[KineJapan] Aoyama Shinji

[Alexander Jacoby]

Dear Aaron,

A very sad loss for Japanese cinema. And my condolences too for your
personal loss.

Best wishes,


ALEX



On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 at 16:03, Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> 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/
>
> Here’s my translation of his New Wave Manifesto:
>
> 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
> website: www.aarongerow.com
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> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
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>
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