Art directors are known as below-the-line talent in the movie business. That is, they are considered a rank below the director, producer and scriptwriter on the production pecking order, and they are paid accordingly.
But art direction can have a large, memorable impact on a film, one famous example being Anton Furst's nightmarish Gotham cityscape in Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989), which won him an Oscar. ("You revel in this scary Fascistic playground . . . .it has belly-laugh wit," raved Pauline Kael in her New Yorker review.)
Takeo Kimura is Japan's best-known art director. In a career dating back to 1945, he has worked with everyone from Nikkatsu studio stalwart Toshi Masuda to auteurs Kazuo Kuroki and Mitsuo Yanagimachi. His longest, closest association, however, has been with cult icon Seijun Suzuki — from Suzuki's youth drama "Akutaro" in 1963 through to "Pistol Opera" in 2001.