was a Japanese

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

. Yamamoto was born in

Kagoshima City , abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wo ...

. After leaving

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

, where he had become affiliated with

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

groups, he joined the

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not all ...

film studios in 1933, where he worked as an assistant director to

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ...

. He followed Naruse when the latter moved to P.C.L. film studios (later

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer an ...

) and debuted as a director in 1937 with ''Ojōsan''. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he directed the propaganda films ''Winged Victory'' and ''Hot Winds'' before being drafted and sent to China. After returning to Japan, Yamamoto's first film was the 1947 ''War and Peace'' (not based on the Leo Tolstoy novel), co-directed with

Fumio Kamei (1 April 1908 – 27 February 1987) was a 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. He eventually began working ...

. Being a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

and an active supporter of the

union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

during the Toho labour strikes, he left the studio in 1948 after the strikes' forced ending and turned to independent filmmaking. The left-wing production company Shinsei Eiga-sha, formed by former Toho unionists, produced his commercially successful ''Street of Violence'' (1950) and the anti-war film ''Vacuum Zone'' (1953), which film historian

Donald Richie Donald Richie (17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also dir ...

called "the strongest anti-military film ever made in Japan" in 1959. The 1959 ''Ballad of the Cart'' was produced by the National Rural Film Association. In the 1960s, Yamamoto again worked for major companies like

Daiei , based in Kobe, is one of the largest supermarket chains in Japan. In 1957, Isao Nakauchi founded the chain in Osaka near Sembayashi Station on the Keihan train line. Daiei is now under a restructuring process supported by Marubeni Corporation ...

and

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

, directing films like ''Band of Assassins'' (1962), ''The Ivory Tower'' (1966) and ''

Zatoichi the Outlaw is a 1967 Japanese ''chambara'' film directed by Satsuo Yamamoto and starring Shintaro Katsu as the blind masseur Zatoichi. It was originally released by the Daiei Film, Daiei Motion Picture Company (later acquired by Kadokawa Pictures), and is th ...

'' (1967). He died in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

on August 11th 1983 at the age of 73.

Selected filmography

Films

Awards

;Kinema Junpo Awards Yamamoto received the

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

Award for Best Director for ''Ivory Tower'', which was also awarded Best Film. ;Blue Ribbon Awards Yamamoto won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Director for ''Shōnin no isu'' and ''Nippon dorobō monogatari'' (both 1965). ''Ivory Tower'' was awarded Best Film the following year. ;Mainichi Fim Awards Yamamoto was awarded Best Director at the

Mainichi Film Awards The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

for ''Ballad of the Cart'' and ''Ningen no kane'' (both 1959), ''Ivory Tower'', ''Men and War'' and ''Barren Land''. ''Ivory Tower'', ''Barren Land'' and ''Nomugi Pass'' were winners in the Best Film category. ;Festival prizes ''Ivory Tower'' was entered into the

5th Moscow International Film Festival The 5th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 5 to 20 July 1967. The Grand Prix was shared between the Soviet film '' The Journalist'', directed by Sergei Gerasimov and the Hungarian film ''Father'', directed by István Szabó. The fe ...

where it was awarded the Silver Prize.

References

External links

* * * *

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yamamoto, Satsuo 1910 births 1983 deaths Japanese film directors People from Kagoshima