- Born
- Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences while filming August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory, loss, death and the intersection of documentary and fictive narratives.- IMDb Mini Biography By: nate@artofeurope.com
- ChildrenChild
- His frequent theme is parents and children
- Has a sensitive and melancholic style
- Frequently casts Kirin Kiki and Susumu Terajima, as of 2018, both of whom have appeared in six of Kore-eda's films.
- His films includes gentle slices of ordinary life
- Humanist dramas
- According to Roger Ebert, "his films embrace the mystery of life, and encourage us to think about why we are here, and what makes us truly happy". Ebert also claimed that "if anyone can be considered an heir of the great Yasujiro Ozu, it might be Hirokazu Kore-Eda".
- According to the Harvard Film Archive, Kore-eda's works "reflect the contemplative style and pacing of such luminaries as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang".
- Is most often compared to Yasujiro Ozu.
- Feels influenced by Ken Loach.
- Grandfather died of Alzheimer' disease when he was six years old.
- As far as documentaries go, I believe unreservedly that they serve an important function in our culture. I'd love to be able to make both documentaries and feature films simultaneously, but so far that hasn't happened.
- In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to class. The experience of encountering films then is one of my greatest memories. Before that I'd never paid any attention to directors, but there I was taking a crash course in Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, Truffaut, Renoir, Fellini. Because I've always been naturally a more introspective person, I was more interested in becoming a screenwriter than a director.
- The biggest considerations I had were practical: how do you move such a large number of actors around a small space? So, for example, if I have to have the mother bring a pot of tea from the kitchen to the living room and serve it to the others, how do I, on a practical level, get everyone into the frame? Any decisions I made about the camera angles or movement came out of necessity, versus any sort of stylistic choice.
- I did want to become a novelist, but the program at Waseda was pretty intense in terms of language requirements - two hours of English and four hours of Chinese. I thought, what do I need this for? So I stopped going to class.
- In order to avoid sentimentality and to be able to write the screenplay with the kind of humor and irony necessary to keep the story moving, I needed to distance myself as much as I could from the characters, to try to get to a point where I could view them objectively.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content