Shōhei Imamura

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Shōhei Imamura ( Japanese 今 村 昌平 , Imamura Shōhei ; born September 15, 1926 in Tokyo ; † May 30, 2006 ibid) was a Japanese director , screenwriter and actor. As one of the co-founders of the Japanese Nouvelle Vague ( Nuberu Bagu ), he is one of the most influential directors in Japanese film.

biography

Imamura was the son of a doctor and was interested in theater from an early age. In 1945 he enrolled in literary studies at the elite college of Waseda University in Tokyo. Imamura then worked from 1951 for the Japanese film company Shōchiku . Shōhei Imamura was already fascinated by avant-garde theater and film in his youth. After the end of the war, he was so impressed by Akira Kurosawa's early films , especially Rashomon - Das Lustwäldchen , that he wanted to do an apprenticeship with him, but he couldn't. Instead he became a student of Ozu Yasujirō , from whom he learned the craft of directing and whose aesthetic Imamura was strongly influenced. In his philosophy of filmmaking, however, Imamura deviated completely from his teacher. He accused him of only showing “official” Japan, where people are guided by traditional values. Imamura, on the other hand, wanted to represent the “real” Japan.

After he had to do some commissioned work for the Shōchiku film studio, he turned films according to his ideas. He made his debut in 1958 as a film director with Nusumareta yokujō . His films deal with human desire and the violence that results from it. During the crisis in Japanese cinema in the 1970s, Imamura mainly made documentaries for television. It wasn't until 1979 that he was able to end the dry spell with the crime film Fukushū suru wa ware ni ari (Revenge is mine, 1979). In 1983 he achieved his international breakthrough with the old legend The Ballad of Narayama and won the Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival . Imamura was always interested in the "little people", farmers, rural refugees in the city or prostitutes struck by fate - that was the social atmosphere that he felt absolutely sympathetic to. His last work was an eleven-minute short film for the episode film 11'09 "01 - September 11 , for which Ken Loach and Alejandro González Iñárritu also made films.

In the 2002 South Korean film Lost Memories by Lee Si-myung, Imamura plays a supporting role as a historian.

Imamura died of liver cancer at the age of 79 . He leaves behind his wife Akiko, with whom he was married for almost 50 years and who has assisted him since 1997, as well as two sons and a daughter. The director Takashi Miike was one of Imamura's students.

Criticism and importance

Imamura is one of the co-founders of the Japanese Nouvelle Vague ( Nuberu Bagu ), his subjects also deal with taboo subjects such as incest, the forced prostitution of Japanese women by the army ( Karayuki-San ), spouse murder ( The Eel ) and parricide ( The Ballad of Narayama ). Despite this drastic realism, according to Gerhard Midding, his films had "dignity and sublimity."

“Imamura, on the other hand, sharply criticized the materialism of post-war society and took up taboos such as incest and pornography. The wide canvas serves him as a terrain of frenzy, of sensual delirium. His picture compositions restored a social framework into which instincts and desires break in. "

- The world

"Thanks to his uncompromising attitude and the courage to break through the stereotypes of the portrayal of Japan in film again and again, Imamura became one of the most important directors in Japanese cinema alongside Akira Kurosawa."

- The mirror

Awards

Imamura has received numerous awards for his films. He has received the Japanese Academy Award , the Kinema Junpo Award and the Blue Ribbon Award several times . His films Nianchan (1959) and Nippon konchuki (1963) were shown in the competition at the Berlinale , the films The Ballad of Narayama (1983) and The Eel (1997) received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival . This made him the fourth director to have been awarded the Palme d'Or twice.

Quotes

  • "I am interested in the relationship between the lower part of the human body and the lower part of society."
  • “It's a lot easier to be obedient and to be part of the establishment, but that's not my way of life. I always try to completely change society with my films. "

Filmography (director)

Web links

items

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Director legend: Japanese filmmaker Imamura has died. In: Spiegel Online . May 30, 2006, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Gerhard Midding: Shohei Imamura (1926-2006). In: welt.de . May 31, 2006, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Nelson Kim: Shohei Imamura , sensesofcinema.com
  4. ^ Richard Phillips: "Japanese film director Shohei Imamura speaks to the World Socialist Web Site ", September 19, 2000
personal data
SURNAME Imamura, Shōhei
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 今 村 昌平 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese director
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 2006
Place of death Tokyo