Tatsumi Kumashiro
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese film director best known for his critically acclaimed, award-winning Roman Porno films, such as Ichijo's Wet Lust
(1972) and The Woman with Red Hair (1979). He was the most highly acclaimed director of the early Nikkatsu Roman Porno era, with many box-office successes, and films regularly appearing on the yearly Best Ten lists of the mainstream Kinema Junpo
and Eiga Geijutsu film journals. Kumashiro has been called, "the most consistently successful director in Japan's cinematic history," and Allmovie calls him, "arguably the most important Japanese director to emerge during the 1970s."
, on Kyūshū
-- the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. His father was a pharmaceuticals merchant and judo
master descended from the samurai
class. A strict disciplinarian, Kumashiro's father believed in the warrior philosophy of Yamamoto Tsunetomo
as written in Hagakure
and supported Japan's military exploits of the 1930s and 1940s. Early in life Kumashiro rebelled against this upbringing by immersing himself in film
and Western literature
. During World War II
, Kumashiro entered medical school as a means of avoiding the draft, but dropped out as soon as the war ended in Japan's defeat. He studied English literature
at Waseda University
, but, deciding he could not make a living writing novels, entered Shochiku
studio as an assistant director in 1952, and moved to Nikkatsu
in 1955.
Kumashiro worked as an assistant director
and screenwriter
until he was finally given a chance to direct in 1968
. His debut film, Front Row Life
, told the story of a stripper
and her daughter who wished to join her mother's profession. The star of the movie, Hatsue Tonooka, became Kumashiro's wife later in the year, though the marriage ended in divorce within a few months. Front Row Life anticipated Kumashiro's later career in its focus on striptease performers. The film was a critical success, but because it failed at the box-office Nikkatsu put Kumashiro's directing career on hold again.
Nikkatsu gave its Roman porno directors a great deal of artistic freedom in their films, as long as they met the official minimum quota of four nude or sex scenes per hour. In this environment, at the age of 44, Kumashiro was given his second chance to direct. Though his later films took full advantage of Nikkatsu's lenient policies by experimenting with cinematic time and space in an almost surreal manner, his first Roman porno, Wet Lips (Nureta Kuchibiru) (1972
), was fairly simplistic. However, this story of a prostitute and her lover on the run after killing her pimp proved to be a major critical and box-office success, and established Kumashiro's directorial career. Wet Lips was also the first of Kumashiro's many films to use the word "Wet" (nureta) in the title.
His next film, Ichijo's Wet Lust
(1972) was another hit with the critics and the public. Japan's most famous sex performer of the time, Sayuri Ichijō, played the title role for which she won the important Kinema Jumpo prize for best actress. Accepting the best director and best script awards at the same ceremony, Kumashiro commented, "If I can shoot what I like without the pressure of how it will turn out, I am motivated."
, who sometimes make use of pornographic elements in their films, Film Quarterly
’s New York editor, William Johnson calls Kumashiro, "an indisputable maker of screen porn whose films also deserve 'serious' interest." Kumashiro's work was noted for its humanistic
themes and for its sympathetic treatment of its characters. Stylistically, his films were experimental, using a variety of avant-garde
cinematic devices, and complex narrative structure
.
Woods are Wet: Woman Hell (1973) was an adaptation of the Marquis de Sade
's Justine (1791). Jasper Sharp writes that Kumashiro uses de Sade's story as a platform for criticizing morality imposed by power, with particular relevance to the censorship trial Nikkatsu was undergoing at the time with the prosecution of Love Hunter
(1972). Underlying this theme, common in Kumashiro's work, Kumashiro has one of his characters say, "What you accept as ethical is contrived by those in authority so they can control people." Kumashiro also employs censorship as one of the stylistic devices of the film, exaggerating the fogging
required by Japanese law by placing black blocks over large areas of the screen.
Lovers Are Wet
and The World of Geisha
(both 1973) were two more films in which Kumashiro similarly used the censor's tools to make an anti-censorship statement. François Truffaut
called The World of Geisha (1973
) a "great movie," adding, "The acting is perfect, and the film is humorous. In its praise for female beauty and derision for male stupidity lies the generous spirit of Jean Renoir
." Street of Joy aka Red Light District: Gonna Get Out (1974), employing the same setting as Mizoguchi
's Street of Shame
(1956), illustrates Kumashiro's common use of devices such as internal animated sequences to situate characters, and enka
songs to comment on the action.
