- Born
- Died
- Nicknames
- The Emperor
- Wind Man
- Height5′ 11½″ (1.82 m)
- After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater creative freedom. Drunken Angel (1948) was the first film he made without extensive studio interference, and marked his first collaboration with Toshirô Mifune. In the coming decades, the two would make 16 movies together, and Mifune became as closely associated with Kurosawa's films as was John Wayne with the films of Kurosawa's idol, John Ford. After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made his international breakthrough film Rashomon (1950) in 1950. It won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West. The next few years saw the low-key, touching Ikiru (1952) (Living), the epic Seven Samurai (1954), the barbaric, riveting Shakespeare adaptation Throne of Blood (1957), and a fun pair of samurai comedies Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture with Dodes'ka-den (1970), a larger-scale Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) and, with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai tale Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), which Kurosawa described as a dry run for Ran (1985), an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear." He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991) and Madadayo (1993). Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where critics have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors (William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky and Evan Hunter) with suspicion - but he's revered by American and European film-makers, who remade Rashomon (1950) as The Outrage (1964), Seven Samurai (1954) as The Magnificent Seven (1960), Yojimbo (1961) as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Hidden Fortress (1958) as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
- SpouseYôko Yaguchi(May 21, 1945 - February 1, 1985) (her death, 2 children)
- Children
- ParentsShima Kurosawa
- RelativesTakayuki Katô(Grandchild)Yû Kurosawa(Grandchild)
- Frequently uses the "wipe effect" to fade from one scene to another.
- Painterly compositions.
- Likes to do Shakespearan plays in Feudal Japanese settings.
- Use of weather to heighten mood, most obviously rain.
- Female characters that are usually either sweet but weak and submissive or are deceitful, evil and conniving. Exceptions include Princess Yuki from 'The Hidden Fortress', who is willful and good-hearted, and Mutsuta's wife from 'Sanjuro', who is gentle and kind but sharp and intelligent.
- According to his family, he rarely thought about anything other than films. Even when at home, he would sit around silently, apparently composing shots in his head.
- Although the Japanese press tried to paint him as a tyrant, almost all of his casts and crews agreed he was a much more cool and detached presence on sets. Many also described him as "intense".
- His films are frequently copied and remade by American and European filmmakers.
- He was voted the 6th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, making him one among only two Asians along with Satyajit Ray (who is ranked in 25th position) on a list of 50 directors and the highest ranking non-American.
- At around 6' feet, he was extremely tall by Japanese standards, having stood a head taller than any of his colleagues.
- For me, film-making combines everything. That's the reason I've made cinema my life's work. In films painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.
- Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.
- The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they've been given. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heroes.
- With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this.
- In all my films, there's three or maybe four minutes of real cinema.
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