TSPDT

Key Production Country: Japan
Key Genres: Drama, Comedy, Crime Drama, Gangster Film, Psychological Drama, Satire
Key Collaborators: Tatsuji Nakashizu (Editor), Ayako Wakao (Leading Actress), Tomoo Shimogawara (Production Designer), Setsuo Kobayashi (Cinematographer), Eiji Funakoshi (Leading Actor), Yoshio Shirasaka (Screenwriter), Tadashi Yamauchi (Composer), Tetsuo Tsukahara (Composer), Hiroshi Kawaguchi (Leading Actor), Hitomi Nozoe (Leading Actor), Kaneto Shindo (Screenwriter), Masaichi Nagata (Producer)

"The holder of a law degree from the University of Tokyo, he entered Japanese films as assistant director in 1948 and in 1953 went to Rome where he trained at the Centro Sperimentale. He assisted Mizoguchi and Ichikawa before making his own debut as a director in 1957. His films have often dealt with moral corruption in Japanese society or with problems of youth, sometimes in a sensational manner." - The Film Encyclopedia, 2012

"What is persistent in Masumura’s work, sometimes accompanying his fruitful collaborations with Ayako Wakao and other actors, is a certain ethical engagement with the world –- and a set of strategies for pursuing and sustaining that engagement, such as the privileging and exaggeration of obsessive forms of behaviour. Partly for this reason, many of his films are deeply erotic on some level. Because sexuality for women has often served as coin of the realm in Japanese society, the way that these women’s ‘fortunes’ get saved, spent or squandered within that economy remains a profound ethical issue, and I can think of few directors apart from Masumura, his partial mentor Mizoguchi and his partial disciple Oshima who have made as many erotic films in tandem with the frankness of their political concerns." - Jonathan Rosenbaum (Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World Cinephilia, 2003)

"In general, Masumura's art was shocking without being truly profound: Donald Richie has commented that "a certain shallowness of characterization is perhaps the price exacted by a restless camera and fast editing." In fact, Masumura's visuals tended to shift his stories towards parody: the cartoon-like imagery of Giants and Toys and the exaggeration of noirish tropes in The Black Test Car seemed at odds with the harshness of the scripts." - Alexander Jacoby (A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors, 2008)

"In explicit dramas and subversive satires, Masumura examined individual identity in a society mechanized by tradition, war, and postwar economics. Masumura was a brutal humanist-that is, without a shred of sentimentality, but rather with the daring it takes to break the mold in a culture that emphasizes conformity. The weight of the institutions makes the necessary gestures of rebellion in his characters more extreme." - BAMPFA, 1999

"Almost half a century later, Masumura’s potent films have lost none of their ability to shock and inspire intellectually and emotionally. Behind the visceral power, and jaw-dropping visual inventiveness of his work lies a rare gift for getting to the heart of humanity. In Masumura’s world the socially successful are often morally adrift, capable of great cruelty and selfishness. His sympathies lie with the outcast. His protagonists frequently display a passion for truth and a courageous capacity for tenderness. Devoid of sentimentality, these films present a furious indictment of social injustice while celebrating the role of the individual and what it means to be human." - Independent Cinema Office

"Who are the great post-war Japanese filmmakers? The average film enthusiast will probably name Akira Kurosawa. Critics may go for Shohei Imamura or Nagisa Oshima or Masaki Kobayashi. Cult aficionados may choose Seijun Suzuki. Avant-gardists are certain to vote for Hiroshi Teshigahara or Masahiro Shinoda. One name has habitually been overlooked however: Yasuzo Masumura, a filmmaker whose close affiliation with the studio system led to his marginalisation by critics and curators alike for nearly 60 years… The cinema of Masumura defies simple categorisation. His stories, all reliant on largely classically structured narratives, are by turns angry yet clear-headed, pulpy yet sophisticated, broadly drawn yet discernibly controlled, nihilistic yet moralistic. And they’re undoubtedly among the most-envelope-pushing studio films of the late 1950s and 60s – no less personal or ingenious than those of Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Fuller or Nicholas Ray." - Joseph Fahim (BFI, 2023)

"My goal is to create an exaggerated depiction featuring only the ideas and passions of living human beings." - Yasuzo Masumura