Yoshishige Yoshida

Directing

Yoshishige Yoshida

Born 1933-02-16 · Fukui, Japan

Yoshishige Yoshida (吉田 喜重 Yoshida Yoshishige), also known as Kijū Yoshida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Graduating from Tokyo University, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and debuted as a director in 1960 with Rokudenashi. He was a central member of what came to be called the "Shōchiku Nouvelle Vague" along with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, and his works have been studied under the larger rubric of the Japanese New Wave. Like many of his New Wave cohorts, he felt restricted under the studio system and left Shōchiku in 1964 to start his own production company where he directed such films as Eros + Massacre. He has directed more than 20 films between 1960 and 2004. He has also written a number of philosophical books about his work and the cinema, including an award-winning study of Yasujirō Ozu.

Acting credits

Cinématon poster
4.9

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

Cinématon

1978

Wuthering Heights: Love, Hate and Vengeance poster
8.0

In 1847, British writer Emily Brontë (1818-48), perhaps the most enigmatic of the three Brontë sisters, published her novel Wuthering Heights, a dark romance set in the desolation of the moors, a unique work of early Victorian literature that stunned contemporary critics.

Wuthering Heights: Love, Hate and Vengeance

2022

Kijû Yoshida: What Is a Filmmaker? poster
NR

An overview of the life and work of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kijû Yoshida, a notable figure of the Japanese New Wave.

Kijû Yoshida: What Is a Filmmaker?

2008

Dreams of Tokyo, Dreams of Cinema poster
NR

A documentary about cinematographer Gabriel Veyre's adventures introducing cinema to Japan and South America. Veyre was a traveling cameraman for the Lumiere Co. He declared cinema dead only 2 years after its inception after he saw a villager jerk a woman's head to face the camera when he was filming a small group of them.

Dreams of Tokyo, Dreams of Cinema

1995

Yoshida …or: The Explosion of the Story poster
NR

A documentary about Yoshishige (Kijû) Yoshida's creative process for his most significant film, the 1969 avantgarde tour-de-force Eros + Massacre (1969).

Yoshida …or: The Explosion of the Story

2008

The Cinema of Ozu According to Kiju Yoshida poster
NR

Yoshida grew close to Ozu Yasujiro during his time at Shochiku, where he was able to observe the legendary master at work. Although Yoshida and his generation outspokenly rejected the values of Ozu, Kurosawa and the older humanist filmmakers, over the years Yoshida found himself increasingly drawn back to Ozu’s films, fascinated by their unique rigor, formal language and delicate balance between comedy and tragedy. For Japanese television, Yoshida adapted his own text into a four part documentary, which he also condensed into the one hour version.

The Cinema of Ozu According to Kiju Yoshida

1994

Behind the camera

Lumière & Company poster
6.3

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.

Lumière & Company

1995

Akitsu Hot Springs poster
6.5

Just after WW2, a romance between an innkeeper and a man with tuberculosis unravels near a thermal spring.

Akitsu Hot Springs

1962

Akitsu Hot Springs poster
6.5

Just after WW2, a romance between an innkeeper and a man with tuberculosis unravels near a thermal spring.

Akitsu Hot Springs

1962

A Human Promise poster
6.7

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

A Human Promise

1986

A Human Promise poster
6.7

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

A Human Promise

1986

The Affair poster
6.6

As a young woman, Oriko condemned her widowed mother for openly pursuing relationships with younger men. After her mother passes away, she finds herself in an unhappy, loveless marriage and begins to understand her mother’s actions.

The Affair

1967

The Affair poster
6.6

As a young woman, Oriko condemned her widowed mother for openly pursuing relationships with younger men. After her mother passes away, she finds herself in an unhappy, loveless marriage and begins to understand her mother’s actions.

The Affair

1967

Good-for-Nothing poster
6.9

Yoshida's first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a "good-for-nothing" from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend's father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.

Good-for-Nothing

1960

Good-for-Nothing poster
6.9

Yoshida's first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a "good-for-nothing" from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend's father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.

Good-for-Nothing

1960

Eros + Massacre poster
7.3

Two interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers around two 1960s students researching Osugi's theories.

Eros + Massacre

1969

Eros + Massacre poster
7.3

Two interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers around two 1960s students researching Osugi's theories.

Eros + Massacre

1969

Heroic Purgatory poster
7.0

Rikiya Shoda is an engineer working for the Atomic Agency in Japan. One day, his wife Nanako returns home with a lost teenager called Ayu. A man, pretending to be the father, comes to get her back; Ayu keeps telling him that Rikiya and Nanako are her parents. Through this disruption, Rikiya suddenly starts remembering his youth as a revolutionary.

Heroic Purgatory

1970

Heroic Purgatory poster
7.0

Rikiya Shoda is an engineer working for the Atomic Agency in Japan. One day, his wife Nanako returns home with a lost teenager called Ayu. A man, pretending to be the father, comes to get her back; Ayu keeps telling him that Rikiya and Nanako are her parents. Through this disruption, Rikiya suddenly starts remembering his youth as a revolutionary.

Heroic Purgatory

1970

Wuthering Heights poster
6.8

Young orphan Onimaru is adopted by the wealthy Yamabe family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Kinu. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Kinu, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Mitsuhiko, a man of means who befits her stature. Onimaru vows to win her back.

Wuthering Heights

1988

Wuthering Heights poster
6.8

Young orphan Onimaru is adopted by the wealthy Yamabe family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Kinu. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Kinu, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Mitsuhiko, a man of means who befits her stature. Onimaru vows to win her back.

Wuthering Heights

1988

Confessions Among Actresses poster
6.0

In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.

Confessions Among Actresses

1971

Confessions Among Actresses poster
6.0

In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.

Confessions Among Actresses

1971

Confessions Among Actresses poster
6.0

In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.

Confessions Among Actresses

1971

Woman of the Lake poster
7.1

A married woman lets her lover take naked pictures of her. The photos end up in possession of a man who starts blackmailing the couple.

Woman of the Lake

1966

Woman of the Lake poster
7.1

A married woman lets her lover take naked pictures of her. The photos end up in possession of a man who starts blackmailing the couple.

Woman of the Lake

1966

Impasse poster
6.4

Shingo and Ritsuko have a baby: Takashi. They happen to be a happy couple, but soon Ritsuko wants to know who is the true father of Takashi, born by artificial insemination.

Impasse

1967

Impasse poster
6.4

Shingo and Ritsuko have a baby: Takashi. They happen to be a happy couple, but soon Ritsuko wants to know who is the true father of Takashi, born by artificial insemination.

Impasse

1967

A Story Written with Water poster
6.3

Struggling with his true emotions, dreams, memories of the past and the reality Shizuo is about to marry, but is torn between his wife-to-be and the love to his mother.

A Story Written with Water

1965

A Story Written with Water poster
6.3

Struggling with his true emotions, dreams, memories of the past and the reality Shizuo is about to marry, but is torn between his wife-to-be and the love to his mother.

A Story Written with Water

1965