Kumashiro's 1974 film, Man and Woman Behind the Fusuma Screen: Enduring Skin (Yojo-han Fusuma No Urabari: Shinobi Hada) starred Nikkatsu's reigning Roman porno Queen, Junko Miyashita
. Movie critic Tadao Satō
called the film "a masterful porno film rich in emotion, anarchy, and nihilism." Junko Miyashita won the Hochi News award for best actress of 1979 after starring in Kumashiro's Woman with Red Hair
(Akai Kami No Onna) (1979), which the Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films call "one of the very best Nikkatsu pink films." Uncharacteristically for Kumashiro, Woman with Red Hair has a straight-forward narrative structure, but Jasper Sharp writes that it is still a "difficult" film for viewers who are not familiar with Kumashiro's work. The story, in which a sexually voracious woman comes to live with a construction worker, can be read either as a male fantasy, or as a story of a woman's search for sexual satisfaction. Roughly one-third of the film takes place in the bedroom, with the claustrophobic atmosphere heightened by such exterior sounds as moaning from neighboring drug addicts, and non-stop rain. Sharp writes that it is perhaps best interpreted as "out-and-out fantasy".
Kumashiro also took breaks from the Roman Porno genre to direct mainstream films, beginning with Bitterness of Youth (1974), a story of student radicalism with similarities to Dreiser
's An American Tragedy
(1925). Other such films include Light of Africa (1975) for Toho
and Jigoku (1979), a remake of Nobuo Nakagawa
's 1960 film Jigoku
, for Toei
. For the German-Japanese co-production, The Woman with the Red Hat (1982), Kumashiro worked with Pink Film producer-director Kōji Wakamatsu
. The production was an unsuccessful attempt on Wakamatsu's part to emulate the success he had had in collaborating with the French in Nagisa Ōshima
's In the Realm of the Senses
(1976). The story, dealing with a Japanese man in Germany and his obsessive sexual relationship with a German woman during Hitler's rise to power, also seemed to echo Ōshima's film. Jasper Sharp notes with surprise that Kumashiro, who had long been an opponent of Japanese censorship, did not take advantage of the more liberal European laws. Instead he followed the Japanese practice of obscuring genital areas with props.
) while using an oxygen tank. He died of heart and lung failure on February 24, 1995.
Kumashiro is remembered with affection by those who worked with him, and is considered one of the best directors to have worked in the Roman Porno series. When interviewed for the British television program, Mondo Macabro
, actress Kazuko Shirakawa
observed that it may have been Kumashiro's poor physical condition which helped him to portray the fragility of human existence. The Japanese film critic and filmmaker Chiseko Tanaka summarized his career with, "Kumashiro was not a great poet like Mizoguchi
, Immamura
and Oshima
. He was a little poet, but he was unique. He devoted himself to his works as a true artist."
Ichijo's Wet Lust
aka Ichijo's Wet Desire, Drenched Passion, Sayuri Ichijo: Moist Desire, Following Desire and Sayuri Ichijō: Wet Lust is a 1972 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro and starring the famous stripper Sayuri Ichijō as herself, and co-starring Kazuko Shirakawa...
(1972) and The Woman with Red Hair (1979). He was the most highly acclaimed director of the early Nikkatsu Roman Porno era, with many box-office successes, and films regularly appearing on the yearly Best Ten lists of the mainstream Kinema Junpo
Kinema Junpo
, commonly called , is a Japanese film magazine which began publication in July 1919. The magazine was founded by a group of four students, including Saburō Tanaka, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology . In that first month, it was published three times on days with a "1" in them. These first three...
and Eiga Geijutsu film journals. Kumashiro has been called, "the most consistently successful director in Japan's cinematic history," and Allmovie calls him, "arguably the most important Japanese director to emerge during the 1970s."
Early life
Tatsumi Kumashiro was born on April 24, 1927 in SagaSaga, Saga
is the capital of Saga Prefecture, located on the island of Kyūshū, Japan.Saga was the capital of Saga Domain in the Edo period, and largest city of former Hizen Province....
, on Kyūshū
Kyushu
is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....
