The 1965 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

BIOGRAPHY of Akira Kurosawa

AKIRA KUROSAWA was born on March 23, 1910 in Omori, a quiet residential suburb of Tokyo. The youngest of seven children, he was indulged by a gentle mother and three older brothers and sisters and remembers himself as being "extraordinarily obedient," a "cry-baby," and "slow to develop intellectually." His father was descended from the old samurai class in the Tohoku District of northeastern Honshu, an area known for its dreary winters and the fortitude and endurance of its people. To this heritage are ascribed qualities which were later to figure prominently in the son's films and directorial methods.

AKIRA's father had trained as an army officer but retired early from active service to become a teacher at Ebara Middle School in Tokyo where he took a special interest in physical education. AKIRA, however, was not a strong lad and, after two older brothers injured their health by overstraining in baseball, he was forbidden to participate in sports. Left to quieter pursuits the boy became an apt listener and observer. His heart's desire then was to be the captain of a merchant vessel.

After one year in primary school at Omori, a decline in family circumstances caused a move to the Koishikawa District and the young AKIRA was transferred to the Kuroda Primary School at Edogawa. A classmate, Keinosuke Uekusa, recalls that KUROSAWA did not at first attract attention, but from his second year became the best student in the class and was chosen class president. "He was reserved but his words and actions were commanding and without trying he became popular. Though just as friendly with the bad as the good boys in the class, he disliked anything crooked or underhanded." In those early years KUROSAWA showed a talent for drawing and spelling and was adept at kendo, traditional Japanese fencing. An important influence in the lives of both boys was Tachikawa, a teacher who was ahead of his time as an advocate of art education for children and special courses for bright students. On Sundays KUROSAWA and Uekusa regularly visited his home to learn more of the world of art.

During his senior year at Kieka Middle School KUROSAWA began attending classes at a private art academy, the Doshusha School of Western Painting. When he was 18 his paintings were twice selected for exhibition by the Nikkakai Association, an organization of progressive modern artists who had banded together in rebellion against conservative government-sponsored art exhibits. Though desiring further training, his means were inadequate: "The price of a tube of vermillion was beyond me," he has written, "so there was no question of my going abroad to study."

In this period he also developed a keen interest in literature and was introduced to films under the tutelage of his immediate older brother, Heigo, who was a benshi, or "movie interpreter." Before voices were dubbed or sub-titles used for foreign films in Japan, a benshi sat in a small, pulpit-like box on the side of the stage, speaking all the roles in the film including animal sounds. Though anonymous, like the piano-accompanist of silent films, the benshi frequently determined the success of a foreign film by his talent and delivery. Using passes provided by Heigo, AKIRA spent much of his free time watching foreign movies "interpreted" by his brother. Heigo's suicide after a quarrel with their father left a deep impression on AKIRA which was to be reflected in a predominant theme of his adult career: "Why can't people live together more happily?"

Several years after graduation from middle school KUROSAWA and Uekusa entered the Japan Proletariat Artists Group. Uekusa reminisces that they were "not so much enamored of Marxism as resistant against the status quo and looking for a breath or new movement in art and literature." In frequent discussions with others of books they had read, the talk often centered around the novels of Maxim Gorky, Feodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev.

For nearly nine years KUROSAWA did his best to earn a living with an artist's brush by illustrating stories and cooking supplements for ladies' magazines, and painting posters, but the uncertain and meager income left him dependent upon his hard-pressed family.

In 1936, a depression year for Japan and a time when KUROSAWA was having grave doubts about his future as an artist, he chanced upon a newspaper advertisement by a motion picture company seeking assistant directors. The advertisement asked candidates to submit an essay on the defects in Japanese films and how they might be remedied. Thinking that if basic defects existed they would not be easily corrected, he nonetheless sent in an essay with his curriculum vitae. He shortly thereafter received notice to present himself for a personal interview and on the appointed day queued up with several hundred other applicants. Shown a newspaper clipping about a laborer who had fallen in love with a dancing girl and told to compose a scenario, KUROSAWA remembers writing of the contrast between a black factory area and the lively Nichigeki, the famous Tokyo entertainment palace. A few days later he found that he was one of the few invited for an oral examination.

The interview with a group of motion picture officials went well enough until one examiner inquired "too incessantly" about the young applicant's family affairs, prompting KUROSAWA to ask heatedly whether this was a "criminal investigation" and then stalk out. Surprised to receive a third notice—to report for work—KUROSAWA later learned that Kajiro Yamamoto had convinced the other examiners to overlook his aggressiveness. One of the greatest directors of his time, Yamamoto—who was to become KUROSAWA’s mentor and a great influence in his life—has written that the standard then was not to choose men who would be instantly useful but to look for potential talent to be developed for the future. Torn between the repulsion he had felt at the sight of actresses in grease paint at the studio, and the awareness that in his large family any income would be welcome, he reluctantly accepted the job.

The company KUROSAWA joined—the Photo-Chemical Laboratory known as P.C.L.—later became the Toho Motion Picture Company and is today one of Japan's six leading motion picture producers. Though the P.C.L. was unique among movie companies for its absence of feudalistic organization and its orientation toward experimentation, the free-thinking KUROSAWA at first disliked the work intensely, but his colleagues encouraged him to stay, if only to collect his monthly salary. Meanwhile Yamamoto was watching. Noticing that KUROSAWA could get along with people but was also firm, he arranged for the neophyte to be assigned as his third assistant. From that day KUROSAWA never thought of leaving.

He had joined a strong team. A fine director, Yamamoto also was a good teacher. One of the few directors in prewar Japan to concern himself with the Japanese people as they really were, he was then doing some of his best work and developing the documentary style which KUROSAWA was later to use to such advantage. Treating his assistants as colleagues rather than mere apprentices Yamamoto consulted them before setting up a scene. To KUROSAWA he taught each stage of production.

First assigned to write scenarios, KUROSAWA learned quickly and today quotes to other beginners his teacher's words: "To understand motion pictures fully, one must be able to write a script. " KUROSAWA sometimes spent only three days on a scenario, usually with an appropriate overture playing to set the mood. His output increased after he sold one ordinary scenario for a good price, but his best work was done on those written with the intention of directing them himself.

