Early life (1898–1920) Mizoguchi was born in
Hongō, Tokyo, as the second of three children, to Zentaro Miguchi, a roofing carpenter, and his wife Masa. The family's background was relatively humble until the father's failed business venture of selling raincoats to the Japanese troops during the
Russo-Japanese War. His 1926
Passion of a Woman Teacher (
Kyōren no onna shishō) was one of a handful of Japanese films shown in France and Germany at the time and received considerate praise, The 1936 diptych of
Osaka Elegy and
Sisters of the Gion, about modern young women (
moga) rebelling against their surroundings, is considered to be his early masterpiece. Mizoguchi himself named these two films as the works with which he achieved artistic maturity.
Osaka Elegy was also his first full sound film, and marked the beginning of his long collaboration with screenwriter
Yoshikata Yoda. 1939, the year when Mizoguchi became president of the
Directors Guild of Japan, Here, a young woman supports her partner's struggle to achieve artistic maturity as a kabuki actor at the price of her health.
Wartime films (1941–1945) During
World War II, Mizoguchi made a series of films whose patriotic nature seemed to support the war effort. The most famous of these is a retelling of the classic
samurai tale
The 47 Ronin (1941–42), an epic
jidaigeki (historical drama). While some historians see these as works which he had been pressured into, others believe him to have acted voluntarily. Fellow screenwriter
Matsutarō Kawaguchi went as far as, in a 1964 interview for , calling Mizoguchi (whom he otherwise held in high regard) an "opportunist" in his art who followed the currents of the time, veering from the left to the
right to finally become a democrat. 1941 also saw the permanent hospitalisation of his wife Chieko (m. 1927),
Post-war films (1945–1952) During the early post-war years following the country's defeat, Mizoguchi directed a series of films concerned with the oppression of women and female emancipation both in historical (mostly the
Meiji era) and contemporary settings. All of these were written or co-written by Yoda, and often starred
Kinuyo Tanaka, who remained his regular leading actress until 1954, when both fell out with each other over Mizoguchi's attempt to prevent her from directing her first own film.
Utamaro and His Five Women (1946) was a notable exception of an
Edo era jidaigeki film made during the
Occupation, as this genre was seen as being inherently
nationalistic or
militaristic by the
Allied censors. Of his works of this period,
Flame of My Love (1949) has repeatedly been pointed out for its unflinching presentation of its subject. Tanaka plays a young teacher who leaves her traditionalist milieu to strive for her goal of female liberation, only to find out that her allegedly progressive partner still nourishes the accustomed attitude of male preeminence.
International recognition and death (1952–1956) Mizoguchi returned to feudal era settings with
The Life of Oharu (1952),
Ugetsu (1953) and
Sansho the Bailiff (1954), which won him international recognition, in particular by the
Cahiers du Cinéma critics such as
Jean-Luc Godard, and were awarded at the Venice Film Festival. Mizoguchi once more explored a contemporary milieu (a brothel in the
Yoshiwara district) in black-and-white format with his last film, the 1956
Street of Shame. Mizoguchi died of
leukemia at the age of 58 in the Kyoto Municipal Hospital. ==Filmography==