木下惠介
Director
71
Movies
12
TV Shows
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.
Behind the Camera
二人の世界
Director, Productor, Creator
おやじ太鼓
Escritor, Creator
3人家族
Creator
思い橋
Creator
たんとんとん
Director, Productor, Creator
わが子は他人
Creator, Director
どですかでん
Productor Ejecutivo
兄弟
Director, Creator
俄 −浪華遊侠伝−
Productor
楢山節考
Director, Guionista
太陽の涙
Escritor, Creator
二十四の瞳
Director, Guionista
春の夢
Director, Guionista
どら平太
Guionista
幸福相談
Productor, Creator
永遠の人
Productor, Director, Guionista
二人で歩いた幾春秋
Productor, Guionista, Director
死闘の伝説
Director, Guionista, Productor
今年の恋
Original Story, Creator
陸軍
Director
生きてゐる孫六
Director, Escritor
恋文
Guionista
女の園
Director, Guionista
お嬢さん乾杯!
Director
五人の兄妹
Escritor, Idea
日本の悲劇
Guionista, Director
妻の日の愛のかたみに
Escritor
愛と智恵の輪
Guionista
新釈四谷怪談 前篇
Director
二十四の瞳
Guionista