Kihachirō Kawamoto
Kihachirō Kawamoto | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | August 23, 2010[1] | (aged 85)
Monuments | Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum[2] |
Occupation | Director of animated films |
Years active | 1968–2005 |
Style | Stop motion |
Title | President of Japan Animation Association |
Term | 1989–2010 |
Predecessor | Osamu Tezuka |
Successor | Taku Furukawa[3] |
Awards | Winsor McCay Award Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette[4] |
Kihachirō Kawamoto (
Since beginning his career in his early twenties as a production design assistant under So Matsuyama[6] in the art department of Toho in 1946,[1] he met Tadasu Iizawa and left the film studio in 1950 to collaborate with him on illustrating children's literature with photographs of dolls in dioramas, many of which have been republished in English editions by such American publishers as Grosset & Dunlap and Western Publishing's Golden Books imprint,[6] and trained in the art of stop motion filmmaking under Tadahito Mochinaga and, later, Jiří Trnka.
He is also closely associated with Tadanari Okamoto, another independent filmmaker. They collaborated in booking private halls in which to show their films to the public as the "Puppet Animashow" in the 1970s. Okamoto's last film, The Restaurant of Many Orders (
Biography[edit]
Born in 1925, from an early age Kawamoto was captivated by the art of doll and puppet making. After seeing the works of maestro Czech animator Jiří Trnka, he first became interested in stop motion puppet animation and during the 1950s began working alongside Japan's first puppet animator, the legendary Tadahito Mochinaga.
In 1958, he co-founded Shiba Productions to make commercial animation for television, but it was not until 1963, when he traveled to Prague to study puppet animation under Jiří Trnka for a year, that he considered his puppets to have truly began to take on a life of their own. Trnka encouraged Kawamoto to draw on his own country's rich cultural heritage in his work, and so Kawamoto returned from Czechoslovakia to make a series of highly individual, independently produced artistic short works, beginning with Breaking of Branches is Forbidden (Hana-Ori) in 1968.
Heavily influence by the traditional aesthetics of Nō, Bunraku-style puppetry and kabuki, since the '70s his haunting puppet animations such as The Demon (Oni, 1972), Dōjōji Temple (Dōjōji, 1976) and House of Flame (Kataku, 1979) have won numerous prizes internationally. He has also produced cut-out (kirigami) animations such as Travel (Tabi, 1973) and A Poet's Life (Shijin no Shogai, 1974). In 1990 he returned to Trnka's studios in Prague to make Briar Rose, or The Sleeping Beauty.
In Japan, he is best known for designing the puppets used in the long-running TV series based on the Chinese literary classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sangokushi, 1982–84), and later for The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari, 1993–94). In 2003, he was responsible for overseeing the Winter Days (Fuyu no Hi) project, in which 35 of the world's top animators each worked on a two-minute segment inspired by the renka couplets of celebrated poet Matsuo Bashō.
The Book of the Dead (Shisha no Sho) is Kawamoto's only feature length animation, 1981's Rennyo and His Mother (Rennyo to Sono Haha) being a live-action puppet film. It had its world premiere as a part of a Special Retrospective Tribute at the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1–9, 2005, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic).
