今村昌平崛起於1960年代前後的日本電影新浪潮期間，使他成為該電影運動的重要旗手之一，不過他的作品風格跟其他新浪潮導演有不少相異之處，顯示他不跟隨潮流的性格及及他在新浪潮中的特殊性。
今村的作品一向以低下階層的庶民生活為中心，細膩地刻畫人性，寫實地描繪人物受到本能慾望驅策的生存方式。他的創作興趣在於「人的下半身及社會的低下階層」，因此性和底層生活成為貫徹他全數作品的重要觀念，而這正可反映出其原始人性的論述。他像人類學家或昆蟲學家般仔細地觀察他的人物，著眼於日常細節，揭露慾望衍生出的各種人性對立、矛盾、衝突、掙扎，風格冷峻地刻劃日本人在性、女性、生存、命運、戰爭、傳統、價值觀、真實性、身份認同、現代化衝擊、新舊文化衝突等層面上的特點，挖掘日本文化獨特的生死觀、原始性、劣根性、性文化等，至於動物意象徵的隱喻更令人留下強烈的印象。
今村的作品明顯具有日本性（Japaneseness），不過又與前代傳統日本電影中的官方日本性背道而馳。他作品中呈現的日本底層社會和人民與一般人（尤其外國人）對於日本民族的印象和認知有極大的差距，然而這種非官方表述可能才代表「真實的」日本，也才是真正瞭解原始人性和日本民族性的最佳方式。他逼視人性的底線，描寫在貧困環境中打滾的日本人，但他的意圖絕非貶低或批評這些低下階層人民，而是想展現日本的民族性格和庶民活力，肯定人類的生命力和生存意志。
本論文將聚焦於今村於1958-1966年發行的8部早期作品，主要原因是今村在1983年金棕櫚獎得獎作《楢山節考》之前的電影在中文界鮮少人知，所以今村的中文評論大多集中在這部國際代表作之後的電影，使得今村早期作品的相關資料相對而言十分短缺，以作者軌跡觀之呈現一大段分析斷層，因此補齊前段研究的空白可幫助建構前後一貫的作者論，對這位導演的中文論述極具研究貢獻。事實上，今村的早期作品最能表現出其畢生創作宗旨的原始人性及底層日本議題，顯然已豎立其未來的創作方向，並奠定其關心重點和美學風格，可謂為主題確立和作者建立之作，而基於這些前期研究成果也可使今村作品的後續研究更有所根據。
除了8部早期黑白電影，本論文會另外探討相隔17年後的《楢山節考》，不僅因為這是今村最為人所知的國際代表作，主要原因是這部電影可視為今村原始人性議題發揮地最淋漓盡致的作品，對本研究的重要性不容小覷，將有助於深入本論文題旨的原始人性論，強化本能慾望和底層社會議題，同時彩色畫面的效果也更能突顯動物意象和露骨性愛的寫實呈現。
本論文是針對日本電影與日本歷史、社會、文化和民族性等範疇之間進行思考，探討今村作品中構建出的作者特色，同時參照東方和西方的電影或文化理論，並引用各家論點佐證，以跨學科研究的宏觀角度出發，實屬立足於比較文學研究的性質。理論基礎著重於文化人類學和紀爾茲（Clifford Geertz）的深描說（thick description）理論，也會應用其他電影分析、電影評論、日本電影、日本文化等各方面的相關論述；研究方法會採用文本分析，並基於作者論的立場，而且除了以西方學說為重要基礎，還會加入東方論述和文化評論。
在進入論文主體的今村作品研究前，會先探討日本電影研究的相關文獻，從大概念到小概念，闡明幾位東西方電影學者的代表性著作；然後綜觀今村各個時期的創作脈絡；接著進入論文主體，分析今村早期8部電影及《楢山節考》，探索今村作品中的一貫主題和整體風格，解讀文本中的故事內容和象徵母題，剖析文本表層和深層結構所呈現的文化內涵，以建立其原始人性論，瞭解其詮釋底層日本的思路和方式，並確立其作品在日本電影脈絡中的特殊性。
今村昌平於2006年5月30日辭世。他的作品始終反映出日本文化中的非官方傳統，呈現日本電影豐富又多元的面貌，實質上極具時代意義。終究，是時代的歷史和社會環境造就了今村，或許他不是最偉大的日本導演，而他留下的電影在世界影壇及對後世的影響力也有待考驗，然而他的作品肯定是電影史上為底層人民發聲的重要遺產。

For many film critics, Imamura Shohei is one of the greatest Japanese filmmakers emerging from the Japanese New Wave Cinema around the 1960s. Unlike Oshima Nagisa and other political filmmakers from the same generation, rather than dedicating himself to more theoretical issues, he assumes an unpretentious tone to embrace a vital and vigorous world. As for Western critics, his significance can be seen as one of the only four directors in the world to win the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival twice, with his Ballad of Narayama (1983) and The Eel (1997) respectively.
