Kaneto Shindo
Encyclopedia
, Hiroshima
, Japan
) is a Japanese
film director
and screenwriter
. His best known films include Children of Hiroshima
, The Naked Island
, Onibaba, Kuroneko
and A Last Note
.
Shindō has often made films dealing with Hiroshima or the atomic bomb. Like his early mentor Kenji Mizoguchi
, many of his works feature strong female characters (some demonic, as in Onibaba
), most of which were played by the actress Nobuko Otowa
(1925–1994), who eventually became his wife.
, Shindō's family went from wealthy landowners to bankruptcy and he grew up in poverty with his farmer parents. Shindō first joined the film developing lab of Shinkō Kinema
in 1934 as an apprentice. By the late 1930s he moved to the art department and began working as an assistant to his mentor Kenji Mizoguchi
on several films, most notably being in charge of the sets for The 47 Ronin
. Shindō has acknowledged Mizoguchi as being the main influence on his body of work. He also began writing scripts at this time and made his debut as a screenwriter with the film Nanshin josei in 1940. His scripts were filmed by such directors as Kon Ichikawa
, Keisuke Kinoshita
, Fumio Kamei
and Tadashi Imai. He has had over two hundred scripts produced, including those he directed himself.
After serving in World War II
and suffering the death of his first wife, Shindō moved to the Shōchiku
Film Company and began his long collaboration writing scripts for director Kōzaburō Yoshimura
. Their collaboration has been called "one of the most successful film partnerships in the postwar industry. Shindo playing Dudley Nichols
to Yoshimura's John Ford
." The duo scored a critical hit with A Ball at the Anjo House in 1947. Shindō and Yoshimura were both unhappy at Shōchiku Studios, which viewed the two as having a "dark outlook" on life. In 1950 they both left Shōchiku and formed the independent production company, Kindai Eiga Kyōkai, which has produced most of Shindō's films ever since.
in the role of his deceased first wife. After directing Avalanche in 1952, Shindō was invited by the Japan Teachers' Union to make a film about the dropping of the atomic bomb on his hometown of Hiroshima. Children of Hiroshima
stars Nobuko Otowa as a young teacher who returns to Hiroshima for the first time since the bomb was dropped hoping to find any surviving former students. Both controversial and critically acclaimed on its release, it premiered at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival
.
After this international success, Shindō made Shukuzu in 1953. The film stars Nobuko Otowa as Ginko, a poor girl who must become a geisha in order to support her family, and cannot marry the rich client whom she falls in love with because of his family honor. While reviewing this film, Japanese film critic Tadao Satō
said that Shindō had "inherited from his mentor Mizoguchi his central theme of worship of womanhood...Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Shindo's view of women blossomed under his master's encouragement, but once in bloom revealed itself to be of a different hue...Shindō differs from Mizoguchi by idealizing the intimidating capacity of Japanese women for sustained work, and contrasting them with shamefully lazy men."
Between 1953 and 1959 Shindō continued to make political films that were social critiques of poverty and women's suffering in present day Japan. These included Onna no issho, an adaptation of Maupassant's Une Vie in 1953; Dobu, a 1954 film about the struggles of unskilled workers and petty thieves that again starred Otowa as a tragic prostitute; and Lucky Dragon Number 5 in 1959. Lucky Dragon No. 5 tells the true story of a Japanese fishing crew who are irradiated from the fallout of an atomic bomb test at the nearby Bikini Islands. The film received the Peace Prize at a Czech film festival, but was not a success with either critics or audiences.
By this time Shindō had formed an established "stock company" of actors and crew that he would work with regularly for the majority of his career. This included Nobuko Otowa
, actor Taiji Tonoyama, composer Hikaru Hayashi
and cinematographer Kiyomi Kuroda.
in 1960. With Kindai Eiga Kyōkai close to bankruptcy, Shindō poured what little financial resources he had left into this low budget film, which he has described as "a cinematic poem to try and capture the life of human beings struggling like ants against the forces of nature."