-- the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. His father was a pharmaceuticals merchant and judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
master descended from the samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
class. A strict disciplinarian, Kumashiro's father believed in the warrior philosophy of Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
, also read Yamamoto Jōchō was a samurai of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima Mitsushige. For thirty years Yamamoto devoted his life to the service of his lord and clan...
as written in Hagakure
Hagakure
Hagakure , or is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of commentaries by the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, former retainer to Nabeshima Mitsushige, the third ruler of what is now the Saga prefecture in Japan...
and supported Japan's military exploits of the 1930s and 1940s. Early in life Kumashiro rebelled against this upbringing by immersing himself in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and Western literature
Western literature
Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Kumashiro entered medical school as a means of avoiding the draft, but dropped out as soon as the war ended in Japan's defeat. He studied English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at Waseda University
Waseda University
, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...
, but, deciding he could not make a living writing novels, entered Shochiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
studio as an assistant director in 1952, and moved to Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
in 1955.
Kumashiro worked as an assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
until he was finally given a chance to direct in 1968
1968 in film
The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
. His debut film, Front Row Life
Front Row Life
aka Fan Life, Front Row, A Thirsty Life and Life of a Striptease Love is a 1968 Japanese film directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro...
, told the story of a stripper
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...
and her daughter who wished to join her mother's profession. The star of the movie, Hatsue Tonooka, became Kumashiro's wife later in the year, though the marriage ended in divorce within a few months. Front Row Life anticipated Kumashiro's later career in its focus on striptease performers. The film was a critical success, but because it failed at the box-office Nikkatsu put Kumashiro's directing career on hold again.
Directorial success
In 1971, facing bankruptcy due to a loss of their audience to television, Nikkatsu decided to devote its facilities almost exclusively to theatrical soft-core pornography. Several directors, not wishing to work in pornography, left the studio, opening up vacant positions.Nikkatsu gave its Roman porno directors a great deal of artistic freedom in their films, as long as they met the official minimum quota of four nude or sex scenes per hour. In this environment, at the age of 44, Kumashiro was given his second chance to direct. Though his later films took full advantage of Nikkatsu's lenient policies by experimenting with cinematic time and space in an almost surreal manner, his first Roman porno, Wet Lips (Nureta Kuchibiru) (1972
1972 in film
The year 1972 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Avanti!, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet MillsB...
), was fairly simplistic. However, this story of a prostitute and her lover on the run after killing her pimp proved to be a major critical and box-office success, and established Kumashiro's directorial career. Wet Lips was also the first of Kumashiro's many films to use the word "Wet" (nureta) in the title.
His next film, Ichijo's Wet Lust
Ichijo's Wet Lust
aka Ichijo's Wet Desire, Drenched Passion, Sayuri Ichijo: Moist Desire, Following Desire and Sayuri Ichijō: Wet Lust is a 1972 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro and starring the famous stripper Sayuri Ichijō as herself, and co-starring Kazuko Shirakawa...
(1972) was another hit with the critics and the public. Japan's most famous sex performer of the time, Sayuri Ichijō, played the title role for which she won the important Kinema Jumpo prize for best actress. Accepting the best director and best script awards at the same ceremony, Kumashiro commented, "If I can shoot what I like without the pressure of how it will turn out, I am motivated."
Mid career
For the next 20 years, Kumashiro directed a string of financial and critical hits unprecedented in Japanese cinematic history, completing ten films in 1972 and 1973 alone. His prolific and successful career during these years earned him the title, "King of Nikkatsu Roman porno" Contrasting him with more mainstream filmmakers like Nagisa OshimaNagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
, who sometimes make use of pornographic elements in their films, Film Quarterly
Film Quarterly
Film Quarterly is a film journal published by University of California Press, in Berkeley, California, United States. It was first published in 1945 as Hollywood Quarterly, was renamed The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television in 1951, and received its current title in 1958...
’s New York editor, William Johnson calls Kumashiro, "an indisputable maker of screen porn whose films also deserve 'serious' interest." Kumashiro's work was noted for its humanistic
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
themes and for its sympathetic treatment of its characters. Stylistically, his films were experimental, using a variety of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
cinematic devices, and complex narrative structure
Narrative structure
Narrative structure is generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer....
.
Woods are Wet: Woman Hell (1973) was an adaptation of the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
's Justine (1791). Jasper Sharp writes that Kumashiro uses de Sade's story as a platform for criticizing morality imposed by power, with particular relevance to the censorship trial Nikkatsu was undergoing at the time with the prosecution of Love Hunter
Love Hunter
is a 1972 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Seiichirō Yamaguchi and starring Hidemi Hara, Mari Tanaka, and Sumiko Minami. The film was banned for obscenity, and director Yamaguchi arrested...
