Toyomichi Kurita
About
Biography
Filmography
Biography
This Japanese-born director of photography is best known for two moody "art" films with director Alan Rudolph in the mid-1980s.
After getting his start in experimental Japanese films, Kurita studied at the American Film Institute's Center of Advance Film Studies in Los Angeles. While at school, he worked as second unit director of photography on "Hard Rock Zombies" (1983), and later as camera operator on Paul Schrader's docudrama "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985).
Kurita's next two films were his most high-profile: he was director of photography on Alan Rudolph's "Trouble in Mind" (a "new wave" gangster film of 1985 dismissed by some as pretentious), and "The Moderns," a more commercially successful drama about 1920s expatriates in Paris.
Kurita has been director of photography on such other projects as the comedy-adventure "Powwow Highway" (1988), the action/adventure films "Shadow of China" (1990) and "A Rage in Harlem" (1991), the documentary "Music for the Movies: Toru Takemitsu" (1993), the ensemble drama "Waiting to Exhale" (1995) and Matthew Broderick's directorial debut "Infinity" (1996).
Kurita's limited work for American TV includes the "Grand Isle" (TNT, 1992), based on Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee" (TNT, 1994) and "Woman Undone" and "Homecoming" (both Showtime, 1996).
Filmography
Cinematography (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Life Events
1978
Began career as camera assistant to experimental Japanese filmmakers Masahiro Shinoda and Shuji Terayama
1983
First American credit, as 2nd unit director of photography on "Hard Rock Zombies"
1992
First American TV credit, as director of photography on "Grand Isle"
