Directing
Keisuke Kinoshita
Born 1912-12-05 · Shizuoka, Japan
Keisuke Kinoshita (木下 惠介, Kinoshita Keisuke, December 5, 1912 – December 30, 1998) was a Japanese film director. Hugely popular in his home country of Japan, Keisuke Kinoshita worked tirelessly as a director for nearly half a century, making lyrical, sentimental films that often center on the inherent goodness of people, especially in times of distress. He began his directing career during a most challenging time for Japanese cinema: World War II, when the industry’s output was closely monitored by the state and often had to be purely propagandistic. He refused to be bound by genre, technique, or dogma. Kinoshita excelled in almost every genre: comedy, tragedy, social dramas, period films. He shot all films on location or in a one-house set. He pursued severe photographic realism with the long take, long-shot method, and went equally far toward stylization with fast cutting, intricate wipes, tilted cameras, and even classical scroll-painting and Kabuki stage technique. Kinoshita was highly prolific, turning out some 42 films in the first 23 years of his career. For this, Kinoshita explained that he "can’t help it. Ideas for films have always just popped into my head like scraps of paper into a wastebasket." While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu, he was a household figure in his home country, beloved by both critics and audiences from the 1940s to the 1960s. Although few concrete details have emerged about Kinoshita's personal life, his homosexuality was widely known in the film world. Screenwriter and frequent collaborator Yoshio Shirasaka recalls the "brilliant scene" Kinoshita made with the handsome, well-dressed assistant directors he surrounded himself with. His 1959 film Farewell to Spring (Sekishuncho) has been called "Japan's first gay film" for the emotional intensity depicted between its male characters. Kinoshita received the Order of the Rising Sun in 1984 and was awarded the Order of Culture in 1991 by the Japanese government. He died on December 30, 1998, of a stroke. His grave is in Engaku-ji in Kamakura, very near to that of his fellow Shochiku director, Yasujirō Ozu.
Acting credits
7.7From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.
Twenty-Four Eyes
1954
6.8An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
I Lived, But...
1983
Behind the camera
7.7From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.
Twenty-Four Eyes
1954
7.7From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.
Twenty-Four Eyes
1954
6.2A young widow, made world weary by her abusive, neglectful husband, finds herself in a minor scandal when she's seen with her intense, no-nonsense childhood sweetheart.
The Tattered Wings
1955
6.2A young widow, made world weary by her abusive, neglectful husband, finds herself in a minor scandal when she's seen with her intense, no-nonsense childhood sweetheart.
The Tattered Wings
1955
7.5In a remote village where food is scarce, elders who reach the age of 70 are carried by their children to the top of a nearby mountain to die in solitude. Orin, a vibrant 69-year-old grandmother, has accepted her fate — but struggles to prepare the rest of her family for the ritual.
The Ballad of Narayama
1958
7.5In a remote village where food is scarce, elders who reach the age of 70 are carried by their children to the top of a nearby mountain to die in solitude. Orin, a vibrant 69-year-old grandmother, has accepted her fate — but struggles to prepare the rest of her family for the ritual.
The Ballad of Narayama
1958
6.0In the Meiji period, a schoolteacher tries to hide his lower-class upbringing as he supports a visiting liberal intellectual.
Apostasy
1948
6.9After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.
The Snow Flurry
1959
6.9After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.
The Snow Flurry
1959
6.1Like many women after the war, Toshiko works as a chorus girl; her boyfriend Tadashi wishes she'd join him more frequently, but she detests his criminal involvement.
Woman
1948
6.1Like many women after the war, Toshiko works as a chorus girl; her boyfriend Tadashi wishes she'd join him more frequently, but she detests his criminal involvement.
Woman
1948
6.8Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.
Love Letter
1953
6.1A man whose son has been murdered pushes to create laws to financially protect victims' families.
Oh, My Son!
1979
6.1A man whose son has been murdered pushes to create laws to financially protect victims' families.
Oh, My Son!
1979
6.8A lighthouse keeper and his family follow work from town to town, each time making new friends and receiving a visit from his troublesome father.
Big Joys, Small Sorrows
1986
6.8A lighthouse keeper and his family follow work from town to town, each time making new friends and receiving a visit from his troublesome father.
Big Joys, Small Sorrows
1986
5.8Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza.
The Rose on His Arm
1956
5.8Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza.
The Rose on His Arm
1956
5.4A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own misperceptions and prejudices to defeat his enemies and uproot corruption.
Dora-heita
2000
7.7In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.
The River Fuefuki
1960
7.7In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.
The River Fuefuki
1960
7.7In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.
The River Fuefuki
1960
6.6A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.
The Garden of Women
1954
6.6A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.
The Garden of Women
1954