Yoji Yamada has directed 90 films, including “Tora-san,” which tops the Guinness World Records for the longest-running movie series starring the same actor
Yoji Yamada has directed 90 films, including “Tora-san,” which tops the Guinness World Records for the longest-running movie series starring the same actor. In each of the 48 installments, beginning in 1969, the hero peddler with a heart of gold falls in love but doesn’t get the girl.
He has just finished directing a Kabuki play, a Japanese musical theater form dating back four centuries, except re-scripted and directed Yamada-style. It’s stamped with his characteristic voice of compassion for the underdog that has never wavered throughout his seven-decade career.
“You must explore what it means to be human. You must be interested in people, their existence, how they live,” said Yamada, 92, looking frail but sprightly with a shock of white hair.
“Every human being has something shining inside, like a pearl, that bit of goodness,” he told The Associated Press at an office near Tokyo’s Kabukiza theater, where his “Bunshichi Mottoi Monogatari” plays through the end of this month.
Yamada acknowledged his directing approach is similar to Western-style “method acting.” His actors must start out by simply existing when they stand before a camera, Yamada said softly, pausing to reflect before answering each question.
Actors who think they are good are the ones he finds the most difficult. They start to act when they simply need to just be.
Kabuki has until recently starred only men. Yamada said the actors tended to be theatrical, and not very method, but he has written new scenes and lines, added a woman to the cast, and focused on the women characters to more fully depict the story of Chobe, a skilled plasterer craftsman who has succumbed to gambling.
