Director Shohei Imamura Dies

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Guardian: Icon of Japanese cinema dies
Award-winning Japanese director Shohei Imamura, known for his unsettling portrayals of life at the bottom of his country's rigid social structure, has died of liver cancer. He was 79. The Tokyo-born director was hailed as one of the icons of Japan's New Wave movement along with Nagisa Oshima, Seijun Suzuki and Masahiro Shinoda - a group of film-makers who emerged in the late 1950s and early 60s to shake up tradition-bound Japanese cinema. His films, focusing on gritty social issues, have often found a warmer reception in Europe than in the US - he won the Cannes film festival Palme d'Or twice: for The Ballad of Narayama in 1983 and The Eel in 1997...more...

See also The Guardian's Imamura Obituary.

[dimwit]

Like most of the new wave directors his work is largely ignored back home and far more popular with foreign audiences. I doubt many Japanese know his work. Pity.

[Mulboyne]

Like most of the new wave directors his work is largely ignored back home and far more popular with foreign audiences.

I'm not sure that's right. I agree he isn't big box office but video and DVD created a whole new market and audience for directors like Imamura. You'll often find a section for his films in larger rental stores. He also won the best director prize at Japan's oscars on a number of occasions. The Eel, which also won at Cannes, took more at the box office in Japan than overseas (not simply down to the ticket price). I don't think that was just herd-like reverence either since Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, which also starred Koji Yakusho, was a lesser film and accordingly performed poorly.

[dimwit]

For my wife or my generation you are probably right but I doubt that many people who grew up in the anime kingdom really know much about him. He along with Kon Ichikawa first got me intrigued by Japan some 25 years or so ago.

[mr. sparkle]

What a shame. I like Imamura in that he shows Japan and its people as they really are. My fave is "The Pornographers". It's the first Criterion Collection DVD I bought. Good stuff.

[Ptyx]

All the 25-30 year old people at my company had no idea who he was. When i showed them the japanese poster for Unagi, they say that they had seen it (the poster) before.
Most of the mort talented japanese directors are totally ignored here, even the recent generation, Tsukamoto, Miike, K. Kurosawa, Aoyama etc.. totaly unknown.
That doesn't mean that they can't make movies, or that their movie won't have success in Japan, it means that nobody cares about their name whereas in the west those guy are regarded as the cream of the crop of japanese cinema.
Strangely enough the really famous directors here, for example Iwai Shunji, are totally ignored in the west. Kitano was also considered a complete failure as a director until he won the prize at Venice for Hana-bi.
It's even stranger considering that movie geeks here are super snobish and hardcore. Next time you're in a big tsutaya look for really obscure eastern european movies or french underground experimental short movies and be amazed
I sawthis in a Tsutaya. Notice how amazon doesn't have, even a vhs copy of that movie, directed by Polanski no less. This movie was almost impossible to find in europe or in the states. It just has been released on dvd in Italy.

[Mulboyne]

Most of the more talented japanese directors are totally ignored here...

It's an exaggeration to say they are totally ignored but it is fair to say that local film directors get less attention than their counterparts overseas. On the other hand, writers probably get more attention than overseas. This just goes to show how a large part of the domestic film industry mirrors the local TV business. Scriptwriters for popular TV dramas are feted on a par with leading actors but you rarely hear about the directors.

You can see how this works in the example of Kankuro Kudo who wrote "Ikebukuro West Gate Park" for TV. His brand value and script skills were used in films like "Go" and "Ping Pong" which did enough business to get him his own directing gig on "Mayonaka no Yaji-san Kita-san". It would be more difficult for a director to come that route.

I don't know the answer but I wonder whether Koji Suzuki, writer of the "Ring" trilogy, is better known in Japan than Hideo Nakata who directed the film versions.

[Ptyx]

It's an exaggeration to say they are totally ignored but it is fair to say that local film directors get less attention than their counterparts overseas....

I don't know the answer but I wonder whether Koji Suzuki, writer of the "Ring" trilogy, is better known in Japan than Hideo Nakata who directed the film versions.

Yes it was an exaggeration, some of them are pretty famous here but there are very few on whose name a movie can be a crowd pleaser. Iwai Shunji and now Kitano are part of those happy few, i can't think of any other names.
I wanted to underline to big difference between recognition of japanese directors here and in the west.
Concerning the screenwriter it's probably true, then again a lot of succesful american screenwriters have made the transition from writing to directing. David Koep, Shane Black and recently Abrahams (Lost) who's directing MI III for example.
But those guys are obviously not as famous in the States as Kudo's here.