(1972). Underlying this theme, common in Kumashiro's work, Kumashiro has one of his characters say, "What you accept as ethical is contrived by those in authority so they can control people." Kumashiro also employs censorship as one of the stylistic devices of the film, exaggerating the fogging
Fogging (censorship)
Fogging is a type of visual censorship. An area for a picture or movie is blurred to obscure it from sight. This form of censorship is used for sexually related images/scenes, hiding genitals, pubic hair, or sexual penetration of any sort. Pixelization is a form of fogging...
required by Japanese law by placing black blocks over large areas of the screen.
Lovers Are Wet
Lovers Are Wet
is a 1973 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro and starring Rie Nakagawa. Alternate titles for the film include Twisted Path of Youth, Twisted Path of Love, and Lovers and Wet Sands...
and The World of Geisha
The World of Geisha
aka A Man and a Woman Behind the Fusuma Screen is a 1973 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro and starring Junko Miyashita...
(both 1973) were two more films in which Kumashiro similarly used the censor's tools to make an anti-censorship statement. François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
called The World of Geisha (1973
1973 in film
The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
) a "great movie," adding, "The acting is perfect, and the film is humorous. In its praise for female beauty and derision for male stupidity lies the generous spirit of Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
." Street of Joy aka Red Light District: Gonna Get Out (1974), employing the same setting as Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
's Street of Shame
Street of Shame
is a 1956 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, his last film.The film is based on the novel Susaki no Onna by Yoshiko Shibaki.-Cast:* Machiko Kyō as Mickey* Ayako Wakao as Yumeko* Aiko Mimasu as Yasumi* Michiyo Kogure as Hanae...
(1956), illustrates Kumashiro's common use of devices such as internal animated sequences to situate characters, and enka
Enka
is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more...
songs to comment on the action.
Kumashiro's 1974 film, Man and Woman Behind the Fusuma Screen: Enduring Skin (Yojo-han Fusuma No Urabari: Shinobi Hada) starred Nikkatsu's reigning Roman porno Queen, Junko Miyashita
Junko Miyashita
is a Japanese actress who had a long and varied career working both in pink film and mainstream cinema.- Career :Junko Miyashita was born in Tokyo on January 29, 1949. She was working as a waitress at a coffee shop when she was recruited to work in Pink films....
. Movie critic Tadao Satō
Tadao Sato
is a prominent Japanese film critic and film theorist. Satō has published more than 30 books on film, and is one of the foremost scholars and historians addressing Japanese film, though little of his work has been translated for publication abroad....
called the film "a masterful porno film rich in emotion, anarchy, and nihilism." Junko Miyashita won the Hochi News award for best actress of 1979 after starring in Kumashiro's Woman with Red Hair
Woman with Red Hair
is an award-winning Japanese pink film in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series.-Wins:* Best Actress, Junko Miyashita - Hochi Film Awards* Best Actress, Junko Miyashita - Kinema Jumpo* Best Supporting Actress, Ako - Yokohama Film Festival...
(Akai Kami No Onna) (1979), which the Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films call "one of the very best Nikkatsu pink films." Uncharacteristically for Kumashiro, Woman with Red Hair has a straight-forward narrative structure, but Jasper Sharp writes that it is still a "difficult" film for viewers who are not familiar with Kumashiro's work. The story, in which a sexually voracious woman comes to live with a construction worker, can be read either as a male fantasy, or as a story of a woman's search for sexual satisfaction. Roughly one-third of the film takes place in the bedroom, with the claustrophobic atmosphere heightened by such exterior sounds as moaning from neighboring drug addicts, and non-stop rain. Sharp writes that it is perhaps best interpreted as "out-and-out fantasy".
Kumashiro also took breaks from the Roman Porno genre to direct mainstream films, beginning with Bitterness of Youth (1974), a story of student radicalism with similarities to Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
's An American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
-Plot summary:The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are...
(1925). Other such films include Light of Africa (1975) for Toho
Toho
is a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...
and Jigoku (1979), a remake of Nobuo Nakagawa
Nobuo Nakagawa
was a Japanese film director, most famous for the stylized, folk tale-influenced horror films he made in the 1950s and 1960s.-Career:Born in Kyoto, Nakagawa was early on influenced by proletarian literature and wrote amateur film reviews to the Kinema Junpō film magazine. He joined Makino Film...
