[KineJapan] Aoyama Shinji

[Gerow Aaron]

It is with deep sorrow that I learned of the death of Aoyama Shinji, who died on March 21 of cancer. He was only 57 (which is my age). Aoyama-san and I go back a long ways, first meeting at Athenee in 1996, and developing a good friendship after that (to him, I was Jero-kichi). I penned an auteurist analysis of his career, translated his film theory, and invited him to Yale. One highlight was a tour of New England with him and Shinozaki Makoto about when my son was born. My family still remembers having him over to our house and me trying to cook lobster--and Ian crying over the thought of boiling over them, which Aoyama often jokingly brought up. Aoyama was born in Kitakyushu of school teacher parents and studied English literature at Rikkyo (Faulkner was a favorite), where he took classes under Hasumi Shigehiko and made 8mm films as part of the Rikkyo lineage that included Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Manda Kunihiko, Shiota Akihiko, and Shinozaki Makoto. He AD's for Kurosawa and others before making his theatrical debut with Helpless in 1996. Eureka (2000) was his most celebrated film, winning several awards at Cannes, but Aoyama was also a theorist, penning what I think are some of the crucial texts for thinking about cinema of the time. As a novelist, he won the Mishima Yukio Prize for his novelization of Eureka. He was married Toyota Maho, who starred in his Desert Moon. But Aoyama-san's health was not great in the last decade or so, and his last film was Living in the Sky (2020). His passing is a great shock to me, since both in age and in length of friendship, he was the film director I was closest to. We often talked about when to bring him to Yale again. 

Here’s my piece on Aoyama-san:

https://works.bepress.com/aarongerow/21/ <https://works.bepress.com/aarongerow/21/>

Here’s my translation of his New Wave Manifesto:

http://www.aarongerow.com/news/aoyama-shinjis-nouvelle.html <http://www.aarongerow.com/news/aoyama-shinjis-nouvelle.html>



Aaron Gerow
Alfred W. Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Film and Media Studies
Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
320 York Street, Room 108
PO Box 208201
New Haven, CT 06520-8201
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu <mailto:aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
website: www.aarongerow.com





















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