Next Yamamoto taught him editing, for which his pupil had "a natural talent." Then came supervising sets, choosing costumes, setting up cameras to achieve graphic effects and finally directing, which he learned with Yamamoto standing aside. Driven by his own perfectionism, he worked over and over again to correct mistakes. "As I came to understand movie-making," he says of this period, "I became a prisoner of its fascination."

More than the tricks of the trade, Yamamoto taught his protege about life, spending spare time with him and the first assistant at small bars in the amusement district. KUROSAWA learned from his mentor that "people are more important than causes" and was deeply influenced by Yamamoto's humanism, his belief in ideals, and his extreme interest in social issues—then very rare in Japan where the status quo was seldom questioned. KUROSAWA’s early reading, reinforced by his association with this director, instilled in him an abiding interest in social problems.

In 1941 KUROSAWA had become chief assistant to Yamamoto and was left in charge on location for Uma (Horses) when the director had to return to Tokyo. This semi-documentary was received with critical acclaim and accelerated KUROSAWA’s emergence as a film-maker in his own right.

Sugata Sanshiro (Judo Saga), produced in 1943, was KUROSAWA’s first film as a full-fledged director and was his own adaptation of a popular novel about a judo champion in the early Meiji Era. Seeing an advertisement for the novel, KUROSAWA had intuitively thought it would have the "bigness" he wanted and promptly asked the studio production head to buy the rights. Two days after the book came out every major studio wanted the entertaining story. He was finally allowed to direct this film because his scenario won a contest sponsored by the Office of Public Information and another sponsored by the Japanese Film Magazine Association.

The story is based on the conflict between jujitsu and judo, the one a physical method of combat and the other a spiritual discipline. The hero, Sugata, having learned the technique but not the spirit of judo, is rebuked for not knowing the way of life, and the teacher implies a rebuke to himself, comparing teaching judo to someone who does not know "the way" to giving a knife to a madman. Not hate and attack, the teacher admonishes, but loyalty and love are "the way."

KUROSAWA both quickly gained assurance and enjoyed directing his own picture, though "it was hard to have a good time making films during wartime when we were not allowed to say anything worth saying." He, moreover, disagreed with the general view that the "real Japanese style film" should be as simple as possible and "got away with disagreeing." Also, in a break with Japanese tradition, his hero questions a teacher's judgment, and a younger man defeats an older one. Immediately popular, the film drew from critics praise for "precise and straightforward directing" and "excellent photographic work producing the most spectacular judo action ever seen on the screen or even in real life."

In retrospect the consensus is that this was a remarkable film both to be made in 1943 and to be a 33-year-old director's first. Noteworthy for its imaginative cinematic penetration, the film has many elements of style seen in his succeeding films, including craftsmanship, directness, economy, nuance, superb beauty, quick tempo and concern with character. The punctuation—use of the cut, wipe, pan, dolly and bridge—is distinctly KUROSAWA’s own, and theory and practice, illusion and reality, are shown in parallel scenes. KUROSAWA also began to collect his own group of players and crew; actors in the three leading roles—Susumu Fujita, Ichiro Sugao, and Takashi Shimura—would all appear in later films.

KUROSAWA seldom expressed his own opinion of this or any other of his films. Only after long acquaintance did he make personal observations on each of his films to Donald Richie who has written numerous articles on the Japanese cinema and is now finishing a book entitled The Films of Akira Kurosawa. The quotes and film descriptions in this text have largely been taken from Richie's notes for his manuscript which he generously made available to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.

For his second film, Ichiban Utsubushiki (The Most Beautiful), produced in 1944, KUROSAWA wrote a scenario on the military-like everyday life of drafted female workers at an optical factory making lenses and binoculars. His own story, but with strong wartime coloring to satisfy national policy, the film is in accord with the traditional Japanese emphasis on the comfort of doing something together. It had an almost all-female cast.

In KUROSAWA fashion the "keep on trying—do your best" theme is strong. Intended as a documentary more than a dramatic story, this film also evinces the intense concern for actuality which is a mark of KUROSAWA's subsequent works. To achieve this, KUROSAWA has related: "I made all the actresses run a lot to get them tired—to show themselves on the screen. It is interesting that, after the film, one after another got married and all became exemplary wives."

Among the marriages was his own to Yoki Yaguchi, a former Shochiku "opera" singer, who played the production-line heroine to whose beauty of spirit the film's title refers.

In 1945 came Zoku Sugata Sanshiro, a sequel to Judo Saga. Based upon the same novel, this version drew crowds seeking in sheer entertainment escape from the fearsome reality of increasingly frequent bombing raids, but was dismissed by critics as an artistic failure.

Tora-no O-o Fumu Otokotachi (They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail), completed as the Pacific War terminated in 1945 but not released until 1952, is a forceful indictment of the misuse of the human spirit within the feudal context. KUROSAWA had wanted to make an action drama in costume but no horses were available. Therefore in one night he wrote a scenario based on the kabuki (traditional Japanese popular drama with singing and dancing performed in a highly stylized manner) play Kanjincho and the noh (classic Japanese dance-drama heroic in subject and in use of measured chants and movements) drama Ataka, centering on an episode in the life of Yoshitsune Minamoto—one of the most colorful fighting generals of medieval Japan—and his younger brother, Yoritomo. KUROSAWA changed the meaning of the story with his addition to the cast of a stupid porter—the sole character who does not understand feudal obligation—hence the embodiment of the common man. His uncomprehending comments and stance show the emptiness of heroics, the equality of all human emotions and the artificial weakness of socia1 barriers.

Asu o Tsukuro Hitobito (Those Who Make Tomorrow), produced in 1946, was among those postwar films reflecting socialistic ideas that had been long suppressed. With three directors—Yamamoto, Hideo Sekigawa and KUROSAWA, the film also boasted three cameramen, four producers and three scriptwriters. Made at the behest of the new and powerful Japan Motion Picture and Drama Employees Union, it was intended as anti-capitalist union propaganda. "This cannot be called my film," KUROSAWA has said. "It cannot be said to be anybody's . . . . It was really made by the labor union and is an excellent example of why a committee-made film is not good."

