
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Personal Info
Known for
Directing
Gender
Male
Birthday
1927-01-28
Day of Death
2001-04-14 (74 years old)
Place of Birth
Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Biography
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.
Known For
Crew
(1992)
Basara: The Princess Goh
Director, Writer
(1989)
Rikyu
Director, Writer
(1985)
(1984)
Antonio Gaudí
Director, Editor, Executive Producer
(1981)
Moving Sculpture: Jean Tinguely
Director
(1972)
Summer Soldiers
Director, Director of Photography
(1970)
240 Hours in One Day
Director
(1968)
The Man Without a Map
Director
(1967)
Explosion Course
Director
(1966)
The Face of Another
Director
(1965)
Jose Torres II
Director
(1964)
Woman in the Dunes
Director
(1964)
Ako
Director, Writer
(1964)
That Tender Age
Director
(1962)
Pitfall
Director
(1962)
Sculptures by Sofu - Vita
Director
(1959)
Jose Torres
Director, Director of Photography
(1959)
Gaudi, Catalunya
Director
(1958)
Tokyo 1958
Director, Screenplay, Editor, Producer
(1958)
Living in a Rough Sea
Cinematography
(1957)
Ikebana
Director
(1957)
(1957)
Record of Bloodshed: Sunagawa
Cinematography
(1956)
It Is Good to Live
Co-Director
(1955)
12 Photographers
Director
(1955)
Wheat Will Never Fall
Editor
(1953)
Hokusai
Director, Associate Producer