Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara January 28 1927 April 14 2001 was an avantgarde 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 Directors 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 TeshigaharaAbe 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 mid1970s 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 Kurosawas 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