In 1946 KUROSAWA also directed Waga Seishun no Kuinashi (No Regrets for My Youth), which ranked second in the Kinema Jumpo (Motion Picture Times) list of 10 best pictures of 1946, a poll comparable to that of the American Motion Picture Academy. Though counting the film as "not much of a production" because the labor union interfered and would not permit a major work, KUROSAWA marked it as the first film in which he had something to say beyond the picture content.

The critics, while unanimously agreeing that the film was one of the best to come out of the occupation years, took strong exception to the character of the heroine, who chooses to work on a farm and turns her back on "social responsibilities." KUROSAWA has reflected that only here and later in Rashomon has he fully and fairly portrayed a woman. With this heroine he wanted to show a woman of new Japan who lived by her own feelings.

Subarashiki Nichiyobi (One Wonderful Sunday), KUROSAWA’s 1947 production, reflected another aspect of the postwar atmosphere. The scenario was written by his classmate Uekusa.

The idea for this film was taken from an old D. W. Griffith picture about a couple who experience difficulties but do not give up. KUROSAWA made this theme into a story of two young factory workers, who, despite everything, manage to enjoy themselves on their Sunday off. It is spring and the couple have just ¥35 (10 U.S. cents). Meeting at the station, they walk arm in arm past vacant lots and along shabby streets, visit a model house, and stop to join children in a baseball game. When it rains, they decide to attend a concert, but all the inexpensive tickets have been bought by scalpers who give the boy a beating when he asks for tickets at the legal rate. At last, in an empty bandshell, the boy conducts an imaginary orchestra, falters, but continues with the girl's encouragement, whereupon sounds of thunderous applause and splendid music fill the shell. They part at the station with the promise to meet again the next Sunday. In the cyclic form frequently used by KUROSAWA the film ends where it begins—but the people have changed.

One Wonderful Sunday placed sixth in the Kinema Jumpo list of the 10 best pictures of 1947 and won KUROSAWA a prize for best director of the year. Critics generally approved of the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy. Considering the inadequate lighting and inferior lenses with which Japanese directors then had to work, Richie considered the compositions "splendidly made—casual but perfect." One critic saw in the film "a deepening of the director's interest in society and humanity. . .and a marked growth in his power of expression."

Yoidore Tenshi (Drunken Angel) made in 1948 was again set against the dreary background of war-ravaged Tokyo. The moral preoccupations which continue through all of KUROSAWA’s best films are seen here in his intention "to denounce the way of gangsters and show how silly they are as humans."

"In this picture," KUROSAWA has said, "I finally discovered myself." Part of this discovery he credits to Toshiro Mifune and Fumio Hayasaka. KUROSAWA had noticed Mifune when the actor joined Toho a year earlier and had taken him under his wing. Starring him for the first time in Drunken Angel, Mifune gained quick fame. Drunken Angel also marked the beginning of an exceptionally creative collaboration and close friendship between KUROSAWA and Hayasaka, the composer. KUROSAWA has reminisced that they each independently thought of using the rapid Cuckoo Waltz for the saddest part of the film. Before he and Hayasaka worked together, KUROSAWA had thought of pictures and music separately but afterward the two fused in his mind.

Made at a time when Japanese society was rejecting old standards without new ones to take their place, critics agreed that Drunken Angel "perfectly epitomizes a period, its hopes, its fears" and represented "a major breakthrough of a major directorial talent."

With the appearance of this film on a "timely" theme, the critics also began calling KUROSAWA "journalistic." "Actually," he has agreed, "I have always thought of the film as a kind of journalism, if journalism means a series of happenings, usually contemporary, which can be shaped into a story. There is, indeed, something very newspaperlike. . . very topical about such films. If they do not have this, they have no meaning. Films are not for museums . . . ."

Shortly before the release of Drunken Angel the Toho Motion Picture Company announced the dismissal of 720 "left-wing" members of its studio staff, including directors and performers. During the 200-day strike KUROSAWA lent himself neither to the political objectives of the union nor to the rugged capitalism of the company; he idealistically operated on the assumption that the union slogan "independent art" was to be taken literally. Trouble came, however, when he objected to the painting of "anti-strike dog" on the nude bodies of policemen captured by union thugs. A friend has observed that this experience, coupled with previous union interference with his films, ended his belief in "people," but he had the faith to continue to believe in "individuals." With this evolution of his personal philosophy, Richie proposes, KUROSAWA came to see man and not society as central.

While the strike was on, KUROSAWA left Toho and with Kajiro Yamamoto and others formed the Motion Picture Artists Association (Eiga Geijutsuka Kyokai). His next movie, Shizukanaru Ketto (A Silent Duel), was made for this short-lived organization and released in 1949 through Daiei. Though a Kinema Jumpo critic found in the hero, tormented by an inner struggle, a "new type of individual" brought to Japanese movies by KUROSAWA, the consensus was that the film lacked interest and higher meaning.

His second Eiga Geijutsuka Kyokai production was Nora Inu (Stray Dog). It once again used the authentic settings of bombed-out Tokyo and the now familiar team of Mifune and Shimura in featured roles of a young detective and his elderly colleague.

The original idea for the film came from a true story about an unfortunate detective who, during those days of shortages, lost his pistol. In the film rookie detective Mifune's gun is stolen by a pickpocket, and against hopeless odds, he undertakes the task of looking for the thief. Meantime, the "stray dog" who has Mifune's gun commits a murder and robbery, but the audience learns the robber went bad only after all his own belongings had been stolen. Without his pistol, the rookie thinks of himself also as a stray until he begins to gain wisdom from the old detective (Shimura). In the fight between the rookie detective and the robber at the end both are muddy and unrecognizable—no hero and no villain—and, implying that no man is bad, is the sound of children singing on a hike. Retrieving his gun, the rookie sees that evil is merely the wrong choice at the moment of truth.

