Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara (January 28, 1927 – April 14, 2001) was an avant-garde Japanese filmmaker.

He was born in Tokyo, son of Sofu Teshigahara, founder and grand master of the Sogetsu School of ikebana. He graduated in 1950 from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and began working in documentary film. He directed his first feature film, Pitfall (1962), in collaboration with author Kōbō Abe and musician Tōru Takemitsu. The film won the NHK New Director's award, and throughout the 1960s, he continued to collaborate on films with Abe and Takemitsu while simultaneously pursuing his interest in ikebana and sculpture on a professional level. In 1965, the Teshigahara/Abe film Woman in the Dunes (1964) was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1972, he worked with Japanese researcher and translator John Nathan to make the movie Summer Soldiers, a film set during the Vietnam War about American deserters living on the fringe of Japanese society. From the mid-1970s onwards, he worked less frequently on feature films as he concentrated more on documentaries, exhibitions and the Sogetsu School and became grand master of the school in 1980. In 1978, Teshigahara Hiroshi directed the final two episodes of the long running and popular Japanese television series Shin Zatouichi, starring Shintarō Katsu as the blind wandering Yakuza. During Akira Kurosawa's 5 year hiatus from filmmaking, he watched a lot of television and was particularly taken by the final episode of Shin Zatouichi - Episode: Journey of Dreams (1978). The influence of this particular episode included the initial casting of Shintaro Katsu in the lead roles in Kagemusha and the extended artistic dream sequences contributed to those seen in Kagemusha (1980). On the first anniversary of his death, April 14, 2002, a DVD box set containing his best known work was released in Japan in commemoration.

Directing

Writing

1989

1964

Ako
Movie

Writer

1958

Tokyo 1958
Movie

Screenplay

Acting

Editing

Production

1984

Antonio Gaudí
Movie

Executive Producer

1958

Camera

1972

Summer Soldiers
Movie

Director of Photography

1959

Jose Torres
Movie

Director of Photography

Art

1958

The Living Sea
Movie

Production Design

Crew

Infos

Full Name
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Gender
Male
Date of Birth
1/28/1927
Date of Death
4/14/2001
Also Known As

敕使河原宏

Хироси Тэсигахара