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Pitfall (1962 Film)
, a.k.a. ''The Pitfall'' and ''Kashi To Kodomo'', is a 1962 Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, written by Kōbō Abe. It was Teshigahara's first feature, and the first of his four film collaborations with Abe, the others being ''Woman in the Dunes'', ''The Face of Another'' and ''The Man Without a Map''. Unlike the others, which are based on novels by Abe, ''Pitfall'' was originally a television play called Purgatory (Rengoku). The film has been included in The Criterion Collection. Plot ''Pitfall'' is set against the background of labour relations in the Japanese mining industry, but the film owes as much to surrealism as it does to "socially aware" drama. The mine in the film is divided into two pits, the old one and the new one, each represented by a different trade union faction. A mysterious man in white, whose identity we never learn, murders an unemployed miner who bears an uncanny resemblance to the union leader at the old pit and bribes the only witness to fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiroshi Teshigahara
was a Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and artist from the Japanese New Wave era. He is best known for the 1964 film ''Woman in the Dunes''. He is also known for directing other titles such as ''The Face of Another'' (1966), ''Natsu No Heitai'' (''Summer Soldiers'', 1972), and '' Pitfall'' (1962) which was Teshigahara's directorial debut. He has been called "one of the most acclaimed Japanese directors of all time". Teshigahara is the first person of Asian descent to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, accomplishing this in 1964 for his work on ''Woman in the Dunes''. Apart from being a filmmaker, Teshigahara also practiced other arts, such as calligraphy, pottery, painting, opera and ikebana. Biography Teshigahara was born in Tokyo, the son of Sōfu Teshigahara, founder and grand master of the Sōgetsu-ryū 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or ''surreality.'' It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media. Works of Surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and '' non sequitur''. However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism" Breton speaks of in the first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e. artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan Art Theatre Guild
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 123.2 million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Second Brother
is a 1959 Japanese drama film by Shōhei Imamura. The screenplay is based on the diary of ten-year-old zainichi (ethnic Korean Japanese) Sueko Yasumoto, which became a bestseller upon publication. Plot The film tells the story of four orphans living in an impoverished mining town. Cast * Hiroyuki Nagato as Kiichi Yasumoto, eldest brother * Kayo Matsuo as Yoshiko, eldest sister * Takeshi Okimura as Kōichi, second brother * Akiko Maeda as Sueko, younger sister * Kō Nishimura as Gorō Mitamura * Yoshio Ōmori as Seki * Toshio Takahara as shop assistant (bicycle shop) * Taiji Tonoyama as Gengorō Henmi * Shinsuke Ashida as Sakai * Kazuko Yoshiyuki as Kanako Hori * Shōichi Ozawa as Haruo Kanayama Reception Film scholar Alexander Jacoby called ''My Second Brother'' an "uncharacteristically tender film" for the director. Awards * Mainichi Film Award – Best Supporting Actress (Kanako Hori), Best Sound (Fumio Hashimoto) * Blue Ribbon Awards The are film-specific prizes awarded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shōhei Imamura
was a Japanese film director. His main interest as a filmmaker lay in the depiction of the lower strata of Japanese society. A key figure in the Japanese New Wave, who continued working into the 21st century, Imamura is the only director from Japan to win two Palme d'Or awards. Biography Early life Imamura was born to an upper-middle-class doctor's family in Tokyo in 1926. For a short time following the end of the war, Imamura participated in the black market selling cigarettes and liquor. He studied Western history at Waseda University, but spent more time participating in theatrical and political activities. He cited a viewing of Akira Kurosawa's ''Rashomon'' in 1950 as an early inspiration, and said he saw it as an indication of the new freedom of expression possible in Japan in the post-war era. Upon graduation from Waseda in 1951, Imamura began his film career working as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu at Shochiku Studios on films like ''Early Summer'' and ''Tokyo Story''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock Footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock footage is called a "stock shot" or a "library shot". Stock footage may have appeared in previous productions but may also be outtakes or footage shot for previous productions and not used. Examples of stock footage that might be utilized are moving images of cities and landmarks, wildlife in their natural environments, and historical footage. Suppliers of stock footage may be either rights managed or royalty-free. Many websites offer direct downloads of clips in various formats. History Stock footage companies began to emerge in the mid-1980s, offering clips mastered on Betacam SP, VHS, and film formats. Many of the smaller libraries that specialized in niche topics such as extreme sports, technological or cultural collections were boug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyūshū
