Yoshida: I did not like postwar French cinema1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteOf the major filmmakers of the Japanese New Wave, Yoshishige Yoshida remains arguably the least well known in the West, despite recent retrospectives in Europe and North America.
Like Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Yoshida (b.1933) started out within the studio system at Shochiku, where he served a dutiful apprenticeship in the late 1950s.
With the Japanese film industry facing crisis as its audience was sapped by television and changing expectations, the studio hoped to court new viewers by sponsoring innovative films by younger directors. Yoshida, with Oshima and Shinoda, became one of the so-called Shochiku “Nuberu Bagu”, or New Wave, making his debut in 1960 with Good-for-Nothing (Rokudenashi).
Leaving Shochiku, Yoshida founded an independent production company, Gendai Eigasha, and realised some of his most personal and profound films, such as Impasse (Hono to Onna, 1966) and The Affair (Joen, 1967).
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