Kōzaburō Yoshimura
Yoshimura in 1967
Born(1911-09-09)9 September 1911
Ōtsu, Shiga, Japan
Died7 November 2000(2000-11-07) (aged 89)
Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Other namesKimisaburo Yoshimura
OccupationFilm director
Years active1929-1974

Kōzaburō Yoshimura (吉村 公三郎, Yoshimura Kōzaburō, 9 September 1911 – 7 November 2000) was a Japanese film director.[1][2][3]

Biography

Born in Shiga Prefecture, he joined the Shōchiku studio in 1929.[2] He debuted as director with a short film in 1934, but, after being denied a promotion by head of the studio Shirō Kido,[4] continued working as an assistant director for filmmakers Yasujirō Ozu and Yasujirō Shimazu on films like Our Neighbor, Miss Yae and What Did the Lady Forget?[5] It was the 1939 film Warm Current that established his status as a director.[1][2][3] During the Sino-Japanese war he directed a number of military dramas such as The Story of Tank Commander Nishizumi (1940), for which he toured the actual battlefields in China.[6]

Yoshimura's 1947 The Ball at the Anjo House, starring Setsuko Hara, was named the best picture of the year by film magazine Kinema Junpo[1] and is regarded as one of his major works.[2][7] The film marked the start of a long relationship with screenwriter and film director Kaneto Shindō. In 1950, the two of them left Shōchiku and started the independent production company Kindai Eiga Kyōkai.[1][2] For his 1951 Clothes of Deception, produced by Daiei Film, Yoshimura received the Mainichi Film Award for Best Director.[8] Since the mid-1950s, Yoshimura's films were produced mostly by Daiei.[5]

Donald Richie and Joseph L. Anderson pointed out the lack of a cohesive visual style in Yoshimura's films, arguing that due to the wide range of material which Yoshimura chose, his style had to adopt to each individual film.[4] According to Richie and Anderson, the one distinguishable cinematic element of his later films was Yoshimura's quick editing.[4] The director's "most typical films" (Alexander Jacoby) were contemporary dramas focussing on sympathetically drawn female characters,[9] which earned him the comparison with Kenji Mizoguchi.[4][9]

Notable examples of Yoshimura's later work include Night River (1956), An Osaka Story (1957, a project he had taken over from Mizoguchi), Night Butterflies (1957) and Bamboo Doll of Echizen (1963).[2][4][9] He is credited with furthering the careers of actresses such as Fujiko Yamamoto, Ayako Wakao and his regular collaborator Machiko Kyō,[1] from whom he elicited outstanding performances.[9] In 1976, he received a Medal of Honor (Purple Ribbon) for artistic accomplishments.[1]

Selected filmography

Director

Producer only

Legacy

A retrospective on Yoshimura and Kaneto Shindō was held in London in 2012, organised by the British Film Institute and the Japan Foundation.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Obituary: Kozaburo Yoshimura". The Japan Times. 8 November 2000. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "吉村公三郎 (Yoshimura Kōzaburō)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  3. 1 2 "吉村公三郎 (Yoshimura Kōzaburō)". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Anderson, Joseph L.; Richie, Donald (1959). The Japanese Film – Art & Industry. Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.
  5. 1 2 "吉村公三郎 (Yoshimura Kōzaburō)". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  6. ↑ High, Peter B. (2003). The Imperial Screen. Wisconsin Studies in Film. The University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 211–217. ISBN 0-299-18134-0.
  7. 1 2 "Two Masters of Japanese Cinema: Kaneto Shindo & Kozaburo Yoshimura at BFI Southbank in June and July 2012" (PDF). Japan Foundation. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  8. ↑ "毎日映画コンクール 第5回（1950年）". Mainichi (in Japanese). Retrieved 21 July 2023..
  9. 1 2 3 4 Jacoby, Alexander (2008). Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors: From the Silent Era to the Present Day. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 978-1-933330-53-2.
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