The Naked Island
stars Nobuko Otowa
and Taiji Tonoyama as a couple who live on a deserted island with their two young sons and no water supply. Every day they must climb down a cliff and canoe over to another island to retrieve fresh water to drink and irrigate their crops. There is practically no dialog in the film, as the couple neither speak to or look at each other through their struggle to survive. When one of their sons is injured, Tonoyama must travel to a neighboring island to find a doctor, but he is too late.
The film was a financial success worldwide and saved both Shindō's company and career. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1961 Moscow Film Festival and received lesser awards at festivals in Australia and Germany. The critical response to the film was mixed, with some praising the film for its simplicity and lack of sentimentality. Others, such as filmmaker Nagisa Ôshima
, criticized the film for its depiction of Japanese people and felt that the film's international success was a "reflection of the image foreign people hold of Japanese people."
After making two more films of social relevance (Human(s) in 1962 and Mother in 1963), Shindō shifted his focus as a filmmaker to the individuality of a person, specifically a person's sexual nature. He explained: "Political things such as class consciousness or class struggle or other aspects of social existence really come down to the problem of man alone....I have discovered the powerful, very fundamental force in man which sustains his survival and which can be called sexual energy...My idea of sex is nothing but the expression of the vitality of man, his urge for survival." From these new ideas came Shindō's most famous and praised film, Onibaba in 1964.
Onibaba stars Nobuko Otowa as a 14th century Japanese peasant who survives in a strange, reed filled marshland with her daughter-in-law, played by Jitsuko Yoshimura. The two women survive by murdering wandering samurai and then selling their possessions to a local merchant. When the younger woman falls in love with a returning soldier, Otowa uses a demon mask from one of the dead samurai to scare her daughter-in-law and prevent her from visiting the samurai at night.
The film was both Shindō's first horror film and jidai-geki (period piece) film. The film was an international success, winning numerous awards and the Grand Prix at the Panama Film Festival, and Best Supporting Actress (Jitsuko Yoshimura) and Best Cinematography (Kiyomi Kuroda) at the Blue Ribbon Awards
in 1964.
After making The Conquest, another jidai-geki, in 1965, Shindō continued his cinematic exploration of human sexuality with Lost Sex in 1966. In the film, a middle aged man who has become temporarily impotent after the Hiroshima Bombing in 1945, once again loses his virility due to nuclear tests at the Bikini Islands. In the end, he is cured by his housekeeper. Impotence was again the theme of Shindō's next film, Libido, released in 1967. But this time the afflicted male protagonist dies before being cured. Gender politics and strong female characters played a strong role in both of these films. As Japanese film critic Tadao Satō
points out, "By contrasting the comical weakness of the male with the unbridled strength of the female, Shindō seemed to be saying in the 1960s that women had wrought their revenge. This could have been a reflection of postwar society, since it is commonly said in Japan women have become stronger because men have lost all confidence in their masculinity due to Japan's defeat."
In 1968 Shindō made Kuroneko
(Black Cat), another horror film and jidai-geki reminiscent of Onibaba
. The film again centers around a vengeful and murderous mother and daughter-in-law pair (played by Nobuko Otowa and Kiwako Taichi
) whose victims are 14th Century samurai. After being raped and left to die in their burning hut by a group of soldiers, Otowa and Taichi return to Earth as demons who entice and lead unsuspecting samurai to a hut in the woods were they are seduced and killed by the daughter-in-law. One of the victims ends up being Otowa's returning son, but even he cannot be spared. The film won awards for Best Actress (Otowa) and Best Cinematography (Kiyomi Kuroda) at the Mainichi Film Awards in 1968.
Shindō then made his first comedy film in 1968, Strong Women, Weak Men, although he retained his interest in human sexuality. In this film a mother (Otowa) and her teenage daughter (Eiko Yamagishi) leave their impoverished coal-mining small town to find work in the city of Kyoto
. They become cabaret hostesses and quickly acquire enough cynical street smarts to get as much money out of their predatory johns as they can. Wanting to take a more sympathetic view of regular people and their more insincere vices, Shindō said of the film "common people never appear in the pages of history. Silently they live, eat and die...I wanted to depict their bright, healthy, open vitality with a sprinkling of comedy."