The film won wide acclaim for features a Kinema Jumpo critic described as "tension-packed sequences. . .clear-cut portrayal of characters and psychology, and straightforward, speedy, robust direction. . . rich in bouyancy and youthful vigor. . . ." Defining KUROSAWA as "an apresquerre director," the critic concluded this was the reason he had now established himself as the favorite among the nation's younger generation. His article ended with the surprisingly accurate prediction that "KUROSAWA probably will lead in the future advancement of Japanese movies in the world's market because his films are rich in technical virtuosity that make them so understandable and entertaining to any viewer."

In the Kinema Jumpo list of the 10 best pictures of 1949 Stray Dog and A Silent Duel ranked third and eighth, respectively. Stray Dog also won first place in the Eiga Geijutsu (Motion Picture Art) magazine list of five best pictures of the same year.

In 1950 KUROSAWA made Shubun (Scandal) as a "protest film": "It is directly connected with the rise of the press in Japan and the habitual confusion of freedom with license. Personal privacy is never respected and the scandal sheets are the worst offenders. I felt outrage that this should be so." Scandal, regarded as the first of KUROSAWA’s movies "in the Dostoevsky manner," ranked sixth in the Kinema Jumpo list of 10 best pictures of 1950.

Later in 1950 Rashomon (the name of a famous, ruined gate in the ancient capital of Kyoto) was produced by Daiei. KUROSAWA, who usually thinks of his subjects two to three years ahead, had wanted to make this film for some time. Ryunosuke Akutagawa's original story, using seven versions of a single incident to probe human behavior and giving the reader no indication of how he should judge them, asked: Is there truth? If so, is man capable of recognizing this truth or will his egotism—his concept of himself and the world around him—cause him to deceive himself? The burden of evidence was that all truth is relative and, consequently, there is no truth. KUROSAWA, himself concerned with truths which were outside pragmatic Japanese morality, was not content merely to question truth. Insisting upon hope and wanting his audience to believe in man's essential goodwill, he added the last scene—the woodcutter adopting the orphan child.

Another significant addition was the character of the cynical yet inquisitive commoner, whose questions and disbelief serve as a comment upon the action through which the film evolves. He is the single person in the cast of eight who is uninvolved and has no version to tell.

The film begins, like the story, in the rain. Framing the central story of a rape and death in the forest involving a woman, her husband and a bandit, the first encounter is between three men—the commoner, the priest and the woodcutter—who shelter from the rain under the ruined gate and discuss the incident.

The story had its own provocative irony but the film's power, in the opinion of most experts, rested on its technique. A complete opposite of the Japanese period film, it questions and is realistic while they reaffirm and are romantic. The sword-fighting scenes were reminiscent of the modern Japanese stage but owed nothing to traditional drama. The stylistic device—questions answered by unheard questions being repeated as a question and then answered by testifying to the audience—turned out to be excellent for cinema.

Rashomon was given its formal premier in one of the best theaters in Tokyo with an initial two-week run—the usual run was one week. Though some apprehensive theater managers hired a benshi to give hints as to the meaning, the film was not a commercial failure as legend later claimed; it ranked fourth in the 1950 Daiei listing of best money earners.

While Rashomon placed fifth in the Kinema Jumpo list of best films of 1950, critics generally did not like it. Daiei had made no attempt to detain KUROSAWA when his year contract expired, and after the second and third runs the picture was shelved, where it would probably have remained except for a series of fortuitous circumstances which led to its becoming the best known Japanese film ever made.

When the Japanese were invited to enter the 12th International Film Festival at Venice in 1951 the reaction was consternation. Meantime, at the request of festival authorities, Guilliana Stramigioli, then head of Unitalia Film in Japan, had reviewed a number of pictures and been deeply moved by Rashomon. Wanting to send an entry but uncertain whether they had anything to export, Daiei executives reluctantly yielded to her persuasion.

The international success achieved by Rashomon in winning the Grand Prix at Venice bewildered the Japanese film world. Most finally decided the film's only appeal was being "exotic." Among the rare critics who saw another attraction was Akira Iwasaki: "The idea that lies at the root of Rashomon. . .is a disbelief, doubt and despair for objective truth. The movie naturally fits, therefore, into the prevailing mood of Western Europe." Others opined that the reasoning in the picture is Western—analytical, logical and speculative, processes not often found in Japanese thought; to question truth but champion hope, as this film does, is not Japanese. "Actually," Richie says, "what happened in this film. . .is that the confines of Japanese thought could not contain the director who joined the world—Rashomon speaks to everyone."

From Venice, Rashomon made a triumphant march throughout Europe. Entering the United States, where it was shown widely by RKO, it received the American Motion Picture Academy and the New York Film Critics' Awards and was cited by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures as the best foreign film of 1951.

KUROSAWA received the news of his Venice award philosophically: "I feel very happy. But I would have been still happier and the prize would have had more meaning had I made and received a prize for a film reflecting as much of present-day Japan as Bicycle Thieves showed of modern Italy."

In terms of the Japanese film industry Rashomon was responsible for its postwar "discovery" abroad. Japanese films had been known in Europe among a limited film-society audience long before World War II, but Rashomon led for the first time to wide international acceptance of Japanese films. It also led to a rash of Western-aimed Japanese historical pictures.

Hakuchi (The Idiot), produced for Shochiku in 1951, garnered more adverse criticism than any film KUROSAWA had directed, and it was a commercial failure. A high-budgeted film, The Idiot was a complete screen version, written by KUROSAWA and Eijiro Hisaita, of the Dostoevsky novel of the same name. The setting, chosen as the nearest Japanese approximation to the look of Russia in the last century, was the modern city of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, in snowbound midwinter.

KUROSAWA had wanted to make this film even before Rashomon. Admiring Dostoevsky's writing and compassion from his middle school days, he thought this book would make a fine film. "Dostoevsky," KUROSAWA has said, "is still my favorite author. His tenderness goes beyond the limit of an ordinary human's. Ordinary persons turn their eyes away from tragic sights. But he looks straight at these sights and suffers with the victims. He is the one who writes most honestly about human existence. . . ."

