Hiroshi Shimizu (director)

Shimizu was born in Shizuoka Prefecture and attended Hokkaidō University but left before graduating.[2] He joined the Shochiku studio in Tokyo in 1921, making his directorial debut in 1924, at the age of just 21,[1] and specialised in melodramas and comedies.[2] In his most distinguished silent films like Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933), Shimizu explored a Japan poised between native and Western ideas, traditionalism and liberalism.[3]

In the 1930s, Shimizu increasingly took advantage of shooting on location[2] and with non-professional actors, and was praised at the time by film critics such as Matsuo Kishi for the realism of his work. Fellow director Kenji Mizoguchi famously stated that "[p]eople like me and Ozu get films made by hard work, but Shimizu is a genius..."[1] In 2004, critic Chris Fujiwara, comparing Shimizu's Forget Love for Now (1937), The Masseurs and a Woman (1938) and Notes of an Itinerant Performer (1941), commented on the recurring motif of individual lives as journeys, an extensive use of possibilities of camera movement, plus an unpredictability and plotlessness, which give these films a "strikingly modern quality".[4] Film historian Alexander Jacoby linked Mr. Thank You (1936), The Masseurs and a Woman (1938) and Ornamental Hairpin (1941) as a group of films which "were bittersweet studies of grown-up feelings" and "group portraits set among temporary communities" that "concentrated more on the delineation of character than on plot".[3]

Shimizu also explored themes of maternal self-sacrifice and, in general, fallen female roles. In these films, his heroine was often accepting the burden of supporting a male dependent or relative to afford him the opportunity to go to school or become successful in life. However, her efforts and sacrifice do not lead to their aim but to inevitable tragedy instead. Citing Forget Love for Now (1937) as an example, Jacoby calls this film "critical of the double standard which expects women to sacrifice everything for the sake of their male dependents, while indulging in moralistic condemnation of the methods they are required to adopt to do so."[5]

His later work often focused on children, and Shimizu himself worked to help war orphans after World War II,[1] an experience that led to the film Children of the Beehive which Jacoby calls a “masterpiece of neo-realism”.[3] His films featured all sorts of children, ranging from those who do not love, or are unloved by their parents, to children that are rejected by their peers or become social outcasts to even those that suffer from illness and disability. While the premise of the stories differed, a common theme often persisted. Shimizu utilized individuals who are excluded from a group to make social commentary and criticism of society through the group themselves.[5]

Shimizu was married to actress Kinuyo Tanaka from 1927 to 1929.[6] He died of a heart attack on June 23, 1966, at the age of 63.

In 2008, Shochiku released two box sets which include eight of his films (Region 2 format, with both Japanese and English subtitles). The first box set contained the films Japanese Girls at the Harbor, Mr. Thank You, The Masseurs and a Woman and Ornamental Hairpin. The second box set contained Children in the Wind, Nobuko, Introspection Tower and Four Seasons of Children. In 2009, a Criterion Collection box set of four of his films (corresponding to the first Shochiku set) was released in the Region 1 format.[7]

• Hiroshi Shimizu at IMDb
• Hiroshi Shimizu at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)