Again Shindō explored new genres with his next two films, which were crime dramas. Heat Wave Island, released in 1969, stars Otowa as a former Inland Sea island farmer (much like her character in The Naked Island
) who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film begins with the discovery of her corpse, which leads to an investigation that uncovers the narcotics, prostitution, and murder in which so many poor farmers like Otowa had found themselves trapped after World War II. Similarly, Live Today, Die Tomorrow! (released in 1971) portrays a poor 19-year-old laborer who tries to make quick money with a minor robbery, but ends up killing a security guard and gets caught up in the criminal lifestyle until finally caught.
Shindō's 1974 film My Way was a throwback to films of his early career and was an exposure of the Japanese government's mistreatment of the country's migratory workers. Based on a true story, an elderly women resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.
, a tribute to his mentor who had died in 1956. The film uses film clips, footage of the hospital where the director spent his last days and interviews with actors, technicians and friends to paint a loving portrait of the director who had helped Shindō begin his career, but never lived to see his student's greatest triumphs.
He followed this with two more biographical documentaries. The Life of Chikuzan, released in 1977, is about the life of Japanese folk singer Chikuzan Takahashi. Hokusai manga, released in 1981, is about the life of the 18th century Japanese wood engraver Katsushika Hokusai. In between these two films, Shindō made the film The Strangling. This film was in competition at the 1979 Venice Film Festival
, where Nobuko Otowa
won the award for Best Actress.
In 1984 Shindō made a very personal film, The Horizon. Based on the life of his long lost sister, the film chronicles her experiences as a poor farm girl who is sold as a mail-order bride to a Japanese American and never sees her family again. She spends time in a Japanese internment camp
during World War II and lives a life of difficulty and disappointment.
Shindō's 1995 film A Last Note
would prove to be a bittersweet experience for the director. During production of the film, Nobuko Otowa
was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and died in December 1994. The film won numerous awards, including Best Film awards at the Blue Ribbon Awards
, Hochi Film Award
s, Japan Academy Prizes, Kinema Junpo Awards and Mainichi Film Awards, as well as awards for Best Director at the Japanese Academy
, Nikkan Sports Film Awards, Kinema Junpo Awards and Mainichi Film Award. Otowa is, however, credited as having appeared in Shindō's 2000 film By Player.
Still active in his late nineties, his recent films have focused on issues faced by the elderly. In 2011 his film Postcard
was selected as the Japanese submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
. This was the first time that a film by Shindō had been selected and, at 99, would make him the oldest director in the history of the category if the film is nominated.
He has directed over 40 films and written over 200 scripts.
From 1972 to 1981 he served as chair of the Japan Writers Guild.
, Shindō stated that there was "a strong Freudian influence throughout all of [his] work."
The strongest and most apparent themes in Shindō's work involve social criticism of poverty, women and sexuality. Shindō has described himself as a socialist. Film critic Donald Richie
has called him a communist, stating that "the party line is never completely invisible and any audience feels manipulated when the purpose of the director becomes this noticeable." Tadao Satō
has pointed out that Shindō's political films are both a reflection of his impoverished childhood and the condition of Japan after World War II, stating that, "Contemporary Japan has developed from an agricultural into an industrial country. Many agricultural people moved to cities and threw themselves into new precarious lives. Kaneto Shindō's style of camerawork comes from this intention to conquer such uneasiness by depicting the perseverance and persistence of farmers."
Women and human sexuality also play a major role in Shindō's films. Joan Mellen wrote that "at their best, Shindō's films involve a merging of the sexual with the social. His radical perception isolates man's sexual life in the context of his role as a member of a specific social class...For Shindō our passions as biological beings and our ambitions as members of social classes, which give specific and distorted form to those drives, induce an endless struggle within the unconscious. Those moments in his films when this warfare is visualized and brought to conscious life raise his work to the level of the highest art."