In 1952 KUROSAWA renewed his contract with the Toho Motion Picture Company and made Ikiru (Living). This film, like most of his work, was a personal statement; though a sweeping indictment of bureaucracy, Ikiru is concerned not so much with a bad society as a good man. The "we are what we do" theme is strongly expressed in Watanabe, an elderly official played by Shimura, who learns from his doctor that he has an incurable stomach cancer and perhaps half a year to live. He first reacts with fear then tries to find solace in his family, but his married son is absorbed in his own affairs. Forlorn, he begins for the first time in his life to doubt and to live.

Ikiru placed first in the Kinema Jumpo list of best movies of 1952 and critics unanimously judged it a tour de force. In 1954 it won the Silver Bear Prize at the International Film Festival in Berlin, and in 1961 the David O. Selznick Golden Laurel.

The scenario for Ikiru was a joint effort of KUROSAWA, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Weighing his experience in writing scripts both alone and in collaboration with another scenarist, the director established a rule with this film always to work in partnership: "If I write by myself, it tends to be one-sided. I need people who can give me perspective. The ideal is to sit at the same table a bit apart and with two or three writing in competition to show what they can do. Then each takes the other's work and rewrites, then we talk and decide which to use."

The actual writing may take up to six months. KUROSAWA explains: "I start with visualizing the first scene—a certain kind of character with a certain kind of potential in a certain position. Then, if this character has it in him, he begins to move by himself, but until he does start to move it is very hard work."

KUROSAWA had always done more of his own editing than any other Japanese director, but with Ikiru he assumed fully the editing responsibility for his pictures. After a film is completed, he shuts himself each day in the editing room, usually for about two weeks, experimenting with various combinations and polishing until the film has the life he wants. Those who have seen him at work say his skill in picking up a flowing negative going through at 24 frames per second, looking at it through an enlarging lens and spiking the shot to be cut accurately with one hand is like watching magic. His co-workers take pride in KUROSAWA's talent reports his production chief: "We say among ourselves, KUROSAWA is Toho's best director, Japan's best scenarist and the best editor in the world."

From Ikiru onward KUROSAWA also became more particular concerning set design and construction. Previously Japanese studios had to "make do," but by then the postwar excuse of lack of material could more or less be abandoned. "Truth to appearances," he emphasized, "is the life to film."

Before the release of Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai) in 1954 the film had already gained notoriety. It was costlier than any previous Toho movie, took more than a year to complete, partly due to adverse weather conditions, and was over three hours long. Critics and the public, however, were in general agreement that KUROSAWA had produced a highly entertaining Western-type melodrama, and had successfully conveyed his moral that men who live by instinct, with their roots deep in the soil, are more stable than "heroic" samurai who are like the wind.

Going beyond the intellectualization of truth explored in Rashomon to say that emotion comprehends where intellect falters, the film delineates the actions and personalities of seven masterless samurai who come to the aid of a backwoods farming village and annihilate the band of vicious bandits terrorizing it. The villagers are grateful but quickly get on with their spring planting. Leaving the village, the three remaining samurai realize the only victors are the farmers. The side on which men fight matters little; after the battle all that remains is being human. This knowledge is somehow enough—to be human is to have hope.

Seven Samurai placed third in the Kinema Jumpo list of the 10 best pictures of 1954 and in the same year won the Silver Lion of St. Marc at the Venice International Film Festival. It has since been seen in more than 40 countries.

Richie considers the Seven Samurai KUROSAWA's masterpiece: "It is the perfect fusion of all the elements which make up the individual style of the director and is, at the same time, a summation of everything which is most representatively Japanese about the Japanese film: it is concerned with the present, though its story is laid in the past; it criticizes contemporary values, in particular the Japanese cult of the hero, but insists that these are, after all, human values; it faithfully creates the context of Japanese life, the man and his surroundings, at the same time it is concerned with timeless values and universal attitudes; it uses a controlled realism as a vehicle and presents a surface of superlative physical beauty which merely serves to reflect the moral beauty beneath. Finally, it is high art; it is a complete statement about the emotions of men."

The Mainichi Shimbun reviewer commended the "breathtaking force" of the fighting scenes, the character portrayals and "complete harmony" of cast. This latter characteristic of KUROSAWA's films arises from his using, as much as possible, the same actors, actresses, scriptwriters and crew. Since there is little or no compromise in his work, he must have people who know him well.

At work on the set, the director is obstinate, short-tempered and must have everything in his way or not at all. Absolute silence is demanded, whether the cameras are rolling or not, and all present, whether connected with the scene or only standing by, must follow the work being done. Yet all know he is striving for perfection and, while they agree the kyosho (master) is difficult to work with, his group has remained notably loyal. Countering his despotism on the set, KUROSAWA's way of working reflects a respect for each individual and his group has become known as the "Kurosawa family" because of his impartial behavior and treatment.

After making many films with him, Shimura has said: "Each one is something like a revelation to me—not only about him but myself as well . . .I realize myself best. And yet, he never dictates. Rather, he allows you to do your best for him and you do it." Mifune has said simply: "There is nothing of note that I have done without KUROSAWA and I am proud of none of my pictures except those I have done with him."

KUROSAWA considers it vital to have both his actors and crew understand him in order to achieve the right mood: "When directing, each night I eat supper with them and, until we go to bed, I talk about acting with actors and production with photographers and crew. This is the best time to give directions to your people."

While many directors take the last scene of a film during the first day of shooting, KUROSAWA stresses the continuous flow of the story and follows the scenario faithfully scene by scene, making few last minute changes.

Since Seven Samurai KUROSAWA has used two or more cameras at once. Several cameras, in his opinion, are useful in creating atmosphere and tone and capturing the delicate nuances of a character's mood. Unlike most directors, he moves the cameras instead of the actors if the angle is not to his liking, and lets actors play, naturally and freely, long scenes lasting two and three minutes, from which he takes the best cuts.

