Atsushi Yamatoya

Atsushi Yamatoya (大和屋 竺, Yamatoya Atsushi, 19 June 1937 — 16 January 1993) was a Japanese film director, screenwriter and actor. His son is a fellow screenwriter and race horse owner Akatsuki Yamatoya (大和屋 暁, Yamatoya Akatsuki).

Atsushi Yamatoya
大和屋 竺
Born(1937-06-19)19 June 1937
Mikasa, Hokkaido, Japan
Died16 January 1993(1993-01-16) (aged 55)
NationalityJapanese
Alma materWaseda University
OccupationFilm director, screenwriter, actor, singer, writer
Years active1965-1992
ChildrenAkatsuki Yamatoya (son)

Life and career

Yamatoya was born in Horonaicho, Mikasa, Hokkaido and raised in Tokyo. He graduated from the First Department of Literature at Waseda University. While a student, he belonged to the "Waseda Alumni Scenario Research Society" with Yōzō Tanaka and others, and produced documentary films. In 1962, he joined the assistant director department at Nikkatsu (8th period). He left Nikkatsu in 1966, and in the same year released his first film, Season of Betrayal, produced by Koji Wakamatsu of Wakamatsu Productions. In 1966, he formed Guru Hachirō (具流 八郎), a group of screenwriters led by Seijun Suzuki, together with Takeo Kimura, Yōzō Tanaka, Chūsei Sone, Yutaka Okada, Seiichirō Yamaguchi, and Yasuaki Hangai.

Yamatoya proceeded to direct such films as Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands in 1967 and Not Much More Than a Pistol in 1968.[1] He is best known as the screenwriter for Seijun Suzuki's 1967 film Branded to Kill,[2] which is "a stark, spastically existential—and, most affronting of all, defiantly unmarketable—crime-flick abstraction that unfolds like the director's cracked self-portrait."[3]

Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, said, "Yamatoya is definitely very interesting."[4] According to Roland Domenig, Yamatoya used his pink films for "formal experiments," while other directors such as Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi used their pink films as "political propaganda."[5]

Yamatoya died of esophageal cancer on 16 January 1993.[1] In the same year, he posthumously received a special award at the 2nd Japan Film Professional Awards. After his death, Haruhiko Arai, Jūichirō Takeuchi, and Kenji Fukuma compiled the book, Give it to the Devil: Essays on the Cinema of Atsushi Yamatoya published by Wides Publishing.[1]

Filmography

As director

As screenwriter

References
  1. Toshio Takasaki (1 November 2012). "大和屋竺という映画作家がいた時代". 高崎俊夫の映画アットランダム (in Japanese). Seiryu Publishing. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  2. Rayns, Tony (13 December 2011). "Branded to Kill: Reductio Ad Absurdum". Criterion.
  3. Croce, Fernando F. (2 January 2012). "Branded to Kill – DVD Review". Slant Magazine.
  4. Mes, Tom (22 August 2008). "Midnight Eye feature: Behind the Pink Curtain". Midnight Eye.
  5. Domenig, Roland (28 June 2004). "Midnight Eye feature: The Anticipation of Freedom: Art Theatre Guild and Japanese Independent Cinema". Midnight Eye.

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