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
) is a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. His best known films include Children of Hiroshima
Children of Hiroshima
Children of Hiroshima is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. -Cast:* Nobuko Otowa - Takako Ishikawa* Osamu Takizawa - Iwakichi* Niwa Saito - Natsue Morikawa* Tsuneko Yamanaka...
, The Naked Island
The Naked Island
The Naked Island is a 1960 art film directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film was made in black and white, and is notable for having no spoken dialogue.-Plot synopsis:...
, Onibaba, Kuroneko
Kuroneko
is a 1968 Japanese horror film, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The title means "Black Cat" in English. It was placed in competition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.- Plot :...
and A Last Note
A Last Note
is a 1995 Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.-Synopsis:A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home...
.
Shindō has often made films dealing with Hiroshima or the atomic bomb. Like his early mentor Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
, many of his works feature strong female characters (some demonic, as in Onibaba
Onibaba
is a Japanese horror film based on a Buddhist parable. Directed by Kaneto Shindō, the film is set in rural Japan in the fourteenth century and features Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura as a woman and her daughter-in-law who attack and kill passing samurai, strip them of their valuable armor and...
), most of which were played by the actress Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
(1925–1994), who eventually became his wife.
Early Life and Career
Born in HiroshimaHiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, Shindō's family went from wealthy landowners to bankruptcy and he grew up in poverty with his farmer parents. Shindō first joined the film developing lab of Shinkō Kinema
Shinkō Kinema
-Background:Shinkō was established in September 1931 out of the remnants of the Teikoku Kinema studio with the help of Shōchiku capital. The historian Jun'ichirō Tanaka writes that the studio was part of Shōchiku's effort to monopolize the Japanese film industry, using Shinkō to control some of the...
in 1934 as an apprentice. By the late 1930s he moved to the art department and began working as an assistant to his mentor Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
on several films, most notably being in charge of the sets for The 47 Ronin
The 47 Ronin
is a 1941/1942 black-and-white two-part jidaigeki Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.The first part was originally released in Japan just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film was directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, and adapted from the play by Seika Mayama...
. Shindō has acknowledged Mizoguchi as being the main influence on his body of work. He also began writing scripts at this time and made his debut as a screenwriter with the film Nanshin josei in 1940. His scripts were filmed by such directors as Kon Ichikawa
Kon Ichikawa
was a Japanese film director.-Early life and career:Ichikawa was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture. In the 1930s Ichikawa attended a technical school in Osaka. Upon graduation, in 1933, he found a job with a local rental film studio, J.O. Studio, in their animation department...
, Keisuke Kinoshita
Keisuke Kinoshita
was a Japanese film director.Although lesser known internationally than his fellow filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa , Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu , Keisuke Kinoshita was nonetheless a household figure at home beloved by audience and critics alike, especially in the forties through the sixties...
, Fumio Kamei
Fumio Kamei
was a prominent left-wing 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...
and Tadashi Imai. He has had over two hundred scripts produced, including those he directed himself.
After serving in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and suffering the death of his first wife, Shindō moved to the Shōchiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
Film Company and began his long collaboration writing scripts for director Kōzaburō Yoshimura
Kozaburo Yoshimura
was a Japanese film director. Born in Shiga Prefecture, he joined the Shōchiku studio in 1929. He debuted as director in 1934, but continued working as an assistant director for such filmmakers as Yasujirō Ozu and Yasujirō Shimazu after that. It was the 1939 film Danryū that established his status...
. Their collaboration has been called "one of the most successful film partnerships in the postwar industry. Shindo playing Dudley Nichols
Dudley Nichols
Dudley Nichols was an American screenwriter who first came to prominence after winning and refusing the screenwriting Oscar for The Informer in 1936....
to Yoshimura's John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
." The duo scored a critical hit with A Ball at the Anjo House in 1947. Shindō and Yoshimura were both unhappy at Shōchiku Studios, which viewed the two as having a "dark outlook" on life. In 1950 they both left Shōchiku and formed the independent production company, Kindai Eiga Kyōkai, which has produced most of Shindō's films ever since.
