Heinosuke Gosho
Heinosuke Gosho in 1951
Born	Heiemon Gosho[1] (1902-01-24)24 January 1902 Kanda,Tokyo
Died	1 May 1981(1981-05-01) (aged 79) Mishima, Shizuoka
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation(s)	Film director,screenwriter
Years active	1925–1968

Heinosuke Gosho (五所平之助,Gosho Heinosuke, 24 January 1902 – 1 May 1981) was a Japanesefilm director andscreenwriter who directed Japan's first successfulsound film,The Neighbor's Wife and Mine, in 1931. His films are mostly associated with theshōshimin-eiga (lit. "common people drama")genre. Among his most noted works areWhere Chimneys Are Seen,An Inn at Osaka,Takekurabe andYellow Crow.^[2][3]

Gosho was born on January 24, 1902, inKanda,Tokyo, to merchant Heisuke Gosho and his father'sgeisha mistress. At the age of five, after Heisuke's eldest son died, Gosho left his mother to be the successor to his father'swholesale business. He studied business atKeio University, graduating in 1923.^[1]

Through his father's close relation to film directorYasujirō Shimazu, Gosho was able to join theShochiku film studios and worked as assistant director to Shimazu.^[1] In 1925, Gosho debuted as a director^[2] with the filmNantō no haru.^[1] His films of the 1920s are nowadays regarded as lost.^[3]

Gosho's first notable success, and Japan's firstfeature length sound film, was the 1931 comedyThe Neighbor's Wife and Mine about a writer distracted by a noisy next-door jazz band. NamingErnst Lubitsch'sThe Marriage Circle andCharles Chaplin'sA Woman of Paris as the greatest foreign influences, Gosho's work oscillated between comedy and drama, sometimes mixing the two, which earned his films the reputation of making the viewer "laugh and cry at the same time".^[2] Other Gosho trademarks were his fastediting style and his repeated relying on literary sources, such as the works ofYūzō Yamamoto andIchiyō Higuchi.^[3][4] Together withShirō Toyoda, Gosho was one of the first directors to adapt the works of thejunbungaku ("pure literature") movement for the screen, which opposed "popular" literature in favour of "serious" literature and a more complex handling of its subjects. A prominent example isThe Dancing Girl of Izu (1933), a successful adaptation ofYasunari Kawabata's story of the same name, about the unfulfilled love between a student and a young country woman.^[5][6] Of his 36 1930s films, only slightly more than a half-dozen are extant.^[5]

A firm believer in humanism, Gosho tried to reduce militarist content in hiswartime films, and showed solidarity with dismissed co-workers during theToho studios strike of 1948.^[2] In 1950 he started the independent production company Studio Eight together with Shirō Toyoda and other former studio employees. Studio Eight's first production was Gosho's 1951 dramaDispersed Clouds about an unhappy young woman from Tokyo finding fulfilment as assistant of a country doctor.^[7] His best-known works of this era are thesocial realist marriage dramaWhere Chimneys Are Seen (1953), which was shown in competition at theBerlin International Film Festival,^[8] andYellow Crow (1957), the portrait of a troubled father-son-relationship, which received theGolden Globe Award forBest Foreign Language Film.^[9] Although his films grew darker in tone by the mid-1950s, evident in works likeAn Inn at Osaka, about a group ofOsaka residents struggling with an unrestrained materialistic environment, he stayed true to his ideals of "tolerance, compromise and rationality".^[3]

Gosho was also one of the first major Japanese directors to work extensively fortelevision as a writer.^[2] Due to the rapid changes in the film industry at the time, Gosho's work in the 1960s alternated mostly between melodrama and shomin-geki, sometimes not exceeding well-made commercial entertainment.^[5] Notable films of this era areHunting Rifle (1961), based onYasushi Inoue's novella about an adulterous couple,An Innocent Witch (1965), the account of a young prostitute falling victim to superstition, andRebellion of Japan (1967), a love story set against the backdrop of theFebruary 26 Incident.^[5][2][3] His last feature-length directorial effort was the puppet filmMeiji haru aki (1968).

Between 1964 and 1980, Gosho served as president of theDirectors Guild of Japan.^[10][11] Although having repeatedly worked with internationally known actresses and actors likeKinuyo Tanaka, few of his films have been seen in the West. In 1989–1990, a retrospective of his work was held by theJapan Society and theMuseum of Modern Art, New York.^[5]

Gosho also wrotehaiku poems and served as director of the Japanese Haiku Art Association.^[12]

• Nolletti, Arthur (2005).The Cinema of Gosho Heinosuke: Laughter through Tears. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.ISBN 0-253-34484-0

• Heinosuke Gosho at theJapanese Movie Database(in Japanese)
• Heinosuke Gosho atIMDb

• Japanese film directors
• People from Chiyoda, Tokyo
• Film people from Tokyo
• 1902 births
• 1981 deaths
• Keio University alumni

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