Akira Kurosawa

Hmm I don't recall there being any major threads for Akira Kurosawa and we don't seem to discuss him very much, so I figured I'd make a thread. Personally I must say that of all the movie based threads my favourite ones are when we discuss a single movie/director or actor in this section. Any way to Kurosawa...

Personally Akira Kurosawa is one of my all time favourite directors. So much can be said about the work he has done and its influence. His original use of camera techniques and cinematography means that very few of his movies have visually dated at all. The way he used black and white has barely been surpassed in film making to this day. Especially notable of these are scenes of battles and scenes filmed in the rain, Seven Samurai of course stands out in this regard. He is of course known for making samurai and period films, personally I think the best of these would have to be Ran, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Rashomon, The Hidden Fortress and Throne of Blood.

Though in many ways it's a shame Kurosawa is often pigeon holed as "the black and white samurai guy" when in fact he made many films in colour and many non period films. The most notable of his non period films would have to be Ikiru, High and Low and Red Beard. Personally I think Ikiru is an incredibly beautiful movie and one of the best films he made. Of his colour movies clearly the most incredible has to be Ran, which interestingly Kurosawa considered the best movie he ever made.

Truely an incredible director with colour:
http://www.mindjack.com/film/images/ran400.jpg

Of course you can't really talk about Akira Kurosawa without talking about Toshiro Mifune. The partnership between these two men created some of the most incredible characters I have ever seen. I've always wondered what the nature of the'r falling out was, it must have been bad to split such a great duo. The other really great actor Kurosawa has worked with on multiple occaisions is Takashi Shimura.

Interesting trivia about Kurosawa:

The following movies are all direct remakes of various Kurosawa films...

The Magnificent Seven, Beach of the War Gods, Battle Beyond the Stars, World Gone Wild, Saat Hindustani, The Outrage, A Fistfull of Dollars, Last Man Standing and Fresh.

Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress is a major influence behind Star Wars and many plot points were used from Kurosawa's film in Lucas's.

Kurosawa adored John Ford and much of his direction style was him aspiring to be like Ford.

Seven Samurai is often credited as the first ever action film.

Rashomon is often credited as the reason the Academy created the "Best Foreign Film" category.

Ok I'll stop now...I just really love Kurosawa.

Rashomon is often credited as the reason the Academy created the "Best Foreign Film" category.


we watched that film in my film class. Is that the one in Black and white where this guy watches another man ravage his wife in the woods or something.....something like all the accounts of the event are different?

I remember another film that might have been kurosawa as well but I'm not sure. It was filmed in the late 80's early 90's. It contains some kind of scene where this kid is looking at a bunch of people on this stacked hillside. The way it is shot these people look like they are right on top of one another and they have colorful silk blankets I believe. The use of color throughout the whole movie is amazing.


I also remember watch Red Sorghum and wondering how that wine can actually taste good

we watched that film in my film class. Is that the one in Black and white where this guy watches another man ravage his wife in the woods or something.....something like all the accounts of the event are different?

Yep, that's Rashomon. Did you enjoy it?

I also think it is perfect that your signiture is The Three Amigos, which is a re-imagined version of Seven Samurai. Which then of course was re-imagined as Galaxy Quest.

Out of the Kurosawa films I've seen, Ran is my favorite. I just purchased Kagemusha recently and have yet to watch this one. Great thread, Cicero!

Yep, that's Rashomon. Did you enjoy it?


well once i got used to the subtitles i enjoyed it.

Wonderful summary, Cicero.

I'd add only that, stylistically, one of Kurosawa great innovations was shooting a scene with multiple cameras equipped with telephoto lenses and placed very far away from the action, each camera shooting from a different angle. The footage could then be edited together in unique patterns, and the "flattened" images produced a look unique to Kurosawa's films. Today this style is so fundamental to action films that it's hard to imagine one without it.

Was it all an innovation.though, or did he borrow those techniques from his acknowledged hero, John Ford?

We might also wonder how much of the structure of Rashomon was inspired by that other John Ford enthusiast, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane

Was it all an innovation.though, or did he borrow those techniques from his acknowledged hero, John Ford?
You mean the multiple camera/telephoto lens setups? No. While certainly Kurosawa's sense of storytelling was shaped by his admiration for Ford, there's nothing in Ford's film that is similar, technically speaking, to what Kurosawa is doing by the time he made The Seven Samurai in 1954. It's possible that Ford may have used multiple cameras for some of his early sound films (it was relatively common in the early days of sound film), but, of course (partly due to technological limitations) it was not practical to use long lenses the way Kurosawa would when he was making films in the '50s and '60s.

In fact, Ford approach to assembling shots into a complete sequence was also quite different from Kurosawa's. Film scholar/historian David Bordwell:

"According to editor Elmo Williams, whom I once asked about this, Ford had the reputation of giving his cutters almost no range of setups to choose from. If you give ‘em a close-up, he supposedly said, they’ll use it. Ford apparently kept track of all the shots he wanted in his head, which may explain some of the mismatches that we find in his films. But it did mean that when the shooting was finished, he could hand the footage over to an editor and go out on his boat."

I'd add only that, stylistically, one of Kurosawa great innovations was shooting a scene with multiple cameras equipped with telephoto lenses and placed very far away from the action, each camera shooting from a different angle. The footage could then be edited together in unique patterns, and the "flattened" images produced a look unique to Kurosawa's films.

I've always found it incredible that he was able to join these camera changes so seemlessly given the technology he had to work with. For example in the film Rashomon Kurosawa uses 407 different camera angle shots and yet the film itself only has 3 sets. Every single one of those camera changes feels natural or intentionally ads a dimension to the film.

