Masumura Yasuzō A Breakthrough in the Wall of Japanese Cinema

A few fundamental events contributed to create a revolution in the world of Japanese cinema during the 1950s, drastically cutting its links with the past and stimulating a completely different way to make movies. One of the main authors to stress the need for a complete change was MasumuraYasuzo. He had been studying for two years (1952-54) in Rome, an experience which enabled him to introduce a new kind of approach to human beings into Japan. Masumura’s refusal for the classical atmosphere of Japanese cinema, often referring to nature as a metaphor of the existence, together with what he had learnt in Italy, gave birth to some of his masterpieces, where the fictional universe works as a frame for depicting a dialectic mixing of freedom and individuality.