Filmography[edit]
Short films[edit]
- Breaking of Branches is Forbidden (
花 折 り, Hana-Ori, March 1, 1968, 14 min.) [1] - Anthropo-Cynical Farce (Farce anthropo-cynique, January 1, 1970, 8 min., from a story by Riichi Yokomitsu)
- The Demon (
鬼 , Oni, September 2, 1972, 8 min.) [2] [7] - Travel (
旅 , Tabi, January 1, 1973, 12 min.) [3] [4] - A Poet's Life (
詩人 の生涯 , Shijin no Shōgai, January 1, 1974, 19 min., from a story by Kōbō Abe) [5] - Dōjōji (
道成寺 , June 19, 1976, 19 min., from the Nō play of the same name) [6] - House of Flame (
火宅 , Kataku, December 10, 1979, 19 min., from the Nō play Motomezuka) [7] - Self-Portrait (セルフポートレート, Serufu-Pōtorēto, January 1, 1988, 1 min., part of a multi-artist ASIFA project of animated self-portraits by animators)[8] [8]
- To Shoot without Shooting (
不 射 之 射 , Fusha no Sha, January 10, 1988, 25 min., from a story by Atsushi Nakajima; coproduction with People's Republic of China made at Shanghai Animation Film Studio)[9] [9] - Briar-Rose or The Sleeping Beauty (いばら
姫 またはねむり姫 , Ibara-Hime matawa Nemuri-Hime, January 1, 1990, 22 min., from a concept by Kyōko Kishida; coproduction with Czechoslovakia made at Jiří Trnka Studio)[9][10] - Amefutakami, in the Sky (ひさかたの
天 二 上 , Hisakata no Amefutakami, 2006, 14 min.)[11]
Feature films[edit]
- Rennyo and His Mother (
蓮如 とその母 , Rennyo to Sono Haha, October 7, 1981, 93 min., live-action puppet film)[10][12] - Winter Days (
冬 の日 , Fuyu no Hi, November 27, 2003, 40 min.) - The Book of the Dead (
死者 の書 , Shisha no Sho, October 21, 2006, 70 min., from a novel by Shinobu Orikuchi)[11]
DVD releases[edit]
Short films[edit]
Title | Format | Region | Distributor | Series | Date | Catalogue # | Subtitles |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kihachiro Kawamoto Film Works ( |
NTSC | All | Pioneer Corporation | New Animation Animation | 2002.7.10 | PIBA-3032 | English, Japanese |
Kihachiro Kawamoto Film Works ( |
NTSC | All | Geneon | New Animation Animation | 2007.1.25 | GNBA-3034 | English, Japanese |
The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto | NTSC | 1 | Kino International | The KimStim Collection | 2008.4.22 | KV623DVD | English |
Winter Days[edit]
See Winter Days.
The Book of the Dead[edit]
Title | Format | Region | Distributor | Series | Date | Catalogue # | Subtitles |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Book of the Dead ( |
NTSC | 2 | Geneon | New Animation Animation | 2007.10.24 | GNBA-3062 | None |
The Book of the Dead | NTSC | 1 | Kino International | The KimStim Collection | 2008.4.22 | KV613DVD | English |
References[edit]
- ^ a b c EDT (26 August 2010). "Puppet master/animator Kihachirō Kawamoto passes away". Anime News Network. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ "Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum". Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ Furukawa, Taku. "Introduction". Japan Animation Association. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ "Puppet animation producer Kihachirō Kawamoto dies". The Big Cartoon Forum. The Big Cartoon DataBase. 28 August 2010. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
- ^ Sharp, Jasper (2003-12-05). "Beyond anime: A brief guide to experimental Japanese animation". Midnight Eye. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
- ^ a b Munroe Hotes, Catherine (27 August 2010). "The passing of a puppet master: Kihachirō Kawamoto (1925–2010)". Nishikata Film Review. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ "Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award 1975 -". cartoonresearch.com.
- ^ Hotes, Catherine Munroe (20 February 2010). "Kihachirō Kawamoto: Self Portrait (1988)". Nishikata Film Review. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ a b Opening titles of the film in question.
- ^ a b "Kawamoto Kihachirō Sakuhinshū". New Animation Animation. Geneon Entertainment. 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ a b "Shisha no Sho". New Animation Animation. Geneon Entertainment. 2007. Archived from the original on 2009-03-11. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
- ^ Ettinger, Benjamin (11 September 2010). "Kihachirō Kawamoto: An appreciation". AniPages Daily. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
External links[edit]
- Interview with Kihachirō Kawamoto at Web site Midnight Eye
- Biography at Nishikata Film Review
- Kawamoto: The Puppet Master, a season centred on Kawamoto's films which toured the United Kingdom in 2008
- Iida City Kawamoto Kihachirō Puppet Museum official Web site (in Japanese)
- Japan Animation Association official Web site (in Japanese)
- Kihachirō Kawamoto at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Kihachirō Kawamoto at IMDb