Minoru Murata
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Best films:
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Minoru Murata, a disciple of and actor for Norimasa Kaeriyama, was the progenitor of that minute and intimate style that would spread throughout Japan in the 1930s. His stories, entirely realistic, have the aspect of allegories and focus more on atmosphere than on plot. Rojo no Reikon / Souls on the Road (1921) is a hybrid of Western movie and Scandinavian naturalism. It contains two parallel narratives in the manner of Griffith: a young man expelled from home and two ex-convicts protected by a gravedigger.
Murata was one of the directors who moved beyond the theatrical kabuki influence, pervasive in early Japanese silent films. Rojo no reikion/ Souls on the Road, based on Maxim Gorkys "Lower Depths", has four intertwining storylines, like Griffiths Intolerance (1916). He then directed the tragic romance Seisaku's Wife (1924), The Street Juggler (1925), and the multi-part epic The Sun (1928). Most of Murata's films are lost. He died at the age of 43 in 1937.
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