Shinji Aoyama was born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. He began to be interested in cinema when he watched Apocalypse Now and he thought seriously about making films after watching Jean-Luc Godard's films such as Pierrot le Fou and Two or Three Things I Know About Her. He graduated from Rikkyo University, where he was deeply influenced by the film critic Shigehiko Hasumi, from whom he took classes. After graduating, Aoyama worked as an assistant director to Swiss film directorDaniel Schmid, Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. He made his directorial debut with the V-Cinema production It's Not in the Textbook! in 1995. In 1996, Aoyama made Helpless, which is his first feature film. His 2000 film Eureka, also set in Fukuoka, opened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival where it received both the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Together with the 2007 filmSad Vacation, Eureka and Helpless comprise Aoyama's "Kitakyushu Saga." In 2011, he returned with the romance film Tokyo Park, which won the special Golden Leopard award at the 64th Locarno International Film Festival to honor his whole career. His next film, The Backwater, was released in 2013. Aoyama's literary output includes his 2001 novelization of Eureka, which won the Yukio Mishima Prize, as well as the novelHotel Chronicles, which was nominated for the Noma Literary Prize in 2005. He has also contributed as a critic to Cahiers du Cinema Japon and Esquire Japan. As of 2012, he became a professor in the Department of Moving Images and Performing Arts at Tama Art University. He is married to Japanese actressMaho Toyota, who played a leading role in Desert Moon.
Style and influences
of The Japan Times described Aoyama as "A smart, dedicated cinephile who works his influences into his films while experimenting with various genres". Aoyama stated that the origin of the desire to continue the story in "Kitakyushu Saga" is François Truffaut, a French film director who used the same character in some of his films. Aoyama listed F. W. Murnau's Faust and Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar as two of the Greatest Films of All Time in 2012. Regarding Faust he said, "I always want to remember that movies are made out of the joy of the replica. The fascination of movies is not their realism, but how to enjoy the 'real'. In that sense, I always have Faust in my mind as I face a movie, make a movie, and talk about a movie." Regarding Johnny Guitar he said, "Johnny Guitar is the only movie that I‘d like to remake someday, although I know that it’s impossible. It’s probably closest to the worst nightmare I can have. I know for sure that my desire to remake this movie comes from my warped thought that I want to remake my own nightmare."