Early Career as a Film Director
In 1951, Shindō made his debut as a director with the autobiographical Aisai monogatari (The Story of a Beloved Wife), starring his future second wife Nobuko OtowaNobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
in the role of his deceased first wife. After directing Avalanche in 1952, Shindō was invited by the Japan Teachers' Union to make a film about the dropping of the atomic bomb on his hometown of Hiroshima. Children of Hiroshima
Children of Hiroshima
Children of Hiroshima is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. -Cast:* Nobuko Otowa - Takako Ishikawa* Osamu Takizawa - Iwakichi* Niwa Saito - Natsue Morikawa* Tsuneko Yamanaka...
stars Nobuko Otowa as a young teacher who returns to Hiroshima for the first time since the bomb was dropped hoping to find any surviving former students. Both controversial and critically acclaimed on its release, it premiered at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival
1953 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Jean Cocteau *Louis Chauvet *Titina De Filippo *Guy Desson *Philippe Erlanger *Renée Faure *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais *Abel Gance *André Lang...
.
After this international success, Shindō made Shukuzu in 1953. The film stars Nobuko Otowa as Ginko, a poor girl who must become a geisha in order to support her family, and cannot marry the rich client whom she falls in love with because of his family honor. While reviewing this film, Japanese film critic Tadao Satō
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
said that Shindō had "inherited from his mentor Mizoguchi his central theme of worship of womanhood...Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Shindo's view of women blossomed under his master's encouragement, but once in bloom revealed itself to be of a different hue...Shindō differs from Mizoguchi by idealizing the intimidating capacity of Japanese women for sustained work, and contrasting them with shamefully lazy men."
Between 1953 and 1959 Shindō continued to make political films that were social critiques of poverty and women's suffering in present day Japan. These included Onna no issho, an adaptation of Maupassant's Une Vie in 1953; Dobu, a 1954 film about the struggles of unskilled workers and petty thieves that again starred Otowa as a tragic prostitute; and Lucky Dragon Number 5 in 1959. Lucky Dragon No. 5 tells the true story of a Japanese fishing crew who are irradiated from the fallout of an atomic bomb test at the nearby Bikini Islands. The film received the Peace Prize at a Czech film festival, but was not a success with either critics or audiences.
By this time Shindō had formed an established "stock company" of actors and crew that he would work with regularly for the majority of his career. This included Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
, actor Taiji Tonoyama, composer Hikaru Hayashi
Hikaru Hayashi
is a contemporary Japanese composer, pianist and conductor. He is the cousin of flautist Ririko Hayashi.Hayashi entered Tokyo University of the Arts as a composition student but did not complete his studies. Studying under Hisatada Otaka, he produced many compositions including orchestral works...
and cinematographer Kiyomi Kuroda.
International Success
Shindō's first major international success was the film The Naked IslandThe Naked Island
The Naked Island is a 1960 art film directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film was made in black and white, and is notable for having no spoken dialogue.-Plot synopsis:...
in 1960. With Kindai Eiga Kyōkai close to bankruptcy, Shindō poured what little financial resources he had left into this low budget film, which he has described as "a cinematic poem to try and capture the life of human beings struggling like ants against the forces of nature."
The Naked Island
The Naked Island
The Naked Island is a 1960 art film directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film was made in black and white, and is notable for having no spoken dialogue.-Plot synopsis:...
stars Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
and Taiji Tonoyama as a couple who live on a deserted island with their two young sons and no water supply. Every day they must climb down a cliff and canoe over to another island to retrieve fresh water to drink and irrigate their crops. There is practically no dialog in the film, as the couple neither speak to or look at each other through their struggle to survive. When one of their sons is injured, Tonoyama must travel to a neighboring island to find a doctor, but he is too late.
The film was a financial success worldwide and saved both Shindō's company and career. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1961 Moscow Film Festival and received lesser awards at festivals in Australia and Germany. The critical response to the film was mixed, with some praising the film for its simplicity and lack of sentimentality. Others, such as filmmaker Nagisa Ôshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
, criticized the film for its depiction of Japanese people and felt that the film's international success was a "reflection of the image foreign people hold of Japanese people."
