

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 ...

, where he had become affiliated with

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

groups, he joined the

Shochiku is a Japanese entertainment company. Founded in 1895, it initially managed '' kabuki'' theaters in Kyoto; in 1914, it also acquired ownership of the Kabuki-za theater in Tokyo. In 1920, Shochiku entered the film production industry and establis ...

film studios in 1933, where he worked as an assistant director to

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily Shoshimin-eiga, shōshimin-eiga ("common people drama") films with f ...

. He followed Naruse when the latter moved to P.C.L. film studios (later

Toho is a Japanese entertainment company that primarily engages in producing and distributing films and exhibiting stage plays. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. ...

) and debuted as a director in 1937 with ''Ojōsan''. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he directed the propaganda films ''Winged Victory'' and ''Hot Winds'' before being drafted and sent to China. After returning to Japan, Yamamoto's first film was ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...

'', co-directed with

Fumio Kamei (1 April 1908 – 27 February 1987) was a Japanese documentary and fiction film director. Biography Kamei went to the Soviet Union in 1928 to study filmmaking, but had to return home because of an illness. He eventually began working at Photo Ch ...

. Being a

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

and an active supporter of the union during the

Toho strikes The , also translated as the Toho labor disputes or Toho labor upheaval, were a series of strike actions in Japan taken by workers in the Toho labor union against Toho management between 1946 and 1948. The third and largest action was notable for ...

, he left the studio in 1948 after the strikes' forced ending and turned to independent filmmaking. The commercially successful ''

Street of Violence , also titled ''City of Violence'' and ''Street of Violence (The Pen Never Lies)'', is a 1950 Japanese crime and drama film directed by Satsuo Yamamoto. Its story is based on a reportage published in the newspaper The Asahi Shimbun. Plot In the ...

'' (1950) was produced by a committee named after the film's original title ''Bōryoku no machi'', while the left-wing production company Shinsei Eiga-sha ("New star films"), formed by former Toho unionists, produced the anti-war film ''Vacuum Zone'' (1953), which film historian

Donald Richie Donald Richie (April 17, 1924 – February 19, 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also ...

called "the strongest anti-military film ever made in Japan" in 1959. The 1959 ''

Ballad of the Cart is a 1959 Japanese drama film directed by Satsuo Yamamoto. It was written by Yoshikata Yoda, based on a novel by activist Tomoe Yamashiro. Plot In Hiroshima Prefecture during the Meiji era, simple housemaid Seki accepts the proposal of Moichi ...

'' was produced by the National Rural Film Association and won him the

Mainichi Film Award 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 t ...

for Best Director. In the 1960s, Yamamoto again worked for major companies like

Daiei , based in Kobe, Hyōgo, is one of the largest supermarket chains in Japan. In 1957, Isao Nakauchi founded the chain in Osaka near Sembayashi Station on the Keihan train line. Daiei is now under a restructuring process supported by Marubeni ...

and

Nikkatsu is a Japanese film studio located in Bunkyō. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures". Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). ...

, directing films like ''Band of Assassins'' (1962), ''The Ivory Tower'' (1966) and '' Zatoichi the Outlaw'' (1967). He died in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

on 11 August 1983, at the age of 73.

Selected filmography

Films

Awards

;Kinema Junpo Awards Yamamoto received the

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 ...

Award for Best Director for ''Ivory Tower'', which was also awarded Best Film. ;Blue Ribbon Awards Yamamoto won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Director for ''Shōnin no isu'' and ''Nippon dorobō monogatari'' (both 1965). ''Ivory Tower'' was awarded Best Film the following year. ;Mainichi Fim Awards Yamamoto was awarded Best Director at the

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 ...

for ''Ballad of the Cart'' and ''Ningen no kane'' (both 1959), ''Ivory Tower'', ''Men and War'' and ''Barren Land''. ''Ivory Tower'', ''Barren Land'' and ''Nomugi Pass'' were winners in the Best Film category. ;Festival prizes ''Ivory Tower'' was entered into the

5th Moscow International Film Festival The 5th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 5 to 20 July 1967. The Grand Prix was shared between the Soviet film '' The Journalist'', directed by Sergei Gerasimov and the Hungarian film ''Father'', directed by István Szabó. The f ...

where it was awarded the Silver Prize.

Books

* ''Yamamoto Satsuo: My Life as a Filmmaker'' (私の映画人生, ''Watakushi no eiga jinsei''), published in English in 2017 by

University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is a university press that is a part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earn ...

, translated by Chia-ning Chang. - It is an

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

that was first published after Yamamoto died.

References

External links

* * * *

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yamamoto, Satsuo 1910 births 1983 deaths Japanese film directors People from Kagoshima