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Kaneto Shindo
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Kaneto Shindo
Kaneto Shindō (新藤 兼人, Shindō Kaneto; 22 April 1912 – 29 May 2012) was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note. His screenplays were filmed by directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Kōzaburō Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Seijun Suzuki, and Tadashi Imai.
His films of the first decade were often in a social realist vein, repeatedly depicting the fate of women, while since the seventies, portraits of artists became a speciality. Many of his films were autobiographical, beginning with his 1951 directorial debut, Story of a Beloved Wife, and, being born in Hiroshima Prefecture, he also made several films about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the effect of nuclear weapons.
Shindō was one of the pioneers of independent film production in Japan, co-founding his own film company Kindai Eiga Kyōkai with director Yoshimura and actor Taiji Tonoyama in 1950. He continued working as a screenwriter, director, and author until close to his death at the age of 100.
Shindō was born in 1912 in the Saeki District of Hiroshima Prefecture as the youngest of four children. His family were wealthy landowners, but his father went bankrupt and lost all his land after acting as a loan guarantor. His older brother and two sisters went to find work, and he and his mother and father lived in a storehouse. His mother became an agricultural labourer and died during his early childhood. His older brother was good at judo and became a policeman. One of his sisters became a nurse and would go on to work caring for atom bomb victims. The other sister married a Japanese-American and went to live in the US.
In 1933, Shindō, then living with his brother in Onomichi, was inspired by Sadao Yamanaka's film Bangaku No isshō to want to start a career in films. He saved money by working in a bicycle shop and in 1934, with a letter of introduction from his brother to a policeman in Kyoto, he set off for Kyoto. After a long wait, he was able to get a job in the film developing department of Shinkō Kinema, which he joined because he was too short to join the lighting department. He was one of eleven workers in the developing department, but only three of them actually worked, the others being members of the company baseball team. At this time he learned that films were based on scripts because old scripts were used as toilet paper. He would take the scripts home to study them. His job involved drying 200-foot lengths of film on a roller three metres long and two metres high, and he learned the relationship between the pieces of film he was drying and the scripts he read.
When Shinkō Kinema moved from Kyoto to Tokyo in November 1935, many of the staff, who were Kyoto locals, did not want to move. The brother of the policeman who had helped Shindō get the job in Shinkō Kinema was one of them. He asked Shindō to take his place, and Shindō got a job in Shinko Kinema's art department run by Hiroshi Mizutani. For his work as an art director, Shindō trained under a local artist. He had a talent for sketching which he used in scouting locations, since cameras were less often used in those days. Shindō discovered that a lot of people wanted to become film directors, including Mizutani, and he decided that he might have a better chance of success as a screenwriter.
Shindō wrote a lot of film scripts, which were severely criticized by his friends, but he persisted. He submitted a script called Tsuchi o ushinatta hyakushō, about a farmer who loses his land due to the construction of a dam, to a film magazine and won a prize of 100 yen, four times his then monthly salary of 25 yen. However, the script was never filmed.
By the late 1930s he was working as an assistant to Kenji Mizoguchi on several films, most notably as chief assistant director and art director on The 47 Ronin. He submitted scripts to Mizoguchi, only for Mizoguchi to tell him that he "had no talent" for screenwriting, events dramatized years later in Shindō's debut film Story of a Beloved Wife. His first realised screenplay was for the film Nanshin josei in 1940. He was asked to write a script by director Tomu Uchida, but the script was never filmed due to Uchida's untimely military conscription.
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Kaneto Shindo
Kaneto Shindō (新藤 兼人, Shindō Kaneto; 22 April 1912 – 29 May 2012) was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note. His screenplays were filmed by directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Kōzaburō Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Seijun Suzuki, and Tadashi Imai.
His films of the first decade were often in a social realist vein, repeatedly depicting the fate of women, while since the seventies, portraits of artists became a speciality. Many of his films were autobiographical, beginning with his 1951 directorial debut, Story of a Beloved Wife, and, being born in Hiroshima Prefecture, he also made several films about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the effect of nuclear weapons.
Shindō was one of the pioneers of independent film production in Japan, co-founding his own film company Kindai Eiga Kyōkai with director Yoshimura and actor Taiji Tonoyama in 1950. He continued working as a screenwriter, director, and author until close to his death at the age of 100.
Shindō was born in 1912 in the Saeki District of Hiroshima Prefecture as the youngest of four children. His family were wealthy landowners, but his father went bankrupt and lost all his land after acting as a loan guarantor. His older brother and two sisters went to find work, and he and his mother and father lived in a storehouse. His mother became an agricultural labourer and died during his early childhood. His older brother was good at judo and became a policeman. One of his sisters became a nurse and would go on to work caring for atom bomb victims. The other sister married a Japanese-American and went to live in the US.
In 1933, Shindō, then living with his brother in Onomichi, was inspired by Sadao Yamanaka's film Bangaku No isshō to want to start a career in films. He saved money by working in a bicycle shop and in 1934, with a letter of introduction from his brother to a policeman in Kyoto, he set off for Kyoto. After a long wait, he was able to get a job in the film developing department of Shinkō Kinema, which he joined because he was too short to join the lighting department. He was one of eleven workers in the developing department, but only three of them actually worked, the others being members of the company baseball team. At this time he learned that films were based on scripts because old scripts were used as toilet paper. He would take the scripts home to study them. His job involved drying 200-foot lengths of film on a roller three metres long and two metres high, and he learned the relationship between the pieces of film he was drying and the scripts he read.
When Shinkō Kinema moved from Kyoto to Tokyo in November 1935, many of the staff, who were Kyoto locals, did not want to move. The brother of the policeman who had helped Shindō get the job in Shinkō Kinema was one of them. He asked Shindō to take his place, and Shindō got a job in Shinko Kinema's art department run by Hiroshi Mizutani. For his work as an art director, Shindō trained under a local artist. He had a talent for sketching which he used in scouting locations, since cameras were less often used in those days. Shindō discovered that a lot of people wanted to become film directors, including Mizutani, and he decided that he might have a better chance of success as a screenwriter.
Shindō wrote a lot of film scripts, which were severely criticized by his friends, but he persisted. He submitted a script called Tsuchi o ushinatta hyakushō, about a farmer who loses his land due to the construction of a dam, to a film magazine and won a prize of 100 yen, four times his then monthly salary of 25 yen. However, the script was never filmed.
By the late 1930s he was working as an assistant to Kenji Mizoguchi on several films, most notably as chief assistant director and art director on The 47 Ronin. He submitted scripts to Mizoguchi, only for Mizoguchi to tell him that he "had no talent" for screenwriting, events dramatized years later in Shindō's debut film Story of a Beloved Wife. His first realised screenplay was for the film Nanshin josei in 1940. He was asked to write a script by director Tomu Uchida, but the script was never filmed due to Uchida's untimely military conscription.
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