's 1960 film Jigoku
Jigoku (film)
is a 1960 Japanese horror film, directed by Nobuo Nakagawa and starring Utako Mitsuya and Shigeru Amachi. Jigoku was re-made in 1970 by Tatsumi Kumashiro, and later re-made again under the title of Japanese Hell by Teruo Ishii in 1999....
, for Toei
Toei Company
is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution corporation. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan, a modest vertically-integrated studio system by the standards of the 1930s United States; operates studios at Tokyo and Kyoto; and is a...
. For the German-Japanese co-production, The Woman with the Red Hat (1982), Kumashiro worked with Pink Film producer-director Kōji Wakamatsu
Koji Wakamatsu
is a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses...
. The production was an unsuccessful attempt on Wakamatsu's part to emulate the success he had had in collaborating with the French in Nagisa Ōshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
's In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses
is a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
(1976). The story, dealing with a Japanese man in Germany and his obsessive sexual relationship with a German woman during Hitler's rise to power, also seemed to echo Ōshima's film. Jasper Sharp notes with surprise that Kumashiro, who had long been an opponent of Japanese censorship, did not take advantage of the more liberal European laws. Instead he followed the Japanese practice of obscuring genital areas with props.
Death
Throughout his life Kumashiro was a frail and sickly man. In the 1980s, as the rising AV (Adult Video) industry took away most of the audience for the theatrical Roman pornos, Kumashiro's health began failing. He suffered from a collapsed lung in 1983, but, in spite of his poor health, he continued making films until his death. He directed his last two films, Like a Rolling Stone (Bo no Kanashimi) (1994) and Immoral: Indecent Relations (19951995 in film
-Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....
) while using an oxygen tank. He died of heart and lung failure on February 24, 1995.
Kumashiro is remembered with affection by those who worked with him, and is considered one of the best directors to have worked in the Roman Porno series. When interviewed for the British television program, Mondo Macabro
Mondo Macabro (TV programme)
Mondo Macabro is a British television series based on the book of the same name by Pete Tombs. Written and directed by Pete Tombs and Andrew Starke, the series focuses on cult cinema from countries not usually associated with genre product...
, actress Kazuko Shirakawa
Kazuko Shirakawa
is a Japanese actress who is best known for her appearances in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno films during the 1970s. She appeared in Nikkatsu's first film in the Roman Porno series, Apartment Wife , and is considered the first of the three "Nikkatsu Queens" of the 1970s...
observed that it may have been Kumashiro's poor physical condition which helped him to portray the fragility of human existence. The Japanese film critic and filmmaker Chiseko Tanaka summarized his career with, "Kumashiro was not a great poet like Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
, Immamura
Shohei Imamura
was a Japanese film director. Imamura was the first Japanese director to win two Palme d'Or awards.His eldest son Daisuke Tengan is also a script writer and film director, and worked on the screenplays to Imamura's filmsThe Eel , Dr...
and Oshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
. He was a little poet, but he was unique. He devoted himself to his works as a true artist."
Filmography
(1968-04-13) (1972-01-29) (1972-10-07) (1973-03-24) (1973-05-23) (1973-07-14) (1973-11-03) (1974-01-03) (1974-02-16) (1974-05-04) (1974-06-29) (1974-09-21)- 宵待草 (Yoimachigusa, 1974-12-28)
- 櫛の火 (Kushi no Hi, 1975-04-05) (1975-06-21) (1975-08-09) (1975-12-24) (1977-02-01) (1977-04-23) (1979-02-17) (1979-06-03) (1979-11-03) (1980-03-29) (1980-11-21) (1980-12-20) (1981-10-23) (1982-10-16) (1983-06-18) (1984-04-20) (1985-10-05) (1986-10-25) (1987-04-25) (1988-07-01) (1994-10-01) (1995-04-25)
Sources
- "FILMOGRAPHY: Director Tatsumi Kumashiro (1927–1995)" in A Woman with Red Hair: A film by Tatsumi Kumashiro. (2003) Kimstim Collection DVD; Nikkatsu, Kino Video, Kimstim, Inc. KS2012.
External links
(Notes on "A Tatsumi Kumashiro Retrospective" in New York, presented by the Japan Society, January 19 - March 28, 2001-
- (2nd page)