Kazuo Miyagawa

Kazuo Miyagawa (宮川 一夫) was a Japanese cinematographer.

Career
Born in Kyoto, Miyagawa was taken with sumi-e Chinese ink painting from the age of eleven and began to sell his work as an illustrator while a teenager. He became interested in the cinema during the 1920s, particularly admiring the German Expressionist silents. He joined the Nikkatsu film company in 1926 after graduating from Kyoto Commercial School. He began as a laboratory technician before becoming an assistant cameraman. Miyagawa cited the cinematography of Eiji Tsuburaya, Hiromitsu Karasawa and Kenzo Sakai as an influence on his career.

Miyagawa is best known for his tracking shots, particularly those in Rashomon (1950), the first of his three collaborations with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. The other films with Kurosawa were Yojimbo (1961) and Kagemusha (1980). He also worked on multiple films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, including Ugetsu (1953). Still, only on a single Yasujirō Ozu production, Floating Weeds (1959). He oversaw 164 cameramen for Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad (1965), a documentary which necessitated the development of new exposure meters and viewfinders. Earlier, he had worked with Ichikawa on the drama films, Enjō ("The Temple of the Golden Pavilion", 1958), Odd Obsession (aka, The Key, 1959) and The Broken Commandment (1962).

Miyagawa worked with Masahiro Shinoda in the 1980s, and at the end of his life was supervising the director's Owls' Castle ("Fukuro no Shiro"/"Castle of Owls", 1999).

Miyagawa is considered the inventor of the cinematographic technique known as bleach bypass, for Ichikawa's film Her Brother (1960).

Selected filmography

 * Singing Lovebirds (鴛鴦歌合戦)
 * Rashomon (羅生門)
 * Ugetsu (雨月物語)
 * A Geisha (祇園囃子)
 * The Woman in the Rumor (噂の女)
 * Sansho the Bailiff (山椒大夫)
 * The Crucified Lovers (近松物語)
 * Street of Shame (赤線地帯)
 * The Love of a Princess (朱雀門)
 * Enjo (炎上)
 * The Gay Masquerade (弁天小僧)
 * Odd Obsession (鍵)
 * Floating Weeds (1959)
 * Scar Yosaburo (切られ与三郎)
 * Her Brother (1960)
 * Yojimbo (用心棒)
 * Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (座頭市千両首)
 * Tokyo Olympiad (東京オリンピック)
 * Zatoichi's Vengeance (座頭市の歌が聞える)
 * Zatoichi the Outlaw (座頭市牢破り)
 * A Certain Killer (1967)
 * Zatoichi and the Fugitives (1968)
 * Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)
 * Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970)
 * Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril (1972)
 * MacArthur's Children (瀬戸内少年野球団)