AKIRA KUROSAWA
Name: Akira Kurosawa
Born: 23 March 1910 Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Died: 6 September 1998 Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Akira Kurosawa (23 March 1910 – 6 September 1998) was a prominent Japanese film director, film producer, and
screenwriter. His first credited film (Sanshiro Sugata) was released in 1943;
his last (Madadayo) in 1993. His many awards include the Légion d'Honneur and an
Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.
Akira Kurosawa was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on March 23, 1910. He was
the youngest of eight children born to the Kurosawas in a suburb of Tokyo. Shima
Kurosawa was forty years old at the time of Akira's birth and his father Isamu
was forty-five. Akira Kurosawa grew up in a household with three older brothers
and four older sisters. Of his three older brothers, one died before Akira was
born and one was already grown and out of the household. One of his four older
sisters had also left the home to begin her own family before Kurosawa was born.
Kurosawa's next-oldest sibling, a sister he called "Little Big Sister," also
died suddenly after a short illness when he was ten years old.
Kurosawa's father worked as the director of a junior high school operated by the
Japanese military and the Kurosawas descended from a line of former samurai.
Financially, the family was above average. Isamu Kurosawa embraced western
culture both in the athletic programs that he directed and by taking the family
to see films, which were then just beginning to appear in Japanese theaters.
Later, when Japanese culture turned away from western films, Isamu Kurosawa
continued to believe that films were a positive educational experience.
In primary school, Akira Kurosawa was encouraged to draw by a teacher who took
an interest in mentoring his talents. His older brother, Heigo, had a profound
impact on him. Heigo was very intelligent and won several academic competitions,
but also had what was later called a cynical or dark side. In 1923, the Great
Kantō earthquake destroyed Tokyo and left 100,000 people dead. In the wake of
this event, Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13, made a walking tour of the devastation.
Corpses of humans and animals were piled everywhere. When Akira would attempt to
turn his head away, Heigo urged him not to. According to Akira, this experience
would later instruct him that to look at a frightening thing head-on is to
defeat its ability to cause fear.
Heigo eventually began a career as a benshi in Tokyo film theaters. Benshi
narrated silent films for the audience and were a uniquely Japanese addition to
the theater experience. However, with the impact of talking pictures on the rise,
benshi were losing work all over Japan. Heigo organized a benshi strike that
failed. Akira was likewise involved in labor-management struggles, writing
several articles for a radical newspaper while improving and expanding his
skills as a painter and reading literature. Akira never considered himself a
Communist, despite his activities that he later would describe as reckless.
When Akira Kurosawa was in his early 20s, his older brother Heigo committed
suicide. Four months later, the oldest of Kurosawa's brothers also died, leaving
Akira as the only surviving son of an original four at age 23.
In 1936, Kurosawa learned of an apprenticeship program for directors through a
major film studio, PCL (which later became Toho). He was hired and worked as an
assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto. After his directorial debut with Sanshiro
Sugata, his next few films were made under the watchful eye of the wartime
Japanese government and sometimes contained nationalistic themes. For instance,
The Most Beautiful is a propaganda film about Japanese women working in a
military optics factory. Judo Saga 2 portrays Japanese judo as superior to
western (American) boxing.
His first post-war film No Regrets for Our Youth, by contrast, is critical of
the old Japanese regime and is about the wife of a left-wing dissident who is
arrested for his political leanings. Kurosawa made several more films dealing
with contemporary Japan, most notably Drunken Angel and Stray Dog. However, it
was his period film Rashomon that made him internationally famous and won the
Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Kurosawa had a distinctive cinematic technique, which he had developed by the
1950s, and which gave his films a unique look. He liked using telephoto lenses
for the way they flattened the frame and also because he believed that placing
cameras farther away from his actors produced better performances. He also liked
using multiple cameras, which allowed him to shoot an action scene from
different angles. Another Kurosawa trademark was the use of weather elements to
heighten mood: for example the heavy rain in the opening scene of Rashomon, and
the final battle in Seven Samurai, the intense heat in Stray Dog, the cold wind
in Yojimbo, the snow in Ikiru, and the fog in Throne of Blood. Kurosawa also
liked using frame wipes, sometimes cleverly hidden by motion within the frame,
as a transition device.
He was known as "Tenno", literally "Emperor", for his dictatorial directing
style. He was a perfectionist who spent enormous amounts of time and effort to
achieve the desired visual effects. In Rashomon, he dyed the rain water black
with calligraphy ink in order to achieve the effect of heavy rain, and ended up
using up the entire local water supply of the location area in creating the
rainstorm. In the final scene of Throne of Blood, in which Mifune is shot by
arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range,
landing within centimetres of Mifune's body. In Ran, an entire castle set was
constructed on the slopes of Mt. Fuji only to be burned to the ground in a
climactic scene.
Other stories include demanding a stream be made to run in the opposite
direction in order to get a better visual effect, and having the roof of a house
removed, later to be replaced, because he felt the roof's presence to be
unattractive in a short sequence filmed from a train.
His perfectionism also showed in his approach to costumes: he felt that giving
an actor a brand new costume made the character look less than authentic. To
resolve this, he often gave his cast their costumes weeks before shooting was to
begin and required them to wear them on a daily basis and "bond with them." In
some cases, such as with Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor
farmers, the actors were told to make sure the costumes were worn down and
tattered by the time shooting started.
Kurosawa did not believe that "finished" music went well with film. When
choosing a musical piece to accompany his scenes, he usually had it stripped
down to one element (e.g., trumpets only). Only towards the end of his films are
more finished pieces heard.
