From Kagoshima to Matsuyama and Tokyo: Childhood and Youth
Satsuo Yamamoto was born in 1910, when his father was working at the Kagoshima prefectural government. Both parents came from Komatsu in Ishikawa Prefecture. After leaving Sapporo Agricultural College, his father served as an official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, moving between prefectural offices around the country. The youngest of six children, Satsuo moved to Matsuyama before turning two when his father was transferred to the Ehime prefectural government. During these formative years, he met Tsurunosuke Shigematsu, who would later die in prison during the suppression of the Communist Party, and haiku poet Kusatao Nakamura. At an oil-painting school he attended on Shigematsu's recommendation, he studied under future director Mansaku Itami. He entered the old-system Matsuyama Middle School in 1923, but moved to Tokyo following his father's retirement and his elder brother's admission to the University of Tokyo, transferring to Meiji Middle School.
Left-Wing Activism and Entry into Cinema
In 1929, after spending a year preparing for entrance examinations, Yamamoto entered Waseda's First Higher School. Around this time, he became interested in modern theater and increasingly involved in left-wing activism. In 1932, he entered the German literature department of Waseda University's School of Letters, but was arrested by the Special Higher Police for organizing a student gathering against military training and was forced to leave university. He hoped to enter modern theater, but in view of the repression at the time, he met Daisuke Ito through Shigematsu's introduction and joined Shochiku's Kamata studio in 1933. He worked as an assistant director to Mikio Naruse and later moved with Naruse to PCL, the predecessor of Toho.
His Work as a Director and Wartime Experiences
Yamamoto made his directorial debut in 1937 with Ojosan, based on a work by Nobuko Yoshiya, and his next film, Haha no Kyoku, became a record-breaking hit. In his private life, he married Yoshie Kobayashi, his sweetheart since his student days, and they had two sons and a daughter. During the war, he also made morale-boosting films such as Tsubasa no Gaika and Neppu. Immediately after completing Neppu, however, he was called up and assigned to the Sakura Regiment. His superiors subjected him to relentless bullying because he was a film director, and this experience later became a source for The Vacuum Zone.
Postwar Struggles and the Culmination of a Life in Film
After demobilization in 1946, he returned to Toho and became active as a union representative. In 1947, he directed War and Peace, which ranked second in Kinema Junpo's annual top ten, and joined the Japanese Communist Party the same year. Following the Toho labor dispute, he established the independent production company Shinsei Eiga and released a succession of socially engaged films. In later years, he also worked with major studios, leaving classics such as The Great White Tower and the Men and War trilogy. He died of pancreatic cancer on August 11, 1983, at the age of 73. Following his final film, Aa Nomugi Toge: Shinryoku-hen, planned projects including a sequel to The Barren Zone, Yaeko Nogami's Meiro, and Seiichi Morimura's Akuma no Hoshoku remained unfinished.
