Kenji Mizoguchi is one of the three acclaimed masters - together with
Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa - of Japanese cinema. Kenji Mizoguchi
and the Art of Japanese Cinema is the definitive guide to the life and
work of one of the greatest film-makers of the twentieth century.Born at
the end of the nineteenth century into a wealthy family, Mizoguchi's
early life influenced the themes he would take up in his work. His
father's ambitious business ventures failed and the family fell into
poverty. His mother died and his elder sister was obliged to enter a
geisha house to support the family. Her earnings paid for Mizoguchi's
education. Weak and deluded men and strong, self-sacrificing women -
these were to become the obsessive motifs of Mizoguchi's
films.Mizoguchi's apprenticeship in cinema was peculiarly Japanese. His
concerns - the role of women and the realist representation of the
inequities of Japanese society - were not. Through two World Wars,
Japan's culture changed. Though censored, Mizoguchi continued to produce
films. It was only in the 1950s that Mizoguchi's astonishing cinematic
vision became widely known outside Japan.Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of
Japanese Cinema tells the full story of this famously perfectionist,
even tyrannical, director. Mizoguchi's key films, cinematographic
techniques and his social and aesthetic concerns are all discussed and
set in the context of Japan's changing popular and political culture.