is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands. Kyushu has a land area of and a population of 14,311,224 in 2018. In the 8th-century Taihō Code reforms, Dazaifu was established as a special administrative term for the region. Geography The island is mountainous, and Japan's most active volcano, Mount Aso at , is on Kyushu. There are many other signs of tectonic activity, including numerous areas of hot springs. The most famous of these are in Beppu, on the east shore, and around Mt. Aso in central Kyushu. The island is separated from Honshu by the Kanmon Straits. Being the nearest island to the Asian continent, historically it is the gateway to Japan. The total area is which makes it the 37th largest island in the world. It's slightly larger than Taiwan island . ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via an online streaming service that the company operates. History The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker and Jonathan B. Turell f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treaty Of Mutual Cooperation And Security Between The United States And Japan
The , more commonly known as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in English and as the or just in Japanese, is a treaty that permits the presence of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil, and commits the two nations to defend each other if one or the other is attacked "in the territories under the administration of Japan". Over time, it has had the effect of establishing a military alliance between the United States and Japan. The current treaty, which took effect on June 23, 1960, revised and replaced an earlier version of the treaty, which had been signed in 1951 in conjunction with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty that terminated World War II in Asia as well as the U.S.-led Occupation of Japan (19451952). The revision of the treaty in 1960 was a highly contentious process in Japan, and widespread opposition to its passage led to the massive Anpo protests, which were the largest popular protests in Japan's history. The 1960 treaty significantly revised the U.S.-Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kei Satō
was a Japanese character actor and narrator. He is known for his work with Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima, and for several films with Kaneto Shindo, such as '' Onibaba'' and ''Kuroneko''. He won the best actor award from ''Kinema Junpo'' for the films '' The Ceremony'' and ''Nihon no akuryō''. He also worked as a narrator for many documentaries, both on television and film. In his early days as an actor, before his success in ''The Human Condition'', he supported himself by producing ''gariban'' hand-written mimeographs, and he maintained his interest in hand-printing to the end of his life. In 1981 he appeared in the film ''Daydream'' performing an unsimulated sex scene with actress Kyoko Aizome is a very common feminine Japanese given name. Not to be confused with Kiyoko. Possible writings The final syllable "ko" is typically written with the kanji character for child, 子. It is a common suffix to female names in Japan. The first sy .... The involvement of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kunie Tanaka
was a Japanese actor. Tanaka first made a name for himself as the lecherous antagonist of the ''Wakadaishō'' series (1961–1981) of films. He is also well-known for his roles in Kinji Fukasaku's yakuza films, namely the ''Battles Without Honor and Humanity'' series (1973–1974), and for starring in the ''Kita no Kuni Kara'' (1981–2002) television series. Tanaka was nominated for five Japanese Academy Awards, winning Best Supporting Actor for ''Gakko'' in 1993. He also won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''Nogare no Machi'' and ''Izakaya Chōji'' in 1983, and the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor for '' Uhohho Tankentai'' in 1986. For his contributions to the arts, the Japanese government decorated Tanaka with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1999 and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2006. Life and career Tanaka was born on November 23, 1932 in Toki District, Gifu to a family of Mino ware potters. After graduating from Reitaku Junior College, he became a sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hideo Kanze
was a Japanese actor and director, who specialized in the Noh form of musical drama. He was the second son of Kanze Tetsunojō VII, a descendant of Kan'ami and Zeami, who founded the Noh movement in the 14th century. Trained alongside his brothers by his father and grandfather, Kanze made his Noh stage debut at the age of three. After World War II ended, Kanze attended the Tokyo Music School, although he dropped out before completing his studies. With his family running one of Japan's five main Noh schools, Kanze was controversially adopted by another school, the Kita group, for 11 years. His activities caused an uproar in the Noh community, and he quit the movement, acting in conventional drama and films. With the help of his older brother, Hisao Kanze, also an actor, Hideo resumed his career in Noh in 1979. On May 2, 2007, Kanze was involved in a serious car accident when his car crashed into the median strip on the Chūō Expressway in Tokyo. An elderly female passenger, beli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