After making two more films of social relevance (Human(s) in 1962 and Mother in 1963), Shindō shifted his focus as a filmmaker to the individuality of a person, specifically a person's sexual nature. He explained: "Political things such as class consciousness or class struggle or other aspects of social existence really come down to the problem of man alone....I have discovered the powerful, very fundamental force in man which sustains his survival and which can be called sexual energy...My idea of sex is nothing but the expression of the vitality of man, his urge for survival." From these new ideas came Shindō's most famous and praised film, Onibaba in 1964.
The film was both Shindō's first horror film and jidai-geki (period piece) film. The film was an international success, winning numerous awards and the Grand Prix at the Panama Film Festival, and Best Supporting Actress (Jitsuko Yoshimura) and Best Cinematography (Kiyomi Kuroda) at the Blue Ribbon Awards
Blue Ribbon Awards
The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan.The awards were established in 1950 by which is composed of film correspondents from seven Tokyo-based sports newspapers...
in 1964.
After making The Conquest, another jidai-geki, in 1965, Shindō continued his cinematic exploration of human sexuality with Lost Sex in 1966. In the film, a middle aged man who has become temporarily impotent after the Hiroshima Bombing in 1945, once again loses his virility due to nuclear tests at the Bikini Islands. In the end, he is cured by his housekeeper. Impotence was again the theme of Shindō's next film, Libido, released in 1967. But this time the afflicted male protagonist dies before being cured. Gender politics and strong female characters played a strong role in both of these films. As Japanese film critic Tadao Satō
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
points out, "By contrasting the comical weakness of the male with the unbridled strength of the female, Shindō seemed to be saying in the 1960s that women had wrought their revenge. This could have been a reflection of postwar society, since it is commonly said in Japan women have become stronger because men have lost all confidence in their masculinity due to Japan's defeat."
In 1968 Shindō made Kuroneko
Kuroneko
is a 1968 Japanese horror film, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The title means "Black Cat" in English. It was placed in competition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.- Plot :...
(Black Cat), another horror film and jidai-geki reminiscent of Onibaba
Onibaba
is a Japanese horror film based on a Buddhist parable. Directed by Kaneto Shindō, the film is set in rural Japan in the fourteenth century and features Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura as a woman and her daughter-in-law who attack and kill passing samurai, strip them of their valuable armor and...
. The film again centers around a vengeful and murderous mother and daughter-in-law pair (played by Nobuko Otowa and Kiwako Taichi
Kiwako Taichi
was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 20 films between 1967 and 1985.-Selected filmography:* Kuroneko * Fire Festival -External links:...
) whose victims are 14th Century samurai. After being raped and left to die in their burning hut by a group of soldiers, Otowa and Taichi return to Earth as demons who entice and lead unsuspecting samurai to a hut in the woods were they are seduced and killed by the daughter-in-law. One of the victims ends up being Otowa's returning son, but even he cannot be spared. The film won awards for Best Actress (Otowa) and Best Cinematography (Kiyomi Kuroda) at the Mainichi Film Awards in 1968.
Shindō then made his first comedy film in 1968, Strong Women, Weak Men, although he retained his interest in human sexuality. In this film a mother (Otowa) and her teenage daughter (Eiko Yamagishi) leave their impoverished coal-mining small town to find work in the city of Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
. They become cabaret hostesses and quickly acquire enough cynical street smarts to get as much money out of their predatory johns as they can. Wanting to take a more sympathetic view of regular people and their more insincere vices, Shindō said of the film "common people never appear in the pages of history. Silently they live, eat and die...I wanted to depict their bright, healthy, open vitality with a sprinkling of comedy."
Again Shindō explored new genres with his next two films, which were crime dramas. Heat Wave Island, released in 1969, stars Otowa as a former Inland Sea island farmer (much like her character in The Naked Island
The Naked Island
The Naked Island is a 1960 art film directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film was made in black and white, and is notable for having no spoken dialogue.-Plot synopsis:...
