Mikio Naruse
成濑巳喜男
Japanese director, 1905–1969. He worked from the silent period onwards and directed some eighty-nine films, of which about sixty survive. His work centres largely on the economic circumstances of women, set among families, lodging houses and small businesses. He adapted the novels of Fumiko Hayashi several times.
Career
Naruse joined Shochiku in 1920 as a props assistant and began directing in 1930; most of his early silent films are lost. He moved to P.C.L., later absorbed into Toho, in 1934. Wife! Be Like a Rose!, the following year, was among the first Japanese films given a commercial release in the United States.
He completed more than eighty films, most of them with women as the central characters, and adapted the novelist Fumiko Hayashi six times, including Floating Clouds in 1955. His last film, Scattered Clouds, appeared in 1967. He died in 1969.
