Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa (?? ? Kurosawa Akira, also ?? ?) (March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a prominent Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter of films, many of which are considered highly influential worldwide classics.

Later films

Red Beard marked a turning point in Kurosawa's career in more ways than one. In addition to being his last film with Mifune, it was his last in black-and-white. It was also his last as a major director within the Japanese studio system making roughly a film a year. Kurosawa was signed to direct a Hollywood project, Tora! Tora! Tora!; but 20th Century Fox replaced him with Kinji Fukasaku before it was completed. His next few films were a lot harder to finance and made at intervals of five years.

Related Topics:
Tora! Tora! Tora! - 20th Century Fox - Kinji Fukasaku

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The first: Dodesukaden about a group of poor people living around a rubbish dump, was not a success.

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After an attempted suicide, Kurosawa went on to make several more films although arranging domestic financing was highly difficult despite his international reputation.

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Dersu Uzala, made in the USSR and set in Siberia in the early 20th century, was the only Kurosawa film made outside Japan and not in Japanese. It's about the friendship of a Russian explorer and a nomadic hunter. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Kagemusha, (financed with the help of the director's most famous admirers, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola) is the story of a man who is the double of a medieval Japanese lord and takes over his identity. Most important was Ran: Kurosawa's version of King Lear set in medieval Japan. It was the great project of Kurosawa's late career and he spent a decade planning it and trying to obtain funding which he was finally able to do with the help of the French producer Serge Silberman. The film was a phenomenal international success and is generally considered Kurosawa's last masterpiece.

Related Topics:
Dersu Uzala - USSR - Oscar - Kagemusha - George Lucas - Francis Ford Coppola - Ran

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Kurosawa made three more films during the 1990s which were more personal than his earlier works. Dreams is a series of vignettes based on his own dreams. Rhapsody in August is about memories of the Nagasaki atom bomb and his final film: Madadayo is about a retired teacher and his former students. Kurosawa died September 6, 1998, in Setagaya, Tokyo.

Related Topics:
1990s - Dreams - Rhapsody in August - Nagasaki - Madadayo - September 6 - 1998 - Setagaya, Tokyo

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