Akira Kurosawa: Interviews

Conversations With Filmmakers Series

by Bert Cardullo (Editor), Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) moved with ease and mastery from the mysterious and internal to the spectacular and panoramic. Kurosawa was a man of all genres and all periods, bridging the traditional and the modern, the old and the new, the East and the West. He had a flair for fusing Western literature with elements from his native Kabuki theater. Ran retells King Lear as a samurai tale; Throne of Blood retells Macbeth; Hakuchi adapts Fyodor Dostoevsky\'s The Idiot as a tale set in northern Japan.

Kurosawa became the first Japanese director widely known in the West when his Rashomon won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951. His film techniques and storytelling innovations have greatly influenced European and American film, particularly westerns.

Because of his ability to control all aspects of film production and to maintain artistic control on almost all of his projects, Kurosawa was known throughout Japan as \"the Emperor.\" Ranging from 1952 to the mid-1990s, this collection includes an interview by Lillian Ross, a conversation with Gabriel Garc�-a M�rquez, and a previously unpublished interview with the book\'s editor.

Bert Cardullo is professor of American culture and literature at Ege University, in Izmir, Turkey. He is the author of In Search of Cinema: Selected Writings on International Film Art and Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Japan

233 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2007

About the author

Bert Cardullo is Professor of Media and Communication at the Izmir University of Economics in Turkey. His books include Playing to the Camera, An Idea of the Drama, and Screen Writings.

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What's most important for all of us involved in any film I'm making is to get to understand each other, so that we can work together. When we sit together and chat over food, that's the most important part of the job for me."

"...but perhaps the most important thing is the dedicated search for The Film - in capital letters - the search for the soul of The Film. It isn't enough to just go out and crank out a movie. You have to keep looking for what it is to be a move. And when I look back over my films, there are only a few of them that are real movies. I was still looking for that soul what The Film is. So it's an attitude; the attitude is what's most important. It's the discipline to recognize that you're looking for something and you cannot compromise and turn out any old thing. You have to be dedicated to something that's spiritual."

[Explaining his brother's reasons for why his brother took him to view the damage and corpses from the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923:]"...if you shut your eyes to a frightening sight, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of. With my camera, like Dostoevsky with his prose, I have tried to force the audience - which is often unwilling - to "look carefully now."

[Perry Ruhland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kurosawa generally does not seem interested in his interviews, and throughout the book he repeats that he has no interest in explaining his work, but still he speaks clearly about his art and his unwavering dedication to film. Highlights are the New Yorker profile where he attends a dinner party at William Friedkin's apartment and his interview with Gabriel García Márquez.

[_Liebert · Rating 3 out of 5]

the greatest filmmaker; but the article quality is inconsistent

[Rira · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful for film students

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a recorded interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez that gets into some heavy subject matter about the bomb. Read most of the interviews, and if you want other peoples impression of Kurosawa, you should read this. He was a chatty-Cathy, scotch drinking, idealist who found a unique language in film.

[Emil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The description of Kurosawa's retrospective at the Japan Society in the 1980s is the best piece of writing I have read in a while. You should read this book for that section, if for nothing else.