was a Japanese

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. He is most noted for his 1938

historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romance film, romances, adventure f ...

film ''

Fallen Blossoms , also titled ''Flowers Have Fallen'' and ''The Blossoms Have Fallen'', is a 1938 Japanese drama film directed by Tamizō Ishida, based on a play by Kaoru Morimoto. Plot Set within a Kyoto geisha house against the backdrop of the 1864 Kinmon in ...

'', which is now regarded as one of the outstanding works of 1930s Japanese cinema.

Biography

Ishida was born in

Masuda is a city located in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on August 1, 1952. As of December 2021, the city has a population of 44,976. As of December 2019, the city has a population of 46,209. As of March 2017, the city has a popula ...

(now

Yokote is a city located in Akita Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 89,574 in 34,240 households, and a population density of 130 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Yokote is located in southeast c ...

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is approximately 966,000 (as of 1 October 2019) and its ge ...

, Japan. He gave his directing debut at Toa Kinema in 1926, specialising in

chanbara , also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of '' ...

(sword fight) films, the majority of which are regarded as lost. In the mid-1930s, Ishida made himself a name with literary adaptations, often in collaboration with the

Bungakuza is a Japanese theatre company. Along with the Mingei Theatre Company and the Haiyuza Theatre Company it is considered one of the "Big Three" among Shingeki theatre troupes. History The company was founded by Kunio Kishida, Mantarō Kubota and ...

theatre troupe, and films with female casts. Nowadays, his films set in entertainment districts are regarded as his standout works, most notably the 1938 ''Fallen Blossoms'', a formally innovative film about the inhabitants of a

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

geisha house in the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. Other notable films of the era include ''Yoru no hato'' (1937), ''Mukashi no uta'' and ''Hanatsumi nikki'' (both 1939), ''Keshōyuki'' (1940, based on a story by

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ...

) and ''Asagiri gunka'' (1943). After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ishida directed only one more film before his early retirement from film business, instead running a teahouse with his wife in

Kamishichiken , pronounced locally as Kamihichiken, is a district of northwest Kyoto, Japan. It is the oldest hanamachi (geisha district) in Kyoto, and is located just east of the Kitano Tenman-gū Shrine. The name Kamishichiken literally means "Seven Upper Hous ...

Selected filmography

* 1927: ''Keyamura Rokusuke'' (毛谷村六助) * 1927: ''Date hiroku: Matsumae Tetsunosuke'' (伊達秘録松前鉄之助) partially extant film * 1934: ''Osen'' (おせん) partially extant film * 1937: ''Hanabi no machi'' (花火の街) * 1937: ''Yoru no hato'' (夜の鳩) * 1938: ''Fallen Blossoms'' (''Hana chirinu'') * 1939: ''Mukashi no uta'' (むかしの歌) * 1939: ''Hanatsumi nikki'' (花つみ日記) * 1940: ''Keshōyuki'' (化粧雪) * 1943: ''Asagiri gunka'' (あさぎり軍歌) * 1947: ''En wa ina mono'' (縁は異なもの)

Legacy

In 2022, the

National Film Archive of Japan The is an independent administrative institution and one of Japan's seven national museums of art, which specializes in preserving and exhibiting the film heritage of Japan. In its previous incarnation, it was the National Film Center, which was p ...

presented a small retrospective in commemoration of Ishida with seven of his films. ''Fallen Blossoms'' was screened at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in 2017 and included in the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's ''The best Japanese film of every year – from 1925 to now'' list.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ishida, Tamizo Japanese film directors 1901 births 1972 deaths Artists from Akita Prefecture