Hokusai

Japan

1953

23 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

Japanese

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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DP Hiromi Hasegawa, Junichi Segawa, Susumu Urashima

This look at the work and life of block-print artist Katsushika Hokusai (1740-1849) begins with the political context of the Edo shogunate at the time of his birth: peasants driven off their land come to the city; a merchant class is emerging; samurais’ power wanes. Hokusai lives in poverty, apprenticed as a printmaker, studying under the best artists of the day, especially Korin. Hokusai’s unique style strives for realism. The camera slowly pans Hokusai’s art: we see prints popular with merchants and commoners, particularly his caricatures; his subjects are often people at work. Late in life, political turmoil becomes his subject. —IMDb

Director

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Hiroshi Teshigahara (勅使河原宏, Teshigahara Hiroshi?, 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 the Sogetsu School of ikebana. He graduated in 1950 from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and directed his first 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… read more