 kenji mizoguchi (æºå£ å¥äº mizoguchi kenji; may 16, 1898 &ndash; august 24, 1956) was a japanese film director and screenwriter. his film ugetsu (1953) won the silver lion at the venice film festival, and appeared in the sight & sound critics' top ten poll in 1962 and 1972. mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scÃ¨ne. according to writer mark le fanu, "his films have an extraordinary force and purity. they shake and move the viewer by the power, refinement and compassion with which they confront human suffering."  ==biography== ===early years=== mizoguchi was born in hongo, tokyo, one of three children. his father was a roofing carpenter. the family was modestly middle-class until his father tried to make a living selling raincoats to soldiers during the russo-japanese war. the war ended too quickly for the investment to succeed; his family circumstances turned abject and they had to give his older sister up "for adoption" and moved from hongo to asakusa, near the theatre and brothel quarter. in effect his sister susomo, or suzu, was sold into geishadom - an event which profoundly affected mizoguchi's outlook on life. between this and his father's brutal treatment of his mother and sister, he maintained a fierce resistance against his father throughout his life. in 1911, mizoguchi's parents, too poor to continue paying for their son's primary school training, sent him to stay with an uncle in morioka, in northern japan, for a year - a period that saw the onset of crippling rheumatoid arthritis that was to afflict him during adolescence and leave him with a lop-sided walking gait for the rest of his life. the year 1912, back with his parents, was spent almost entirely in bed. in 1913 mizoguchi's sister suzu secured him work as an apprentice, designing patterns for kimonos and yukatas. in 1915 his mother died, and suzu brought her younger brothers into her own house and looked after them. in 1916 he enrolled for a course at the aoibashi yoga kenkyuko art school in tokyo, which taught western painting
1898_births 1956_deaths Japanese_film_directors Samurai_film_directors