Nagisa Oshima

Nagisa Oshima (大島 渚, Ōshima Nagisa, March 31, 1932 – January 15, 2013) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His films include In the Realm of the Senses and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.

Early life

After graduating from Kyoto University, where he studied political history, Oshima was hired by film production company Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959.

1960s

Oshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly, and such films as Cruel Story of Youth and Night and Fog in Japan followed in 1960. The last of these 1960 films explored Oshima's disillusionment with the traditional political left, and his frustrations with the right, and Shochiku withdrew the film from circulation after less than a week, claiming that, following the recent assassination of the Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma by the ultranationalist Otoya Yamaguchi, there was a risk of "unrest". Oshima left the studio in response, and launched his own independent production company. Despite the controversy, Night And Fog In Japan was placed tenth in that year's Kinema Jumpo's best-films poll of Japanese critics, and it has subsequently amassed considerable acclaim abroad.