Hôtei Nomura

Biography

Hôtei Nomura (November 13, 1880 – August 23, 1934) was a film director, screenwriter and producer who lived during the Taisho period and early Showa period. He is one of the individuals responsible for laying the groundwork of the Japanese film industry. Nomura's father was in the business of making scenery and signs for theaters in Kyoto. The nature of his father's business meant that he had a connection to Kyoto's theatre industry from a young age, and he was close friends with Shochiku founders Matsujiro Shirai and Takejiro Otani. In 1897, he served as the projectionist's assistant for the French engineer François-Constant Girel, in Japan's first-ever show of the Lumiere brothers' cinematograph. When Shochiku formally began producing films in 1920, Nomura was appointed to its board of directors. His use of contemporary drama actors in classical productions and realism in 'classical drama moving pictures' became the model for subsequent period dramas, and his apprentices included future director Heinosuke Gosho. He is also known to have given their first role to two great Japanese actresses: Kinuyo Tanaka (in Genroku Onna, at the age of fourteen) and Hideko Takamine (in Mother, at the age of five). In all, he directed more than one hundred films between 1921 and his death in 1934. Although the vast majority are lost, he achieved critical and commercial success and played a substantial role in the development of the Japanese film industry.