"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."
AKIRA KUROSAWA
(1910-1998) Born March 23, Tokyo, Japan
Key Production Country: Japan
Key Genres: Drama, Samurai Film, Period Film, Psychological Drama, Adventure, Medical Drama, Family Drama, Ensemble Film, Costume Adventure, Urban Drama, Epic, Historical Epic
Key Collaborators: Takashi Shimura (Leading Character Actor), Toshiro Mifune (Leading Actor), Yoshirô Muraki (Production Designer), Hideo Oguni (Screenwriter), (Character Actor), Asakazu Nakai (Cinematographer), Minoru Chiaki (Leading Character Actor), Takao Saito (Cinematographer), Masaru Satô (Composer), Ryûzô Kikushima (Screenwriter), Shinobu Hashimoto (Screenwriter), Sôjirô Motoki (Producer)
"It would be hard to imagine the modern American cinema without Kurosawa’s palpable influence, whether in the action staging of Sam Peckinpah, Walter Hill, and Martin Scorsese or the distinctive editing patterns that so clearly set off the films of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. And this is no less true of his influence on internationally acclaimed directors ranging from Italy’s Western auteur, Sergio Leone, to Hong Kong’s master of balletic violence, John Woo. The strategic use of slow motion, the transformation of Sergei Eisenstein’s handling of crowd scenes, the use of jump cuts on movement, the intermixing of long takes and montage, have all entered the lexicon of the modern action cinema." - David Desser (Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, 2006)
"If in the more deliberately humanist dramas his sentimentality seems sometimes contrived and maudlin, his feel for action and his concern for historical authenticity reveal a talent that both delights in and transcends genre limitations. Certainly, his best work merges psychological precision, narrative subtlety and visual bravura to extraordinary effect." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)
"Like his counterparts and most admired models, Jean Renoir, John Ford, and Kenji Mizoguchi, Kurosawa has taken his cinematic inspirations from the full store of world film, literature, and music. And yet the completely original screenplays of his two greatest films, Ikiru and Seven Samurai, reveal that his natural story-telling ability and humanistic convictions transcend all limitations of genre, period and nationality." - Audie Bock (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)
"The current awareness of Japanese cinema in the West began with Kurosawa, even if he has now been surpassed... Despite his appetite for disparate subjects in the 1950s, his period films look insubstantial against Mizoguchi's, just as Rashomon's debate on truth is trite beside Ugetsu. As to the contemporary Japanese experience, Kurosawa now trails behind a new generation." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)
"The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits." - Martin Scorsese
"A great director of wit, irony, and passion, Kurosawa has lensed some of the greatest Japanese films." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)
(1910-1998) Born March 23, Tokyo, Japan
Key Production Country: Japan
Key Genres: Drama, Samurai Film, Period Film, Psychological Drama, Adventure, Medical Drama, Family Drama, Ensemble Film, Costume Adventure, Urban Drama, Epic, Historical Epic
Key Collaborators: Takashi Shimura (Leading Character Actor), Toshiro Mifune (Leading Actor), Yoshirô Muraki (Production Designer), Hideo Oguni (Screenwriter), (Character Actor), Asakazu Nakai (Cinematographer), Minoru Chiaki (Leading Character Actor), Takao Saito (Cinematographer), Masaru Satô (Composer), Ryûzô Kikushima (Screenwriter), Shinobu Hashimoto (Screenwriter), Sôjirô Motoki (Producer)
"It would be hard to imagine the modern American cinema without Kurosawa’s palpable influence, whether in the action staging of Sam Peckinpah, Walter Hill, and Martin Scorsese or the distinctive editing patterns that so clearly set off the films of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. And this is no less true of his influence on internationally acclaimed directors ranging from Italy’s Western auteur, Sergio Leone, to Hong Kong’s master of balletic violence, John Woo. The strategic use of slow motion, the transformation of Sergei Eisenstein’s handling of crowd scenes, the use of jump cuts on movement, the intermixing of long takes and montage, have all entered the lexicon of the modern action cinema." - David Desser (Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, 2006)
"If in the more deliberately humanist dramas his sentimentality seems sometimes contrived and maudlin, his feel for action and his concern for historical authenticity reveal a talent that both delights in and transcends genre limitations. Certainly, his best work merges psychological precision, narrative subtlety and visual bravura to extraordinary effect." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)
"Like his counterparts and most admired models, Jean Renoir, John Ford, and Kenji Mizoguchi, Kurosawa has taken his cinematic inspirations from the full store of world film, literature, and music. And yet the completely original screenplays of his two greatest films, Ikiru and Seven Samurai, reveal that his natural story-telling ability and humanistic convictions transcend all limitations of genre, period and nationality." - Audie Bock (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)
"The current awareness of Japanese cinema in the West began with Kurosawa, even if he has now been surpassed... Despite his appetite for disparate subjects in the 1950s, his period films look insubstantial against Mizoguchi's, just as Rashomon's debate on truth is trite beside Ugetsu. As to the contemporary Japanese experience, Kurosawa now trails behind a new generation." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)
"The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits." - Martin Scorsese
"A great director of wit, irony, and passion, Kurosawa has lensed some of the greatest Japanese films." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)
Highly Recommended
Stray Dog (1949), Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Yojimbo (1961), High and Low (1963), Red Beard (1965), Kagemusha (1980), Ran (1985), Dreams (1990)
Recommended
No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), Drunken Angel (1948), The Quiet Duel (1949), Scandal (1950), The Idiot (1951), I Live in Fear (1955), The Hidden Fortress (1958), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Sanjuro (1962), Dodes’ka-den (1970), Dersu Uzala (1975), Rhapsody in August (1991), Madadayo (1993)
Worth a Look
Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), The Lower Depths (1957)
IMDb profile
Stray Dog (1949), Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Yojimbo (1961), High and Low (1963), Red Beard (1965), Kagemusha (1980), Ran (1985), Dreams (1990)
Recommended
No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), Drunken Angel (1948), The Quiet Duel (1949), Scandal (1950), The Idiot (1951), I Live in Fear (1955), The Hidden Fortress (1958), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Sanjuro (1962), Dodes’ka-den (1970), Dersu Uzala (1975), Rhapsody in August (1991), Madadayo (1993)
Worth a Look
Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), The Lower Depths (1957)
IMDb profile