Name: Akira Kurosawa
Born: 23 March 1910 Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Died: 6 September 1998 Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Akira Kurosawa (23 March 1910 – 6 September 1998) was a prominent Japanese film director, film producer, and
screenwriter. His first credited film (Sanshiro Sugata) was released in 1943;
his last (Madadayo) in 1993. His many awards include the Légion d'Honneur and an
Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.
Akira Kurosawa was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on March 23, 1910. He was
the youngest of eight children born to the Kurosawas in a suburb of Tokyo. Shima
Kurosawa was forty years old at the time of Akira's birth and his father Isamu
was forty-five. Akira Kurosawa grew up in a household with three older brothers
and four older sisters. Of his three older brothers, one died before Akira was
born and one was already grown and out of the household. One of his four older
sisters had also left the home to begin her own family before Kurosawa was born.
Kurosawa's next-oldest sibling, a sister he called "Little Big Sister," also
died suddenly after a short illness when he was ten years old.
Kurosawa's father worked as the director of a junior high school operated by the
Japanese military and the Kurosawas descended from a line of former samurai.
Financially, the family was above average. Isamu Kurosawa embraced western
culture both in the athletic programs that he directed and by taking the family
to see films, which were then just beginning to appear in Japanese theaters.
Later, when Japanese culture turned away from western films, Isamu Kurosawa
continued to believe that films were a positive educational experience.
In primary school, Akira Kurosawa was encouraged to draw by a teacher who took
an interest in mentoring his talents. His older brother, Heigo, had a profound
impact on him. Heigo was very intelligent and won several academic competitions,
but also had what was later called a cynical or dark side. In 1923, the Great
Kantō earthquake destroyed Tokyo and left 100,000 people dead. In the wake of
this event, Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13, made a walking tour of the devastation.
Corpses of humans and animals were piled everywhere. When Akira would attempt to
turn his head away, Heigo urged him not to. According to Akira, this experience
would later instruct him that to look at a frightening thing head-on is to
defeat its ability to cause fear.
Heigo eventually began a career as a benshi in Tokyo film theaters. Benshi
narrated silent films for the audience and were a uniquely Japanese addition to
the theater experience. However, with the impact of talking pictures on the rise,
benshi were losing work all over Japan. Heigo organized a benshi strike that
failed. Akira was likewise involved in labor-management struggles, writing
several articles for a radical newspaper while improving and expanding his
skills as a painter and reading literature. Akira never considered himself a
Communist, despite his activities that he later would describe as reckless.
When Akira Kurosawa was in his early 20s, his older brother Heigo committed
suicide. Four months later, the oldest of Kurosawa's brothers also died, leaving
Akira as the only surviving son of an original four at age 23.
In 1936, Kurosawa learned of an apprenticeship program for directors through a
major film studio, PCL (which later became Toho). He was hired and worked as an
assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto. After his directorial debut with Sanshiro
Sugata, his next few films were made under the watchful eye of the wartime
Japanese government and sometimes contained nationalistic themes. For instance,
The Most Beautiful is a propaganda film about Japanese women working in a
military optics factory. Judo Saga 2 portrays Japanese judo as superior to
western (American) boxing.
His first post-war film No Regrets for Our Youth, by contrast, is critical of
the old Japanese regime and is about the wife of a left-wing dissident who is
arrested for his political leanings. Kurosawa made several more films dealing
with contemporary Japan, most notably Drunken Angel and Stray Dog. However, it
was his period film Rashomon that made him internationally famous and won the
Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Kurosawa had a distinctive cinematic technique, which he had developed by the
1950s, and which gave his films a unique look. He liked using telephoto lenses
for the way they flattened the frame and also because he believed that placing
cameras farther away from his actors produced better performances. He also liked
using multiple cameras, which allowed him to shoot an action scene from
different angles. Another Kurosawa trademark was the use of weather elements to
heighten mood: for example the heavy rain in the opening scene of Rashomon, and
the final battle in Seven Samurai, the intense heat in Stray Dog, the cold wind
in Yojimbo, the snow in Ikiru, and the fog in Throne of Blood. Kurosawa also
liked using frame wipes, sometimes cleverly hidden by motion within the frame,
as a transition device.
He was known as "Tenno", literally "Emperor", for his dictatorial directing
style. He was a perfectionist who spent enormous amounts of time and effort to
achieve the desired visual effects. In Rashomon, he dyed the rain water black
with calligraphy ink in order to achieve the effect of heavy rain, and ended up
using up the entire local water supply of the location area in creating the
rainstorm. In the final scene of Throne of Blood, in which Mifune is shot by
arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range,
landing within centimetres of Mifune's body. In Ran, an entire castle set was
constructed on the slopes of Mt. Fuji only to be burned to the ground in a
climactic scene.
Other stories include demanding a stream be made to run in the opposite
direction in order to get a better visual effect, and having the roof of a house
removed, later to be replaced, because he felt the roof's presence to be
unattractive in a short sequence filmed from a train.
His perfectionism also showed in his approach to costumes: he felt that giving
an actor a brand new costume made the character look less than authentic. To
resolve this, he often gave his cast their costumes weeks before shooting was to
begin and required them to wear them on a daily basis and "bond with them." In
some cases, such as with Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor
farmers, the actors were told to make sure the costumes were worn down and
tattered by the time shooting started.
Kurosawa did not believe that "finished" music went well with film. When
choosing a musical piece to accompany his scenes, he usually had it stripped
down to one element (e.g., trumpets only). Only towards the end of his films are
more finished pieces heard.