) who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film begins with the discovery of her corpse, which leads to an investigation that uncovers the narcotics, prostitution, and murder in which so many poor farmers like Otowa had found themselves trapped after World War II. Similarly, Live Today, Die Tomorrow! (released in 1971) portrays a poor 19-year-old laborer who tries to make quick money with a minor robbery, but ends up killing a security guard and gets caught up in the criminal lifestyle until finally caught.
Shindō's 1974 film My Way was a throwback to films of his early career and was an exposure of the Japanese government's mistreatment of the country's migratory workers. Based on a true story, an elderly women resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.
Later Career
In 1975, Shindō made the documentary Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film DirectorKenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director
Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director is a 1975 Japanese documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi, directed by Kaneto Shindō . It runs 150 minutes and can be found on the second disc of the Region 1 Criterion Collection release of Ugetsu ....
, a tribute to his mentor who had died in 1956. The film uses film clips, footage of the hospital where the director spent his last days and interviews with actors, technicians and friends to paint a loving portrait of the director who had helped Shindō begin his career, but never lived to see his student's greatest triumphs.
He followed this with two more biographical documentaries. The Life of Chikuzan, released in 1977, is about the life of Japanese folk singer Chikuzan Takahashi. Hokusai manga, released in 1981, is about the life of the 18th century Japanese wood engraver Katsushika Hokusai. In between these two films, Shindō made the film The Strangling. This film was in competition at the 1979 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, where Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
won the award for Best Actress.
In 1984 Shindō made a very personal film, The Horizon. Based on the life of his long lost sister, the film chronicles her experiences as a poor farm girl who is sold as a mail-order bride to a Japanese American and never sees her family again. She spends time in a Japanese internment camp
Japanese internment camp
Japanese internment camp is a term generally used to refer to one or both of the following:*Japanese American internment, the internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II...
during World War II and lives a life of difficulty and disappointment.
A Last Note
is a 1995 Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.-Synopsis:A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home...
would prove to be a bittersweet experience for the director. During production of the film, Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō...
was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and died in December 1994. The film won numerous awards, including Best Film awards at the Blue Ribbon Awards
Blue Ribbon Awards
The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan.The awards were established in 1950 by which is composed of film correspondents from seven Tokyo-based sports newspapers...
, Hochi Film Award
Hochi Film Award
The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by the Hochi Shimbun.- Categories :*Best Picture*Best International Picture*Best Actor*Best Actress*Best Supporting Actor*Best Supporting Actress*Best New Artist*Special Award*Best Director- Winner :...
s, Japan Academy Prizes, Kinema Junpo Awards and Mainichi Film Awards, as well as awards for Best Director at the Japanese Academy
Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year
The of the Japan Academy Prize is one of the annual Awards given by the Nippon Academy-sho association .-List of winners:-External links:* - **...
, Nikkan Sports Film Awards, Kinema Junpo Awards and Mainichi Film Award. Otowa is, however, credited as having appeared in Shindō's 2000 film By Player.
Still active in his late nineties, his recent films have focused on issues faced by the elderly. In 2011 his film Postcard
Postcard (film)
is a 2010 Japanese drama film written and directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film has been selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.-Cast:* Etsushi Toyokawa as Keita Matsuyama* Shinobu Ōtake as Tomoko Morikawa...
was selected as the Japanese submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
. This was the first time that a film by Shindō had been selected and, at 99, would make him the oldest director in the history of the category if the film is nominated.
He has directed over 40 films and written over 200 scripts.
From 1972 to 1981 he served as chair of the Japan Writers Guild.
Style and themes
Shindō has said that he sees film "as an art of 'montage' which consists of a dialectic or interaction between the movement and the nonmovement of the image." Although criticized for having little visual style early in his career, he was praised by film critic Joan Mellen who called Onibaba "visually exquisite." When interviewed by Mellen after the release of the film KuronekoKuroneko
is a 1968 Japanese horror film, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The title means "Black Cat" in English. It was placed in competition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.- Plot :...
, Shindō stated that there was "a strong Freudian influence throughout all of [his] work."
