Kenji Mizoguchi

Born in Tokyo, Japan, on May 16, 1898 (31st year of the Meiji era), his father was a modest carpenter who fell into absolute poverty after the economic crisis of 1904. For this reason, the family moved to Asakusa, a very marginal neighborhood where prostitutes abounded in the streets, where his father – very affected – becomes a violent man, especially with his mother, while he sells his older sister, fourteen-year-old Suzu, like geisha. This caused a trauma to the future filmmaker that would undoubtedly influence his various films about these ‘maidens’, whose way of life he knew perfectly well. Finally, the man who bought her from her married her.

He was also deeply affected by the death of his mother, to whom he was very close, while he was studying at the Ohibashi Institute of Western Painting. He specialized in textile design and ancestral methods of fabric manufacturing. When he finished, he went to live in Kobe, where his sister Suzu, always worried about him, got him a job as an illustrator for a newspaper. But after joining protesters sympathetic to the recent Russian Revolution, which led to violent riots, he is fired.

In need of occupation, he manages to be recommended by an old teacher to join the Nikkatsu company in Tokyo, which made numerous films. At first he worked as Osamu Wakayama’s ( Nikudan ) assistant director, but he was a smart young man who quickly learned the trade, so in a short time they gave him the opportunity to debut with the silent film Ai ni yomigaeru hi(The day love returns), adaptation of a play where there was already a story of broken love and the oppressed women who would reappear over and over again in his movies. From the first moment, Mizoguchi reveals himself as a maverick filmmaker, who demands that the production company cast actresses for female roles, and incorporates labels, when the normal thing was that the projections had a ‘benshi’, as it was called. to the narrator.

After the tragic Kanto earthquake of 1923, which destroyed Tokyo and its surroundings, Mizoguchi filmed images that he used for his film In the Ruins . During the silent era he triumphs with titles like Tissue Paper , The Tokyo March and A Singing Teacher , which marks his first collaboration with his childhood friend the writer Matsutaro Kawaguchi . Some of his works cause controversy, such as There is no war without money , due to his criticism of the army, and Symphony of the great city , which was censored for its Marxist background.

The concern for women that he manifests in his films has no correspondence in his real life. A womanizer to the extreme, Mizoguchi was stabbed to death in 1925, a matter that had much coverage in the newspapers, by a lover whom he had abandoned, who left his back full of wounds, for which he was convalescing for six months. When he filmed again he had become a much more irascible man, perfectionist and very demanding with his collaborators. He ended up falling in love with the dancer Chieko Saga, as temperamental as he is, which causes frequent arguments.

Homeland , from 1930, was one of the first Japanese talkies, but ‘benshi’ were still so popular that audiences long preferred to continue watching silent films. This circumstance, together with the fact that the production company increased the price of tickets to exploit the novelty, caused the film to fail at the box office. Mizoguchi made some silent title more like the touchingOsen of the storks . Their first great sonic success was Guardian God of the present , although they are much rounderElegy of Naniwa andGion Sisters , both starring Isuzu Yamada , one of their regular actresses.

At the dawn of World War II, the authorities imposed propagandist cinema in the Japanese country, but Mizoguchi managed to evade this obligation by setting his films in the Meiji era. Occurs with the brightStory of the Last Chrysanthemum , about a kabuki theater actor who falls in love with a nanny, the only woman who candidly criticize his work. In the same line isThe Forty-Seven Ronin , which is based on a historical event made into a movie numerous times.

Because of his continuous infidelities, he infects his wife with syphilis, who is permanently admitted to a hospital. Despite everything, Mizoguchi has no scruples when it comes to dating Chieko, her sister.

During the postwar period, and after a few titles of little interest, the director reached the top with his dramas about women.The love of the actress Sumako , The portrait of Madame Yuki ,Miss Oyu andThe life of Oharu , which established the filmmaker internationally, because he won the international prize in Venice, a year after Kurosawa opened the fashion for Japanese cinema, by winning the highest award withRashomon . This same contest once again awarded him as a director forThe mayor Sansho , and the fantastic-themed filmTales of the Pale Moon , possibly his best-known work, about two ambitious guys who leave their wives unprotected when they go off to make their fortune, one of whom is murdered and the other falls into prostitution.

after the memorableCrucified Lovers – about a woman who runs away from her stingy husband with another man – she shoots her only works in color, The Empress Yang Kwei Fei and The Sacrilegious Hero . She goes back to black and white withThe street of shame , about a group of prostitutes.

While preparing what would have been his next film, The Osaka Story , Mizoguchi was diagnosed with leukemia. He finally had to be admitted to the Kyoto hospital, where he died, on August 24, 1958.