Kazuo Miyagawa was one of Japan's foremost cinematographers, active from the 1930s to the 1980s (he died in 1999). He photographed several of the highlights of Japanese postwar cinema, and worked with, among others, Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa and Kon Ichikawa. He said that he was inspired by classical Japanese painting, and he had a unique feeling for the material and the chemical processes, and he could do most anything. For some directors he had to follow their lead, while others gave him a free hand to experiment and do what he liked. He once said that "A director and cameraman are like husband and wife. Even though they may fight, all their films are their offspring." In short, he deserves our attention.
Here are some images from his films.
Rashomon (Kurosawa 1950)
Ugestu Monogatari (Mizoguchi 1953)
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi 1954)
Floating Weeds (Ozu 1959)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa 1961)
Another exceptional film Miyagawa photographed is Conflagration (Ichikawa 1958), and here is a clip from it.
