Kazuo Miyagawa (original) (raw)

Rashomon, winner of the 1951 Golden Lion at Venice and subsequently the first Japanese film to be shown widely in the west, not only brought its director, Akira Kurosawa, international fame, but also gained a reputation for its cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa, who has died aged 91.

What is striking about the film, besides the intriguing murder story told from four conflicting viewpoints, is the vivid black-and-white photography, and the sweeping camera movements. In order to evoke the bright summer daylight in the forest, Miyagawa used a mirror to reflect the light directly and also, appropriately to the plot, ran several cameras simultaneously to exploit various perspectives.

Miyagawa shot two further films for Kurosawa. For Yojimbo (1961), he effectively used (perhaps over-used) a telephoto lens and wide CinemaScope images to capture the small town with a wide street in this "Samurai Western".

Kagemusha (1980), at the time the most expensive Japanese movie ever made, showed Miyagawa equally at home with colour: red sunsets, resplendent rainbows, the multi-coloured flags of soldiers, and the dream-like battle scenes with horses and men dying in slow motion, all contributed to the epic grandeur of the subject.

However, his best work was for Kenji Mizoguchi, who, unlike Kurosawa, avoided frequent camera set-ups and intrusive close-ups. Miyagawa shot a number of Mizoguchi's masterpieces including Ugetsu Monogatari (1953), based on two 18th-century ghost stories, in which the lyrical, haunting and intense images never ignore the human element. Miyagawa's artistry is best demonstrated by the trip across the lake as the boat emerges from the mist, hinting at the supernatural.

In Sansho, The Bailiff (1954), the long takes, lingering long shots and the weaving camera create an elegiac mood and a deep involvement in the unfolding episodic tale of a suffering family in feudal Japan. Miyagawa's gleaming photography, the camera keeping a discreet distance where necessary, also distinguished The Crucified Lovers (1954), its fluid filmic narrative completely disguising its theatrical origins.

Miyagawa worked closely with Mizoguchi on New Tales Of The Taira Clan (1955), the director's first colour film, deciding on the colours which were to predominate in each scene, ranging from pastel blues to deep red. He was also director of photography on Street Of Shame (1956), Mizoguchi's last film.

Like Mizoguchi, Miyagawa saw himself in the tradition of Japanese painters. It was Sergei Eisenstein who first pointed out the proto-cinematic importance of framing in Japanese painting, and Miyagawa claimed that his sophisticated tracking and crane techniques were influenced by his study of classical Japanese ink painting.

A native of Kyoto, Miyagawa began studying film in the 1920s and was particularly impressed by German films of that period, with their high-contrast lighting. He joined Japan's major film production company, Nikkatsu Corp, in 1926 after graduating from Kyoto Commercial School.

His first film as director of photography was the 1938 chauvinistic propaganda film, A Great World Power Rising. But his genius only became recognised in the 1950s with his work on the Mizoguchi and Kurosawa films. Strangely, he only worked once with Yasujiro Ozu, the third of the triumvirate of great Japanese directors, on Floating Weeds (1959), enhancing it with his glowing colour photography.

Another of Miyagawa's supreme achievements was on Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad (1965), where he oversaw 164 cameramen, who used 234 different lenses. Special viewfinders and exposure meters had to be developed to bring competitors into tight close-ups under all conditions.

As Ichikawa stated, "The camera must capture, in all its living reality, the reflection of the skins of coloured athletes, the blonde child-like hair of a white athlete in the sun, the sharp piercing look from oriental eyes. We must discover, almost with surprise, this marvel which is a human being."

In later years, Miyagawa brought his talents to bear on genre movies such as the Zatoichi series, which told of a blind man who works as a masseur (the traditional job for the blind in Japan) but is also a master swordsman. Miyagawa twice received the Japanese Academy Award and the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured him in 1981 with a tribute and retrospective screenings.

He leaves a wife, two sons and a daughter.