The strongest and most apparent themes in Shindō's work involve social criticism of poverty, women and sexuality. Shindō has described himself as a socialist. Film critic Donald Richie
Donald Richie
Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...
has called him a communist, stating that "the party line is never completely invisible and any audience feels manipulated when the purpose of the director becomes this noticeable." Tadao Satō
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
has pointed out that Shindō's political films are both a reflection of his impoverished childhood and the condition of Japan after World War II, stating that, "Contemporary Japan has developed from an agricultural into an industrial country. Many agricultural people moved to cities and threw themselves into new precarious lives. Kaneto Shindō's style of camerawork comes from this intention to conquer such uneasiness by depicting the perseverance and persistence of farmers."
Women and human sexuality also play a major role in Shindō's films. Joan Mellen wrote that "at their best, Shindō's films involve a merging of the sexual with the social. His radical perception isolates man's sexual life in the context of his role as a member of a specific social class...For Shindō our passions as biological beings and our ambitions as members of social classes, which give specific and distorted form to those drives, induce an endless struggle within the unconscious. Those moments in his films when this warfare is visualized and brought to conscious life raise his work to the level of the highest art."
Awards
- 1961 Grand Prize at the Moscow Film Festival for The Naked IslandThe Naked IslandThe Naked Island is a 1960 art film directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film was made in black and white, and is notable for having no spoken dialogue.-Plot synopsis:...
.
- 1964 Grand Prix at the Panama Film Festival for Onibaba.
- 1996 Japan Academy Prize for Director of the YearJapan Academy Prize for Director of the YearThe of the Japan Academy Prize is one of the annual Awards given by the Nippon Academy-sho association .-List of winners:-External links:* - **...
for A Last NoteA Last Noteis a 1995 Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.-Synopsis:A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home...
- 1998 Person of Cultural MeritPerson of Cultural Meritis an official Japanese recognition-honor which is awarded annually to select people who have made outstanding cultural contributions. This distinction is intended to play a role as a part of a system of support measures for the promotion of creative activities in Japan...
.
- 2002 Order of CultureOrder of CultureThe is a Japanese order, established on February 11, 1937. The order has one class only, and may be awarded to men and women for contributions to Japan's art, literature or culture; recipients of the order also receive an annuity for life...
.
- 2003 Japan Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Filmography
- 1951 Aisai monogatari
- 1952 Avalanche
- 1952
- 1953 Shukuzu
- 1953 Onna no issho
- 1954 Dobu
- 1955 Gin shinju
- 1956 Gin shinju
- 1956 Ryuuri no kishi
- 1956
- 1957 Umi no yarodomoUmi no yarodomoUmi no yarodomo is a 1957 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kaneto Shindō....
- 1958 Kanashimi wa onna dakeni
- 1958
- 1959 Hanazuka-san wa sekai-ichi
- 1960
- 1961 Akō RōshiAkō Rōshiis a 1961 color Japanese film about the Forty-Seven Ronin directed by Sadatsugu Matsuda.- Cast :* Kusuo Abe as Katada* Kyōko Aoyama as Nagi* Chiyonosuke Azuma as Horibe* Shinobu Chihara as Ukibashi Dayu* Yoshiko Fujita as Ayame* Hiromi Hanazono as Sakura...
(赤穂浪士 Akō Rōshi) (writer) - 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1964 (writer only)
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972 Kanawa
- 1972
- 1973 (based on the Natsume SōsekiNatsume Soseki, born ', is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period . He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales...
novelKokorois a novel by the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki. It was first published in 1914 in serial form in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shinbun. While the title literally means "heart", the word contains shades of meaning, and can be translated as "the heart of things" or "feeling"...
) - 1974
- 1975
- 1977
- 1979 The Strangling
- 1981
- 1984
- 1986
- 1986
- 1987
- 1988 Sakura-tai Chiru
- 1992
- 1995
- 1999
- 2000
- 2003
- 2008
- 2011
External links
- Kaneto Shindō at Strictly Film School
- Filmreference.com biography