Akira Kurosawa

Japanese Film Director

Farewell, Akira Kurosawa Japanese Film Director March 23, 1910—September 6, 1998 The world lost one of its greatest cinematic artists when Akira Kurosawa passed away in Tokyo on September 6th. He was known as "the Emperor" by those who worked with him, more for the breadth and ambition of his cinematic vision than his directorial manner. He often enjoyed a wider reputation internationally than in Japan, and is the individual most responsible for introducing Japanese cinema to the West. Steven Spielberg called him "the pictorial Shakespeare of our time." When Rashomon was introduced at the 1951 Venice Film Festival it won the Golden Lion award, and also won the U.S. Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It marked the beginning of enthusiastic American and European interest in Japanese cinema, and in Kurosawa in particular. Kurosawa's next big international hit was in 1954 with The Seven Samurai. It was the story of impoverished villagers who hire seven sword fighters as protection from a band of brigands. It became the model for Hollywood's highly successful The Magnificent Seven, starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. Kurosawa's next Oscar for Best Foreign Film came with Dersu Uzala (1975), the poignant tale of a Russian surveyor mapping Siberia. In 1980 Kagemusha shared the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His last great accomplishment, and the most expensive film ever made in Japan, was Ran (1985), adapted from Shakespeare's King Lear. In 1990 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Akira Kurosawa's Filmography Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945), Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), One Beautiful Sunday (1947), Drunken Angel (1948), The Quiet Dual (1948), Stray Dog (1949), Scandal (1950), Rashomon (1951), The Idiot (1951), Ikiru (1952), The Seven Samurai (1954), Record of a Living Being (1955), Throne of Blood (1957), The Lower Depths (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Yojimbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962), High and Low (1963), Red Beard (1965), Dodes'ka-den (1970), Dersu Uzala (1975), Kagemusha (1980), Ran (1985), Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991), and No, Not Yet (1993).

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