We might also wonder how much of the structure of Rashomon was inspired by that other John Ford enthusiast, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane

Hhmm that is interesting, I had never really considered that. Though I was under the impression he followed the plot line to In A Grove (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Grove) very closely in all regards except for the fact that he added elements of the short story Rashomon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_(film)#Influence_of_silent_film_and_modern_art).

Also has any one seen any of his later films, like Rhapsody in August or Dreams. They are really a very interesting direction for him as a director to have finished his carreer with.

I've always found it incredible that he was able to join these camera changes so seemlessly given the technology he had to work with. For example in the film Rashomon Kurosawa uses 407 different camera angle shots and yet the film itself only has 3 sets. Every single one of those camera changes feels natural or intentionally ads a dimension to the film. Right, and he quite frequently violated the editing "rules" of conventional editing, which were violated with much less frequency in Hollywood film up to that point. Of course, these techniques start to show up in Hollywood films in the '60s with Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Sem Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

While certainly Kurosawa's sense of storytelling was shaped by his admiration for Ford, there's nothing in Ford's film that is similar, technically speaking, to what Kurosawa is doing by the time he made The Seven Samurai in 1954.

Thanks, Matt. I really was asking because I wanted to know. Another theory of mine out the window . . .

Meanwhile - is it true what I heard, that he only made the highly commercial Kagemusha so he could use the costumes and sets for the film he really wanted to make, Ran? Or is that another urban myth?

Meanwhile - is it true what I heard, that he only made the highly commercial Kagemusha so he could use the costumes and sets for the film he really wanted to make, Ran? Or is that another urban myth?
In retrospect, he did refer to Kagemusha as a "dress rehearsal" for Ran, but given the evidence of all the time and effort Kurosawa put into preparing, financing, and shooting the earlier film (see Peter Grilli's essay (http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=267&eid=408&section=essay&page=1) written for the Criterion Collection DVD), I think it's unlikely that he actually looked at it that way at the time.

Ta, Matt.

Ran's bloody brilliant, though, isn't it?

Ta, Matt.

Ran's bloody brilliant, though, isn't it?

Yeah, transcendent.

If you want to see a good Kurosawa film please check out Bad Sleep Well great film..this is one that I didn't see mentioned in this thread and thought that I would put it out there.

Something alot of people don't know is that Kurosawa was originally going to direct Tora Tora Tora, as it was going to be an American Japanese co-production, but it was so demanding and such a perfectionist that he was taken off the project (it's not clear whether he quit or was fired). There's one story that he had every single battleship repainted because he didn't feel they were the right shade of grey. It was a particularly dark period in his career, as he had parted ways with his main star, Toshiro Mifune, a few years earlier and hadn't been able to find backing for a project since. He eventually wound out making a film in Russia (I really want to see it but haven't had the good fortune) that reinvigorated his career and eventually led to his finding the money to make Kagemusha.

Another unrelated bit of trivia is that one of his most prized possession's was a hat given to him by his main inspiration, John Ford, and he's almost never pictured without it.

Dersu Uzala is very good, you should definately see it.

Like I said, I would really like to, but the last time I checked (and it's been a long while), I couldn't find anything about a Region 1 dvd release. I'll pick it up after I get my hands on the Criterion Bicycle Thieves

Something alot of people don't know is that Kurosawa was originally going to direct Tora Tora Tora, as it was going to be an American Japanese co-production, but it was so demanding and such a perfectionist that he was taken off the project

Yeah..for the sake of authenticity he wanted to re-bomb Pearl Harbour! :D

I've always found it interesting that if Kurosawa was such a pedantic perfectionist director, then why did so many of his actors return to act in subsequent films with him?

Well, even if he was a strict taskmaster, he was able to pull some great performances out of people. He was also very insistent on keeping the same actors around. One of the reason he and Mifune parted ways was actually because he was so jealous of Mifune working with other directors.

Maybe he was considered 'a task master', 'pedantic' and 'demanding' by Hollywood....

Maybe his Japanese actors, being Japanese themselves, simply saw it as 'being devoted'..or 'focussed'.

Like I said, I would really like to, but the last time I checked (and it's been a long while), I couldn't find anything about a Region 1 dvd release. I'll pick it up after I get my hands on the Criterion Bicycle ThievesKino put out a R1 DVD (http://www.amazon.com/Dersu-Uzala-Maksim-Munzuk/dp/B00004Y7HL)a few years ago.

The Japanese press actually pretty brutal with Kurosawa from about the time he made Red Beard on. While his reputation for (as Peter Brilli puts it in the essay I mentioned above) "tyrannical behavior and . . . for flouting schedules and budgets," no doubt had some basis in fact, in my opinion, it was also partial due to the Japanese perception that Kurosawa was too enamored with Western (meaning non-Asian, not movies about cowboys) influences and pandered to Western tastes.

Another thing I was discussing with a friend that is really interesting about Kurosawa and Mifune working together is their use of body language and music. As in when Mifune portrays a character Kurosawa seems to use these as two major ways of subtly expressing the character. Take Mifune's body language in Yojimbo in which he moves very slowly and smoothly reflecting the calm control of the character. Contrast this to his movement in Seven Samurai in which all the actions he does are very fast and dramatic, his character never does anything slowly or calmly. Mifune also reflects this really well in the way his characters eat, again in Seven Samurai he eats really quickly and angrily. Also in Rashomon Mifune's movements are really strongly used to reveal character as Kurosawa told him to base his movements on the way a lion moves.

The music is a lot simpler, but it seems Kurosawa consistently give Mifune his own song in each movie that reflects Mifune's character. I don't have any good examples right now though.

great movie

this site lists their version of the top 100

http://www.filmsite.org/foreign100.html

The Seven Samurai made it in...