Japanese post-war golden age

Three masters, working inside the studios, gave the world three ways of seeing: the sword, the tatami and the long dissolve.

When: 1949–1962
Where: Japan
Films: 6 · 5 guided
Named by: 1 guide

Where it sits

The first filmsJapanese post-war golden ageFrench New Wave · New Hollywood

Context

What was happening

Japan in 1949: defeated, occupied by Allied forces, its cities damaged and its cinemas busy again. The big studios, Shochiku, Toho and Daiei among them, were rebuilding and gave directors steady work. Italy was doing something similar in the same years, rebuilding a cinema on humanism.

Then the world looked. Rashomon won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, and foreign audiences began to seek out Japanese films. Directors who had spent years perfecting their craft inside the studios found a public abroad, and made some of their finest work in the years that followed.

The signature

What you see on screen

1The low cameraA still camera at seated height, framing rooms, doorways and quiet talk.
2The long takeScenes played in one distant shot, the camera gliding rather than cutting.
3Weather and motionRain, wind and mud, with figures in rushing motion.
4Rival witnessesOne event told by several witnesses who contradict each other.

The people

Who made it

AKAkira KurosawaThe master of motion and big moral questions. Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai.
YOYasujirō OzuThe poet of the family and the still, low camera. Tokyo Story.
KMKenji MizoguchiThe master of the long take and the distant camera. Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff.
MNMikio NaruseMaker of quiet, sober dramas of ordinary lives, the least famous of the four.

The films

Defining films, in order

Its constellation

Where it came from, what it led to

Led to

French New Wave New HollywoodJapanese New Wave

Parallel

Italian Neorealism

Open the galaxy of movements

Legacy

Where you still see it

In Paris, the critics of Cahiers du cinéma placed Mizoguchi above all, and Rivette and Godard wrote about him. In Hollywood, Lucas drew Star Wars from The Hidden Fortress, and Coppola produced Kurosawa's Kagemusha. In Japan, Oshima and Imamura built their New Wave against Ozu and Kurosawa, a reaction that needed the masters to push against.

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