Commenting on the graphic effect that is a mark of a KUROSAWA film, Richie says: "It is impossible to think of KUROSAWA's pictures without taking into account that he was an artist before he joined the cinema world. This explains the canvas-like quality of his compositions, the nature of his framing and the mood and atmosphere created." KUROSAWA insists upon the right to frame each scene himself; he does not employ a production designer.

Neither sound nor music escapes KUROSAWA's directorial management. Concerned with reality, context and volume of sound, he takes special care to avoid overshadowing the image—in his opinion a common fault in talking pictures. The result is a careful selection of what the audience knows it hears and what is heard unconsciously. Believing the best moments of the film should not be disturbed, many of his climactic scenes are played without music. Otherwise music is used only to support or combat the image.

For his 1955 production, Ikimono-no Kuroku (Record of a Living Being), KUROSAWA treated seriously but with a twist of irony the prominent issue of the threat of nuclear bomb experiments. Hashimoto, Oguni and KUROSAWA decided satire would be best to show the irony of civilization, created out of insecurity, now on the verge of destroying itself by succumbing to fear. As the script took shape, however, they found they were writing less a satire than a tragedy. Audience turnout was poor and this picture was his biggest box office loss.

In early 1957 Kumanosu-jo (The Throne of Blood) brought to the screen an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth set against the historical background of the age of civil wars (1460-1580), comparable in Japan to medieval Scotland. Another study of a flawed man, his solitude, ambition and his self-betrayal, KUROSAWA interpreted Macbeth as a parable telling man he is responsible for what he does.

The scenario was written in collaboration with Hashimoto, Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima. Having learned from the mistake with Dostoevsky, their problem was how to adapt the play to Japanese thinking. While ghosts may be vengeful, the idea of a gratuitously malevolent witch is alien to Japan. They decided, therefore, to use the techniques of noh in which purely Japanese-style ghosts and spirits customarily appear and style and story are one. Their successful use of those techniques is best seen in Lady Macbeth, whose movements are slightly exaggerated, and in the asymmetrical composition, particularly in the long conversation scenes between Macbeth and his wife before the initial murder.

KUROSAWA was pleased to introduce this flavor into a film: "Essentially I am very Japanese. I like Japanese ceramics, Japanese painting, but I like noh best of all. . .The noh is the core of all theatrical art in Japan. Expression is compressed to an extreme degree, filled with symbols, full of subtlety—it is as though actors and audience are engaged in a contest involving cultural heritage."

Richie said in the Japan Times: "In this film. . .using only a handful of components—drifting fog and smoke, rainy forests, and sheen of armor, the dead pallor of human skin—KUROSAWA has created a film of definite texture. It is as though you could feel it with the hand." The Mainichi Shimbun critic Hiroshi Okamoto, like most other reviewers, also commented on the sound-track; in another experiment KUROSAWA had turned off all the "highs" to make the voices masculine and gruff. Kumonosu-jo ranked fourth in the Kinema Jumpo list of the best films of 1957. Shown abroad as The Throne of Blood, it won the Silver Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1959 and has since been seen in over 50 countries.

Later in 1957 KUROSAWA completed Donzoko (The Lower Depths), a screen adaptation written by himself and Oguni of Maxim Gorky's play of the same name. For this successful translation from one idiom to another, the background is laid in the latter Edo period and the characters are effectively "Japanized"—the baron a completely lordly lord, the harlot a hysterical Japanese maiden fallen upon hard times, the old pilgrim, Gorky's vehicle for hope, purposely made fun of. The theme, as in the Gorky original, is that existence is enough—human vitality remains though knowledge and feeling may die. Also a major statement of the director's preoccupation with illusion versus reality, the film emphasizes that life is how we see and live it.

The historical period of Donzoko was chosen with critical intention. Modern Japan, KUROSAWA feels, looks back with undiscriminating nostalgia to the Edo Period as a time of great courtesans, kabuki, woodcut artists and literature, whereas actually the miseries were comparable to those of Gorky's 19th century Imperial Russia. "The Shogunate," he explains, "was falling to pieces and thousands were living almost unbearable lives."

As Gorky's is not a gloomy tale but elicits hearty laughter, KUROSAWA aimed to make an entertaining film portraying humorously the bold will and power of individuals to live. To get the cast in the proper mood, he invited to the set one of the few remaining practitioners of the old rakugo—witty but highly satirical stories. Reviewers generally agreed that he achieved a clearcut screen adaptation of a classic play. The film placed tenth in the Kinema Jumpo list of the 10 best films of 1957.

In October 1957, a month after the release of Donzoko, KUROSAWA was invited to attend the gala opening of the annex of the National Film Theater in England where he was one of nine persons to be honored for their contribution to motion picture art. The other directors were John Ford, Renè Clair and Vittorio de Sica.

In 1958 KUROSAWA completed Kakushi Torideno San-Akunin (The Hidden Fortress), another period drama set in the age of civil wars. It was his first film to be made for wide screen from which he has never since departed. The moral of the story is be what you are, realize yourself. The film's fairy tale aspect is heightened with noh music and a noh-like structure. "The result," says Richie, "is. . .an action-drama. . .so beautifully made, so imaginative, so funny, so tender, and so sophisticated, that it comes near to being the most lovable film KUROSAWA has ever made." The film remained KUROSAWA's biggest financial success until Yojimbo. It was awarded the Blue Ribbon prize by the Tokyo Motion Picture Reviewer's Club and placed second in the Kinema Jumpo list of the best films of 1958.

Seldom agreeing to an interview on the grounds that "a movie director should talk only through his films," KUROSAWA attended his first press conference in 16 years of making movies on January 29, 1959. On that occasion one of the company executives made the surprising announcement that Director KUROSAWA's contract with the Toho Motion Picture Company, which had lapsed at the end of 1958, would not be renewed. Instead the director was forming his own production company. The formation of Japan's first independent movie company to be headed by an active director reportedly was primarily the result of the long delays in filming The Hidden Fortress. The background, however, could be found in KUROSAWA's approach to film making from the beginning of his career; his demand for artistic freedom, stretched shooting schedules, and insistence upon no compromise in talent, equipment or props had made him both liked and disliked by film companies.

Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemoru (The Bad Sleep Well), released in 1960, was the first film of Kurosawa Productions. "From this film on, everything was my own responsibility," KUROSAWA has related. "Producing a film just for money does not appeal to me. One should not take advantage of his audience. Instead, I wanted to make a film of some social significance. At last, I decided to do something about corruption, because it has always seemed to me that graft on a public level is the worst crime there is. These people hide behind the facade of some great organization. . .and consequently no one ever really knows how dreadful they are, what awful things they do."

The story begins with the marriage of the daughter of the president of a government housing corporation to her father's secretary. At the ceremony there are references to the death five years earlier of one of the former employees of the corporation—a death officially designated as "suicide." The opening, in Richie's view, was "one of the most compelling sequences KUROSAWA has ever shot—a big wedding reception, with press photographers as a cynical chorus, is suddenly stunned with the wheeling in of a huge cake in the shape of an office building with a flower dangling from one of the windows to complete this cold memorial to a forgotten crime." The film caused a sensation in Japan where the relationship between government and big business is notorious but seldom talked about. Though the film was only moderately successful, it placed third in the Kinema Jumpo list of best films of 1960.

While working on his next picture, KUROSAWA was honored with a retrospective showing of his films at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961.

Kurosawa's 1961 production was Yojimbo. This expansive, broadly comic samurai Western deals with the rivalry between two equally bad contenders. Set in the past, it again is a critique of contemporary society. The moral aspects of the problem appealed strongly to the director. Disliking the current emphasis in Japanese films on a sick society, but not denying that there are sicknesses, KUROSAWA suggests that one of the faults leading to this pessimistic outlook is lack of a national philosophy. The code of ethics he proposes is not "heroic" but genuine bushido—compassionate steadfastness, moral honesty, no false compromise, and actions in keeping with this code.

The scenario he and Ryuzo Kikushima produced begins with a town divided, as the modern world often is, into two armed camps. On one side is a silk merchant and on the other a rice wine merchant, each with his henchman. They have disguised their greed, hatred and jealousy as "noble determinations and family pride." The hero, a shabby samurai whose sword is for hire, sees behind these pretensions. Assessing the situation—people terrified, streets full of corpses and shops empty—the samurai decides the town would be better off with the contenders dead. Rueful, cynical and amoral, he sells his sword to the first warlord, promptly betrays him to the second and then the second to the first. After nearly everyone has been eliminated, either hilariously or horribly, the samurai surveys the empty town with satisfaction; the town is symbolic of contemporary Japan.

For this satire on the breakdown of traditional society, KUROSAWA chose to parody a Hollywood Western: "Good Westerns are liked by everyone since humans are weak and want to see good people and great heroes." Yojimbo was the most popular picture KUROSAWA had ever created and one of the biggest box office successes in the history of Japanese films, placing second in the Kinema Jumpo list of best films of 1961.

Tsubaki Sanjuro (Sanjuro), the third Kurosawa Productions' release, appeared in 1962. The film emphasizes, as have all of KUROSAWA's period pictures, that the admirable samurai is not the one filled with the "nonsense" of feudal loyalty and pride but one, no less human than others, who tries a bit more; action counts in the end—a man is what he does and not what he intends or believes.

The film placed third in the Kinema Jumpo list of best pictures of 1962 and was Toho's entry for the same year at the Cannes and Asian Film Festivals.

Tengoku to Jigoku (High and Low) was KUROSAWA’s 1963 release. Structured on a police investigation, the underlying theme is man's sense of right and wrong. Considered by some observers as "the most class conscious of all living Japanese directors," KUROSAWA examines in this film the relationship of perpetual warfare between rich and poor.

Less the story of a kidnapped child and the criminal brought to bay than a powerful critique on the jungle law of free enterprise, several important deviations set this film apart from the usual thriller. Opening with a meeting of the directors of a shoe company, the audience is introduced into a society of "thieves" in grey suits who want to cheat their customers with bad shoes and are trying to crush one another by secret sharebuying.

Placing second in the Kinema Jumpo list of best pictures for 1963, High and Low won critical acclaim from newspapermen and critics for its deep probing of human character, its concern with the nature of truth and its artistic cinematics—all "typically KUROSAWA." The film's exposure of the liberality of the laws against kidnapping helped in getting an amendment passed making the offense punishable by life imprisonment instead of a 10-year term.

In 1964 KUROSAWA was recognized by the David O. Selznick Golden Laurel Trophy for "consistent contributions to international understanding through the creation of motion pictures of artistic distinction and extraordinary insight."

KUROSAWA's next release, Akahige (Red Beard), asks, as the director says all his pictures essentially have, why can human beings not live together with more good will? Asking this question, he also answers it: because people are human. KUROSAWA insists, however, that humans, though weak, can hope and through this they can prevail.

In five episodes revolving around a charity hospital in the slums of old Edo, now Tokyo, KUROSAWA artfully describes man's omnipresent battle against ignorance, poverty and lack of understanding by showing that these are sicknesses worse than physical illness, which even a Western-trained doctor as dedicated, gentle and humble as "Red Beard" is incapable of healing. The set for this film, built near the Toho studios, occupied approximately 10 acres and was a recreation of the historic clinic built in 1722. The story takes place about 100 years later. With a keen eye for period authenticity, KUROSAWA led everyone in working to give the buildings an air of having weathered the seasons for a century.

In his profession intense and concentrated, KUROSAWA off the set is a different man. His wife, after nearly 20 years of marriage, testifies that she has rarely seen him angry and he never mentions work at home. One characteristic, however, carries over: when a problem arises, he never lets the matter drop until he has gotten to the bottom of it. After the release of a picture he customarily takes a two-week vacation and then lavishes time on his two children. A connoisseur of both Japanese and Western antiques, he sometimes takes them along when he pursues his favorite pastime of curio hunting.

Fastidious in his craft but casual about his person, his lithe and springy frame is usually togged in a sports shirt, blue jeans and a battered sailor cap with the brim turned down or a golfer's cap. Conscious among his countrymen of his six-foot height, he is inclined to stoop. A sensitive nose, contemplative gaze, generous ears and a full mouth suggest the face of a mystic, and his body, with large hands always busy, that of a craftsman.

