Akiro Kurosawa

Acclaimed film director Akiro Kurosawa was born on March 23, 1910, in Tokyo, Japan. As the youngest of eight children, Kurosawa enjoyed drawing, and was encouraged by his parents and teachers to develop his many talents. When he was thirteen years old, the Great Kanto earthquake rocked Tokyo, leaving 100,000 people dead in its wake. The devastation was visible everywhere, and the streets were piled with human and animal remains. Kurosawa saw this as a formative experience in his youth, which encouraged him to face fear straight-on and not look away.

Kurosawa initially trained as a painter, creating film story boards before landing a job as an assistant film director in his early twenties. His breakthrough film, Rashomon, was released in 1950, and earned him the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. After directing a series of films throughout the 60s, Kurosawa attempted suicide by slashing his wrist thirty times with a razor. Depression ran in Kurosawa’s family, and his older brother, Heigo had previously committed suicide. Kurosawa survived his attempt, however, and went on to create greater works such as the samurai epic Kagemusha in 1980 with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.

Several of Kurosawa’s films have been remade into westerns in the U.S., and his 1958 film, The Hidden Fortress, was a driving inspiration behind the Star Wars saga. The technique of fading between scenes in the Star Wars films was also a nod to Kurosawa, who used this same practice in his films. Although his adaptations of Western genres and authors were revered in the U.S. and Europe, Kurosawa was not as critically-acclaimed in his native Japan, where he was frequently touted as a tyrant by the Japanese press.

Kursawa’s main influence as a filmmaker was legendary American director John Ford, and he even took to dressing like Ford on film sets after the two met. Kurosawa also shared Ford’s practice of recasting the same actors and actresses for films. If Kurosawa did not recast a particular actor, it was generally seen as an unspoken acknowledgment that he was not pleased with their performance.

In 1990, Kurosawa was given an honorary award "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world," however, he was only once nominated for a Best Director Oscar, for Ran in 1985. He was also named the sixth greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, and ranked #6 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Greatest Directors Ever!"

Kurosawa passed away on September 6, 1998, at the age of eighty-eight. His spouse, Yôko Yaguchi passed away in 1985, and the couple had two children; a son, Hisao, and a daughter, Kazuko.

Kurosawa believed that all people generally face the same challenges in life, and that his films represented the human condition. He further explained, "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."

YUDDY