Teshigahara Hiroshi
Teshigahara Hiroshi (勅使河原 宏,
January 28,
1927 -
April 14,
2001) was an avant-garde Japanese film-maker. He was born in
Tokyo, son to the famous 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 went on to direct his first film,
The Pitfall, in collaboration with author
Kobo Abe and musician
Toru Takemitsu in
1962. The film won the
NHK New Director's award, and throughout the
1960s, Teshigahara continued to collaborate on films with Abe and Takemitsu while simultaneously pursuing his interest in Ikebana and sculpture on a professional level.
In 1964, the Teshigahara/Abe film The Woman in the Dunes was considered for an Academy Award and ended up winning the Special Judge's 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 on, Teshigahara's directing output on feature films decreased as he concentrated more on documentaries, exhibitions and the Sogetsu School, eventually becoming the grand master of the school in 1980.
On the first anniversary of his death, in April 14, 2002, a DVD box set of his most famous works was released in Japan to commemorate his work.
Filmography of Major Works
- The Pitfall (1962)
- The Woman in the Dunes (1964)
- The Face of Another (1966)
- The Ruined Map (1968)
- Summer Soldiers (1972)
- Rikyu (1989)
- Princess Goh (1992)
External Links