Enjoying company but too reserved to seek out new acquaintances or to make friends easily, KUROSAWA’s only intimates are associates he has worked with for many years—a few are actors, the others writers and technicians. To them he is a highly sympathetic, wryly humorous and somewhat lonely person. He enjoys fishing in the Tamagawa River with Mifune and playing golf. Another recreation, for which he developed a taste only after he was past 30, is to spend evenings drinking Scotch with close friends.

KUROSAWA's own reaction to his fame is to say that he regards the purpose of a film to entertain and then to teach a lesson, not by preaching but by showing. He views the affairs of life as "a natural, ordinary man" and simply puts his feelings into his films, continuing to probe the possibilities of motion pictures which have yet to be explored. "Looking back upon the various ages of Japan, or the world for that matter," he has said, "I see man is repeating himself over and over. The world is an illusion and reality is what people themselves make it. I am interested in producing a better quality of large humanity."

August 1965
Manila

REFERENCES:

"Akira Kurosawa, World Famed Film Director," Japan Biographical Encyclopedia and Who's Who. Tokyo: The Rengo Press, 1959.

Anderson, Joseph L and Donald Richie. The Japanese Film: Art and Industry. Vermont: Chas. E. Tuttle, 1959.

Asia Magazine. Hong Kong. Vol. 3, no. 16, April 21, 1963, p. 14-16; Vol. 4, no: 29, July 19, 1964, p. 3-5.

Asian Student. San Francisco: Asia Foundation. October 31, 1964.

"The Beard. . .Kurosawa and Mifune," Cinema. Special Issue. Tokyo. April 1963. (In Japanese.)

Benegal, Som. "Indian Cinema in the Doldrums," Forum Service. Bombay. August 20, 1960.

Cinema. Tokyo. Vol. 1, no. 4, August-September 1963.

Cinema Interview. Tokyo. Vol. 1, no. 5, August-September 1963.

Daily Mirror. Manila. January 10, 1963; May 15, June 22, August 15, December 9, December 17, 1964; February 2, 1965.

East. Tokyo. Vol. 1, no. 6, 1965.

"Editorials," Marg. Bombay. Vol. 13, no. 3, June 1960.

"Establishment of Kurosawa Productions," This is Japan. No. 7, September 1959, p. 39.

Evening News. Manila. May 6, June 15, July 15, August 5, 10 and December 18, 1964.

"Film Technique and Direction," Journal of the Film Industry. Bombay. August 10, 1962.

Houston, Penelope. The Contemporary Cinema. Harmondworth, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1963.

Iago. "Kurosawa's Thriller," Now: A political and cultural weekly. India. June 4, 1965.

Infante, Eddie. "The Philippine Movie Industry: A Close-Up," Manila Times, Sunday Times Magazine. January 31, 1965.

"Japan's Sick Movie Industry," This Week in Tokyo. May 2, 1960.

"Japanese Motion Pictures Lead in World Production," Asia (France-Asie, Bilingual Review of Asian Culture and Problems.) Tokyo. Vol. 18, no. 171.

Johnston, Eric. "The Motion Picture as a Stimulus to Culture," Journal of the Film Industry. Bombay. Vol. 24, no. 2, January 1962.

Kracauer, Siegfried. Theory of Film. London: Oxford University Press. 1960.

"Kurosawa's Profiles and His Works," Cinema. Special Issue. Tokyo. April 1963. (In Japanese).

Life. New York. Vol. 55, no. 25, December 20, 1963, p. 13, 171-172.

Manila Chronicle. April 28, and November 21 (Magazine), 1964.

Manila Daily Bulletin. March 6, 1963; June 22 and August 3, 1964; February 5, 1965.

Manila Times. February 18 (Magazine) and March 3, 1963; May 13, 28, June 29, July 13 end duly 19, 1964.

Montagu, Ivor. Film World-A Guide to Cinema. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1964.

Mori, Iwao. "Five Problems of Japan's Movie Industry," The Oriental Economist. Tokyo. February 1959, p. 88-89.

Murata, Kiyoaki. "Movies as an Image Builder," Japan Times. November 26, 1964.

Nath, Prem. "Indian Films Today," Journal of the Film Industry. Bombay. Vol. 24, no. 2, January 1962.

"Need to Curb the Profit Motive," Indian Film Scene. Clipping. Undated.

Newsweek. New York. May 20, 1963.

Oliver, Ray. "Revolution in Sight and Sound," Graphic Weekly. Manila. January 20, 1965.

Philipines Free Press. April 4, 1964; April 18, 1964.

Philippines Herald. May 14, June 29 and August 22, 1964.

Raha, Kiranmay. "Satyajit on Cinematics," The Times of India. Bombay. February 16, 1964.

Ray, Satyajit. "This Word 'Technique'," Seminar. New Delhi. May 1960.

Richie, Donald. "Akira Kurosawa," Orient-West. Tokyo. Vol. 8, no. 2, March-April 1963, p. 45-55.

______. "The Japanese War Film," Oriental E:conomist. Tokyo. March 3, 1962.

______. "The State of the Japanese Film," Ibid. February 1960, p. 86-87.

______. Research notes and galley proofs of his forthcoming book on Akira Kurosawa.

"Richie: A Personal Record," Film Quarterly. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vol. 14, no. 1. Fall 1960.

Saigon Post. May 30, 1964.

Scripts prepared for English sub-titling of Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Rashomon, Living, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo and High and Low.

Seton, Marie. "The New Cinema (Part I)," The Times of India. Bombay. December 2, 1963.

Time. New York. September 21, 1962; May 17, 1963, and one undated clipping.

Toho Films. Tokyo: Toho Company, Ltd. Vol. 10. Booklet.

Toshiro Mifune in Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. Tokyo: Toho Company, Ltd. Promotion brochure.

Yamamoto, Kajiro. Kurosawa as Seen by Me. Typewritten.

Interviews with and letters from persons acquainted with Akira Kurosawa and his work.