In Remembrance: Shohei Imamura

     Shohei Imamura, the Japanese director who was considered one the leading directors in the Japanese New Wave movement, has passed away on May 30, 2006 in Tokyo, Japan. He was 79.

     Born on September 15, 1926 in Tokyo, Japan, Imamura entered into a technical school to avoid being drafted in Japan’s army during World War Two. After the war he studied Western literature at Tokyo’s prestigious Waseda University. While at the school he was struck by the poverty and devastation left in the wake of Japan’s defeat during the war. This would profoundly affect the films he would later direct.

     Following his graduation in 1951, Imamura was hired by the Japanese film company Shochiku Co., where he worked as an assistant to director Yasujiro Ozu. Starting with his first film as a director, 1958’s Stolen Desire, Imamura began to explore the more gritty side of Japanese society.

     Imamura’s satire Pigs And Battleships (1961) was the first of his many films to show the strength and energy of common people, a theme which The Insect Woman (1963) and Unholy Desire (1964) further explored in their depictions of lower-class, uneducated women forced to rely on their sexuality for survival. Always one for realism in his films, Imamura hired forty-year old prostitute Emiko Aizawa to star in Insect Woman. His 1989 film Black Rain showed the horrific aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima through the eyes of a survivor suffering from radiation sickness. Other noteworthy films from Imamura include History Of Postwar Japan As Told By A Bar Hostess (1970) and Why Not? (1981).

     Imamura also explored Japanese society through the documentaries A Man Vanishes (1967), which profiled a Japanese woman looking for her missing husband and Karayuki-san (1975), which focused on Japanese women who were forced into prostitution with wartime troops.

     Imamura was the first Japanese director to twice win the Palme D’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. His first win was in 1983 for The Ballad Of Narayama, the story of a man who follows his village’s ancient tradition in allowing his mother to die on a sacred mountain top. His 1997 film, The Eel, which tells the story of a man who tried to start a new life after having been imprisoned for murdering his wife, also won the coveted film festival award.

     Imamura’s last feature length film was 2001’s Warm Water Under A Red Bridge. His final work was directing a segment for the 2002 anthology film 11’ 09’’ 01- September 11.