Ando's rich artistic output is heavily influenced by his Waseda University education, participation in Shuji Terayama's avant-garde Tenjo Sajiki theatrical troupe, and interests in film, literature, and theater. He is celebrated as one of the first Japanese directors to employ image processing and video feedback with newly available video technology into the filmmaking process.[4]
Throughout his career, Ando has created a diverse range of films whose narrative structures and visual designs are markedly different from one another, from the abstractionism of Oh! My Mother (1969) to the fusion of Western Art History and Japanese culture in Whispers of Vermeer (1998).[5]
As a filmmaker and video artist, Ando's career is largely defined by his multidisciplinary nature in which he actively engaged in several projects that overlapped between his participation in Tenjo Sajiki, employment at the Tokyo Broadcasting System, and pursuit of independent filmmaking.
As of 2021, Ando's most recent film is a 2003 documentary on the French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau. Soon after his completion of the documentary short, Ando assumed teaching and advisory positions at his alma mater Waseda University in which he taught Cinema and launched the Kohei Ando Film Laboratory production company.[6]
Ando was born on February 1, 1944, in Beijing, China. He entered Waseda University in 1962 where he earned his bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Science and Engineering in 1968. During his undergraduate studies, Ando developed his passions for literature, film, and theater and chose to embark on a career in cinema.[7] Additionally, his participation in a UNESCO Foreign Exchange program to the L’Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1965 further informed his decision to pursue filmmaking.[8]
Tenjo Sajiki (1967–1983)
In 1967, Ando partnered with fellow Waseda University student and avant-garde dramatist Shuji Terayama in his theatrical troupe Tenjo Sajiki, whose members included graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo and playwright/theater director Yutaka Higashi.[9][10] Ando acted in Terayama's theatrical adaptation of Marcel Carne's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise). Ando was also employed as a Production Assistant in Terayama's company, and he traveled with the troupe during their performances across Japan, Europe, and the United States.[11] In 1969, Ando, Terayama, and Tenjo Sajiki participated in the Experimenta 3 Festival at Frankfurt's Deutsche Akademie der Darstellenden Künste (German Academy of the Performing Arts) where they performed The Dog God.[12]
Ando's collaboration with Tenjo Sajiki ended following Terayama's death in 1983.[13]
Early film career (1968–1978)
In 1968, Ando purchased a 16mm camera while in Paris with Tenjo Sajiki to officially launch his filmmaking career.[14][15]
The following year, Ando created his first film, Oh! My Mother (1969). He encountered multiple challenges in the production process as there were aesthetic limitations to the available video technology and there were few colored televisions in the late-1960s. However, the filming of Oh! My Mother coincided with Ando's recent employment at the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS); he entered the studios after-hours to experiment with their equipment to explore the visual possibilities of video technology in a filmic context.[15] The finalized film was accomplished through Ando's use of a feedback effect in which segments of the projected video proceeded through an infinite loop.[16] Upon its completion, Oh! My Mother won an award at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in Germany and was lauded as one of Japan's first films to utilize electronic imaging and video feedback.[4]
Video Hiroba
In the early-1970s, Ando became a member of the video art collective Video Hiroba. The organization's aims were to experiment with the aesthetics of video technology to create new types of images that responded to current social and political issues, present an alternative method to disseminate information, and fuse the mediums of video and performance art.[17][18][19]
Ando's films of the 1970s appeared to lean in the direction of video and performance art combinations as he filmed his subjects in theatrical compositions. Ando's 1973 short film Les Fils/The Sons is a visual representation of a gay poem on the relationship between a man and his adopted adult sons.[20] Entire scenes are washed in deep blue or fluorescent yellow lighting to convey the sensuality of the characters’ interactions with one another.[21]
La Valse/Waltz (1976) focuses on an older woman seated at a table drinking tea before she rises to perform a waltz when classical music begins to play in the background.[22][23] The careful organization of the scene – a centrally placed table framed by windows and columns before an open-floor space – is visually reminiscent of a proscenium stage set.
Later film career (1978–2003)
Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, Ando continued to film with a 16mm camera.
In the mid-1980s, Ando's exposure to HD video technology at TBS compelled him to switch from 16mm formats to HD formats for his films; My Collections (1988) was the last film he completed in 16mm.
By the 1990s, Ando's films were more narrative-driven, had longer running times (roughly 25 to 50 minutes in length), and displayed more Surrealist imagery. After Twilight (1995) was one of the films that encapsulated the shift in his directorial style as the film's storyline progression is framed by photographic still images and the airbrush paintings of Kozo Mio while a man in voiceover narration discusses his love for a mysterious woman in a dream-like world.
Concurrent with his video art and experimental filmmaking, Ando established a steady career for himself with the Tokyo Broadcasting System where he was employed from 1968 to 2004.[7]
Shortly after his arrival at TBS, Ando requested a three-month vacation to commit to Terayama's theatrical productions. While he anticipated his employment would be terminated before his return, Ando was surprised to learn that the company wanted him to stay and he surmised they felt “it might be good to keep a strange person like this [Kohei Ando] around”.[7]
He was able to successfully give attention to both his professional responsibilities and personal creative projects. TBS afforded Ando and other directors a significant degree of creative freedom, to which he credits the company for permitting him to freely direct productions at the studio and to devote time to his non-TBS affiliated films.
