Details by Film
Pitfall
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Woman in the Dunes
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The Face of Another
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Pitfall
When a miner leaves his employers and treks out with his young son to become a migrant worker, he finds himself moving from one eerie landscape to another, intermittently followed (and photographed) by an enigmatic man in a clean, white suit, and eventually coming face-to-face with his inescapable destiny. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s debut feature and first collaboration with novelist Kobo Abe, Pitfall is many things: a mysterious, unsettling ghost story, a portrait of human alienation, and a compellingly surreal critique of soulless industry, shot in elegant black and white.
Woman in the Dunes
One of the sixties' great international art-house sensations, Woman in the Dunes was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic worldview of Hiroshi Teshigahara. Eija Okada plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle that resides in a remote, vast desert; when he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night in the home of a young widow (Kiyoko Kishida) who lives in a hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema's most bristling, unnerving, and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of everyday Sisyphean struggle, for which Teshigahara received an Academy Award nomination for best director.
The Face of Another
A staggering work of existential science fiction, The Face of Another dissects identity with the sure hand of a surgeon. Okuyama (Yojimbo‘s Tatsuya Nakadai), after being burned and disfigured in an industrial accident and estranged from his family and friends, agrees to his psychiatrist’s radical experiment: a face transplant, created from the mold of a stranger. As Okuyama is thus further alienated from the world around him, he finds himself giving in to his darker temptations. With unforgettable imagery, Teshigahara’s film explores both the limits and freedom in acquiring a new persona, and questions the notion of individuality itself.
The Supplements to Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara
The groundbreaking collaboration between Hiroshi Teshigahara and writer Kobe Abe is examined in the new documentary Teshigahara and Abe, which includes exclusive interviews with film programmer and professor Richard Peña, Japanese-film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, set designer Arata Isozaki, screenwriter John Nathan, and producer Noriko Nomura. Also included on the supplemental disc are four short films from the director's early career: Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Tokyo 1958 (1958), and Ako (1965).
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Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Video essay on the film from 2007 by film scholar James Quandt
- Teshigahara and Abe, a 2007 documentary examining the collaboration between Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe, featuring interviews with film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, film programmer Richard Peña, set designer Arata Isozaki, producer Noriko Nomura, and screenwriter Arata Isozaki
- Video essay on the film by critic and festival programmer James Quandt
- Video essay on the film by critic and festival programmer James Quandt
- Four short films from director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s early career: Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Tokyo 1958 (1958), and Ako (1965)
- Trailer
- Theatrical trailer
- Theatrical trailer
- A booklet featuring essays by James Quandt, Howard Hampton, Audie Bock, and Peter Grilli and Max Tessier’s 1964 interview with Hiroshi Teshigahara
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Release Notes on Restoration
The soundtracks for Pitfall and The Face of Another were mastered at 24-bit from 35mm optical soundtrack prints. The soundtrack for Woman in the Dunes was mastered at 24-bit from the optical fine-grain print. Audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.
The soundtracks for Pitfall and The Face of Another were mastered at 24-bit from 35mm optical soundtrack prints. The soundtrack for Woman in the Dunes was mastered at 24-bit from the optical fine-grain print. Audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.
The soundtracks for Pitfall and The Face of Another were mastered at 24-bit from 35mm optical soundtrack prints. The soundtrack for Woman in the Dunes was mastered at 24-bit from the optical fine-grain print. Audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.