Imamura seeks to recover the essence of “Japaneseness” through his works and believes Japanese mind is rooted in lower classes. Nevertheless, his discoveries have exposed the underside of Japan, the antithesis of official conventions and Confucianist families in traditional Japanese cinema. He says he wants to make “messy, really human, Japanese, unsettling films.” Accordingly, his body of work reveals a unique interest in ribald, greedy, lustful, deceitful, vicious, vulgar, indomitable yet always strong, vivacious and touching characters. He celebrates everything excluded from refined official world: the irrational, the vulgar, the primitive, the intuitional, the instinctual, the spontaneous, the carnal, and the superstitious life of Japan’s underclass; and he adores people who are not given due social status, such as peasants, prostitutes, pimps, shamans, pornographers, burglars, gangsters, black marketers, criminals, and whatever outcasts or proletarians or loners or misfits.
Imamura is devoted to the concern of “the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure,” a metaphor that can serve as a paradigmatic guide through his films. Therefore, sex and low life can be claimed to be the most important concepts in all his works. The way Imamura looks at his characters is with stringent insights, but never without a certain admiration for them. He worships tenacious working classes of Japan because they retain the wholeness, undefiled by modernization, civilization and hypocrisy. And he takes an anthropological or entomological point of view to delve into daily life of Japanese underworld, where animals, nature and humans are closely interconnected, and this reflects the same essence of primitive human nature.
In this dissertation, Imamura’s eight early films (1958-1966) and Ballad of Narayama are opted for textual analysis. The reason for this selection is that there have been limited scholarship in Chinese language on Imamura’s early works, but in fact those films have elaborated the themes, aesthetics and styles which persist in all his following works. For that matter, a study of Imamura’s early films can contribute greatly to academic results regarding this filmmaker and possibly draw out generic features of his auteurism. Except for these eight films, this research also analyzes Imamura’s milestone work in his film career, Ballad of Narayama. This masterpiece can be specified as his most informative work on the theme of primitive human nature, consequently reinforcing the elements of instinctive desires and lower classes.
Japanese cinema has been distinct in film history with its nativism and nonconformity since its early development. This dissertation also investigates a variety of critical issues which Japanese cinema encounters in diverse aspects such as history, society, tradition, culture, esthetics, ideology and national identity. Moreover, referring to both Eastern and Western methodologies, and citing from different critics’ dissimilar critiques, along with the classification and comparison of Eastern and Western theses on Japanese cinema in Chapter 2, this study can be affirmed as an interdisciplinary research on the basis of the comparative literature perspective with the goal to enlighten more appropriate reading of Japanese cinema without bias or dichotomy based on Orientalism.
Finally, through the textual analysis of Imamura’s works, this dissertation has established the filmmaker’s authorship, and argues that Imamura can be suggested “the very Japanese of Japanese directors,” for he has found his locus in a closeness to a life deep-rooted in the “real” Japan.