Over the years, Ando's success in the TBS led to his promotion in multiple creative positions, including the assistant director of the Media Promotion Department and the Leader of HDTV Production.[14] Additionally, Ando was heavily involved in commercial advertising where he directed album release announcements for pop idols Miyuki Nakajima and Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi and folk rock band Off Course, and promotional campaigns for Japan Airlines.[26]
In December 2021, Ando will participate as a guest lecturer in the Visual Industry Promotion Organization's "Movie Producer Training" course in which he will speak about the importance of the role of the producer in the film industry.[28]
"Masters of Cinema" series
Ando was selected as one of multiple special lecturers for Waseda University's “Masters of Cinema” series throughout 2009 and 2010 in which he spoke about his career and filmmaking. He was a participant among a group of other prominent figures in the Japanese film industry: Yoji Yamada, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Masahiro Shinoda, Hirokazu Koreeda, et al.[29]
Kohei Ando Film Laboratory
The Kohei Ando Film Laboratory, established by Kohei Ando, is a production company based at Waseda University that finances independent short and feature-length films created by the university's student filmmakers.[30][31]
While he was a student at Waseda, Malaysian filmmakerEdmund Yeo was funded for multiple short films between 2008 and 2010, and Ando served as his academic supervisor in his pursuit of a Masters and PhD in film.[32]
Film festivals
Along with his membership in the Directors Guild of Japan, Ando has been selected as an honorary member of numerous international film commissions and festival juries:[33][34]
Ando has served as the Programming Advisor for the Tokyo International Film Festival since 2014, and he created the Festival's Japan Now section in 2015 to explore contemporary trends in Japanese cinema.[35] In a 2018 interview with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Ando explained the necessity for Japan Now to feature mainstream films that appeal to both native Japanese and global audiences.[36] When pressed further about the merits of mainstream Japanese films, Ando added that this particular type of film has the capacity to educate international viewers on Japanese culture and history.[37]
For the 2018 installment of the Festival du Cinéma Japonais Contemporain Kinotaya in France, Ando assumed a programming role in which he introduced and screened 109 Japanese films for an event that commemorated the 160th anniversary of friendship between Japan and France.[38]
In 2020, Ando served as a member of the 33rd Annual Tokyo International Film Festival's Selection Committee in tandem with his Programming Advisor position.[39]
Film style and themes
Style
Early in his career, Ando's films were shot with a 16mm camera. In 1985, Ando recognized the visual appeal for HD video production and began to create his subsequent films with this more advanced filming technology as it coincided with his ascension to the position of Leader of HDTV Production at TBS.[40][41]
Oh! My Mother (1969) assumed an abstractionist approach to filmmaking in which Ando manipulated TBS video equipment.[42] Through his implementation of looping and feedback, the image of a woman converges and fragments into a kaleidoscopic arrangement of varying colors and shapes coupled with soundbites of voices, heavy breathing, and classical music. Elements of abstractionism were utilized for several of his later films such as the distortion of colored lighting in both In Lusio (1971) and Les Fils/The Sons (1973).
Mise-en-scene cinematography has been a consistent element of Ando's camerawork during his 16mm and HD productions. La Valse/Waltz exhibits slower camera movements to mimic the gracefulness of the woman's dance to classical music. Similarly, the style of his much later film Whispers of Vermeer (1998) is meticulously organized to mirror the intimate, domestic genre paintings of Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.[43]
Video portraiture is frequently employed in which the camera remains fixed on individuals for seconds at a time. My Friends, In My Address Book (1974) is a filmic tribute to Ando's family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues as each person briefly poses with their respective address from his address book to the tune of Kay Starr's rendition of Come On A-My House; Shuji Terayama is one of the individuals who appears in the short film.[44][45] Similarly, Star Waars! (1978) follows a much faster pace in which the camera zooms in on famous Japanese actors before they shout “War”.[46]
Themes
Space, time, and memory are recurring themes that are strongly prevalent throughout his career. Imagery associated with home and sentimental, personal items often feature as motifs to reinforce these thematic elements as seen in My Collections (1988), a filmic self-portrait of Ando's life in which he documents objects and spaces within or near his house according to specific categories (family, shoes, flowers, etc.).[47][48]
Similarly, the films Like a Passing Train 1 (1978) and Like a Passing Train 2 (1979) are conceptual studies of how a local train outside of Ando's house signifies the passage of time and his relationship to home.[49]
On the Far Side of Twilight (1994) is an homage to Shuji Terayama that extensively focuses on the changing of the seasons, an exploration of the lifecycles from childhood to old age, and the personification of memories.[50][51]
Shuji Terayama described Ando's film style as his way of "externalizing what is inside him and assembling a story. [He is] a writer with a strong interest in humans".[52]
Influences
Ando has cited a number of individuals from Japanese and international cinema who influenced his career aspirations and cinematic style:
Japanese poet, playwright, and film director Shuji Terayama
Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist Jonas Mekas
Shūji Terayama was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema.
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↑ Hunter, Jack. “Punk Generation: Notes on the Japanese Underground.” Essay. In Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema, 188–88. Creation Books, 1999.
↑ “Interview with Kohei Ando, a Lecturer of ‘Producer Training Course’ - What Is Required of Future Movie Producers.” Visual Industry Promotion Organization, 2020. https://www.vipo.or.jp/interview/list/detail/?i=1695 .
↑ “‘Movie Producer Training Course Basics’ (3 Days).” Visual Industry Promotion Organization, September 28, 2021. https://www.vipo.or.jp/news/28108/ .
↑ “Content Production Institute [Phase 1] [End of Activity].” Comprehensive Research Organization - Waseda University Research Organization. Waseda University, April 2012. https://www.waseda.jp/inst/cro/other/2012/04/01/2089/.
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