Keisuke Kinoshita

Biography

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 o…

Directed

1. Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) — Director
2. The Ballad of Narayama (1958) — Director
3. Carmen Comes Home (1951) — Director
4. Immortal Love (1961) — Director
5. A Japanese Tragedy (1953) — Director
6. She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (1955) — Director
7. Army (1944) — Director
8. A Legend or Was It? (1963) — Director
9. Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 1 (1949) — Director
10. Carmen's Innocent Love (1952) — Director
11. Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 2 (1949) — Director
12. Here's to the Young Lady (1949) — Director
13. The River Fuefuki (1960) — Director
14. Boyhood (1951) — Director
15. Wedding Ring (1950) — Director
16. Port of Flowers (1943) — Director
17. The Garden of Women (1954) — Director
18. Morning for the Osone Family (1946) — Director
19. Farewell to Dream (1956) — Director
20. The Snow Flurry (1959) — Director
21. The Tattered Wings (1955) — Director
22. Danger Stalks Near (1957) — Director
23. The Living Magoroku (1943) — Director
24. The Scent of Incense (1964) — Director
25. Woman (1948) — Director
26. Farewell to Spring (1959) — Director
27. Phoenix (1947) — Director
28. Jubilation Street (1944) — Director
29. Children of Nagasaki (1983) — Director
30. The Rose on His Arm (1956) — Director
31. Father (1988) — Director
32. The Good Fairy (1951) — Director
33. Oh, My Son! (1979) — Director
34. Spring Dreams (1960) — Director
35. Broken Drum (1949) — Director
36. Fireworks Over the Sea (1951) — Director
37. Thus Another Day (1959) — Director
38. Ballad of a Workman (1962) — Director
39. Apostasy (1948) — Director
40. The Portrait (1948) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) — (uncredited)
2. I Lived, But... (1983) — Self