<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From the NYT:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/movies/31imamura.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1149167438-hLyO+wEYavwSzCVgiEtbFA">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/movies/31imamura.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1149167438-hLyO+wEYavwSzCVgiEtbFA</A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><B></B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><B><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><B><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><B>May 31, 2006</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13.4px/normal Georgia; min-height: 15px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#666666"><BR></FONT></DIV><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 16.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="6"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px;"><B>Shohei Imamura, 79, Japanese Filmmaker, Is Dead</B></SPAN></FONT></P><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><B>By </B></SPAN></FONT><A href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/dave_kehr/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63"><B>DAVE KEHR</B></FONT></SPAN></FONT></A></DIV><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=95413&inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Shohei Imamura</SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">, one of the most significant filmmakers of Japan's postwar generation, whose works include </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=133366;5925&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Black Rain"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> and two top-prize winners at Cannes, died yesterday in Tokyo. He was 79.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">The cause was liver cancer, his son Hirosuke told The Mainichi Daily News.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Born into an upper-middle-class family in Tokyo in 1926, Mr. Imamura was often grouped with </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=105229&inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">Nagisa Oshima</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">, </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=119458&inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">Seijun Suzuki</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> and Masahiro Shinoda as a founder of the Japanese New Wave, which emerged in the late 1950's and early 60's to shake tradition-bound Japanese cinema.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Mr. Imamura met Mr. Oshima and Mr. Shinoda when all three were enrolled in the assistant directors program at Shochiku studios. Mr. Imamura was first assigned to </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=105319&inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">Yasujiro Ozu</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">, whom he assisted on three films, including the classic </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=50260&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Tokyo Story"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1953). But Mr. Imamura rejected the careful compositions and noble, self-sacrificing characters of Ozu's films, preferring to show the chaotic reality of postwar Japan.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">He found a more congenial mentor in the director Yuzo Kawashima, whose taste for stories of the working class had already made him an outsider at the aristocratic Shochiku. Soon, both men moved to Shochiku's less conservative rival, Nikkatsu studios, where Mr. Imamura quickly rose through the ranks, first becoming a screenwriter for Kawashima, then a director in his own right.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Mr. Imamura's first four films — </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=179891&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Stolen Desire,"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=150752&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Nishi Ginza Station,"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=179892&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Endless Desire"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (all 1958) and </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=179893&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"My Second Brother"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1959) — were studio assignments. He considered his first personal film to be </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=152206&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Pigs and Battleships"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1961), a scathing burlesque set in a Japanese port town dominated by American forces and based in part on his own experiences as a black marketeer.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">The film contains most of the seeds of Mr. Imamura's mature work: the black-and-white widescreen frames throb with an animalistic vitality, and his protagonists are unabashedly amoral and self-centered, concerned only with personal survival. For Mr. Imamura, these were the positive traits of an island nation of limited resources. </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=24911&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Insect Woman"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1963) follows Tome (Sachiko Hidari) from childhood through a successful career as a prostitute and madam. </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=38743&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Pornographers"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1966), subtitled "An Introduction to Anthropology," satirizes tight Japanese families: an impotent maker of stag movies lusts after his teenage stepdaughter.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">With </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=97981&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Profound Desire of the Gods"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1968) Mr. Imamura turned a tiny island populated by an incestuous family into a corrosive metaphor for Japanese isolationism. An expensive film, it proved to be a box office failure, and for the next several years, he concentrated on a film school he had founded, and on documentaries, still following his favorite themes. This period produced "The History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess" (1970) and </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=179895&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Making of a Prostitute"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1975).</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">He returned to fiction filmmaking in 1979 with </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=270752;145657;134958;52280;52279;115478;115479&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Vengeance Is Mine,"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> one of the first films to take a serial killer as a hero. </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=15406&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Eijanaika"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> ("Why Not?," 1981) remains an epic vision of Japan in the 1860's, as the country reluctantly opened to the West.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">After "Eijanaika," Mr. Imamura seemed to cool down and scale back his films. </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=3805;123857&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Ballad of Narayama"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1983), a remake of a famous 1958 heart-tugger, approached academicism with its classical compositions and attention to period detail: Mr. Imamura was rewarded at Cannes with his first Palme d'Or, the top award. He received the Japanese equivalent of the Oscar, the Kinema Junpo Award, for "Black Rain" (1989), a somber study of Hiroshima.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">With his final three features, Mr. Imamura regained his subversive sense of humor, and his sometimes clinical detachment from his characters turned to a warm, if amused, affection. </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=154965&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"The Eel"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1997, the winner of his second Palme d'Or), </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=162480&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"Dr. Akagi"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> (1998) and "Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" (2001) were relatively calm and contemplative.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">But Mr. Imamura also found time during this period to sponsor the work of </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=235203&inline=nyt-per"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">Takashi Miike</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">, whose notoriously violent, overtly sadistic films took Mr. Imamura's assumptions about humanity to new extremes. Mr. Imamura's last work was a short contribution to </SPAN></FONT><A href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=272714&inline=nyt_ttl"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000E63">"September 11,"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> an anthology film about the worldwide effects of the attacks.</SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">The director is survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons, one of whom, under the name Daisuke Tengan, collaborated on the screenplays for his father's last three features.</SPAN></FONT></P></BODY></HTML>