Akira Kurosawa was a highly influential director, with many great directors citing him as an influence. He directed, wrote, and edited most of his films. His first film, Judo Saga, gained him recognition as a brilliant young director. His film Rashomon won awards at the Venice Film Festival and introduced him to the Western world. Many of his films inspired Western adaptations, such as The Magnificent Seven and Star Wars. Kurosawa went through a period of unfinished or aborted work, but recovered with the success of Dersu Uzala. He won many awards throughout his career, including an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He died in 1998 at the age of 88.
Akira Kurosawa was one of the most influential directors in the world. Many great directors, from Martin Scorsese to George Lucas, have named Akira Kurosawa as an influence. He not only passionately and meticulously directed his films, but also edited, wrote or co-wrote most of his films.
Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo on March 23, 1910. The youngest of eight children, his artistic and cinematographic education was precocious. As a talented painter, Kurosawa gained entry into an art school and a small art group. One of the major influences in young Kurosawa’s life was his older brother Heigo, a film narrator for foreign films. Heigo’s suicide had a profound effect on Kurosawa.
At the age of 20, Akira Kurosawa became a director’s assistant and within five years was directing and writing film sequences. At the age of 33, he directed his first film, Judo Saga (Sanshiro Sugata), a martial arts film with some very creative scenes. From his first film, people started talking about Akira Kurosawa as a brilliant young director.
Kurosawa’s first work to capture the attention of the Western world was Rashomon. The film won first prizes at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, as well as an award for best foreign film. The West has welcomed Kurosawa with open arms. His films had a stylistic approach with passionate characters and a depth of emotion.
One of Kurosawa’s most famous films, Seven Samurai, was remade as The Magnificent Seven, starring Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. The lone protagonist of Kurosawa’s film Yojimbo was the inspiration behind Clint Eastwood’s character The Man with No Name in Italian western films. George Lucas based the film Star Wars on the plot of Kurosawa’s film Hidden Fortress.
From 1965 onwards, Akira Kurosawa entered a period which saw much of his work unfinished or aborted. In 1970, the failure of his film Dodeska-den led to a failed suicide attempt. Had the attempt been successful, Kurosawa would not have won the 1975 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Dersu Uzala. This film not only helped Kurosawa recover in the four years it took to make it, it also won him a gold medal at the Moscow film festival.
Akira Kurosawa would go on to win many more awards for his films. At age 79, he won an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1982 she published her memoirs of him, entitled Something like an autobiography. Akira Kurosawa died at the age of 88 in 1998.
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