If God lies in details, Akira was God

"With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece." Akira Kurasawa– once said these lines while sharing his passion for the art of film making.

Ritesh Srivastav

"With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can`t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this." Akira Kurasawa– one of the world’s greatest filmmakers of all times- who once said these lines while sharing his passion for the art of film making, was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on March 23, 1910 in Omori, Tokyo, Japan. Nicknamed as the Emperor or the Wind Man, the eminent Japanese film director, producer, and screenwriter has been conferred several prestigious awards like the Legion d`Honneur and an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Childhood The master storyteller, who is widely regarded for his path breaking "Samurai" films, had a very unpleasant childhood. During his growing years in a suburb of Tokyo, Akira lost his eldest brother and only sister, who died from chronic illnesses, making him the sole surviving child of his parents. His siblings` deaths were a traumatic experience for Akira, which is believed to have changed his vision of life and most of his films reflect this aspect of the human life. As a child, Akira was highly influenced by his elder brother Heigo who was an avid film-lover and worked as a "benshi", a narrator/ commentator for foreign silent films. At that time, Ahira’s inclination was more into paintings than movies. His brother Heigo, who suffered from depression and committed suicide later, generated his interest in the movies. The kind of influence, Akira’s films have on the world cinema could be easily gauzed from the fact that his masterpieces "Seven Samurai”, "Yojimbo" and "Ran"(which was based on Shakespeare`s "King Lear") inspired many directors who attempted to recreate the same charm created by his original blockbusters. It is no wonder that films like "The Magnificent Seven" is a direct American remake of "Seven Samurai.” George Lucas, who shot to fame through his "Star Wars" trilogy, has confessed of ‘Kurasawa’ impact on his films. With films like "Ran” and "Throne of Blood", which were based on famous Shakespearean plays such as "King Lear" and "Macbeth respectively, Kurasawa also successfully adapted the Bard’s works to Japanese screen several times.The Kurosawas were believed to be the successors of a former samurai- the Japanese byword for a “warrior.” Akira’s father was influenced by the western lifestyle and culture. He often used to take his children to see films, which had just started invading the Japanese society by then. The Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, which almost brought Tokyo to rubbles claiming the lives of nearly 100,000 people, moved the inner-self of Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13. The duo stood helpless as they walked past the corpses of humans and animals strewn everywhere witnessing the amount of devastation the earthquake has caused. The incident also toughened Akira teaching him a lesson - not to turn his head away from human miseries and agony. Claim to fame After training as a painter Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director after being trained as a painter. The iconic filmmaker, who had a habit of storyboarding his films as full-scale paintings, made his directorial debut in 1943. His breakthrough film Rashomon hit the silver screen in 1950, which earned him the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and for the first time apprised the West of the cultural richness of Japanese society and the artistic brilliance of Japanese films. In the following years Akira made a soul touching drama Ikiru in 1952, followed by the epic Seven Samurai in 1954 and the barbaric, Shakespeare adaptation, Throne of Blood in 1957. Lean phase and suicide attempt Akira’s life was not a bed full of roses rather a life on a roller coaster ride. After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kurosawa attempted suicide. Apparently unable to come out of the darker phase of his life coupled with mental fatigue and sub par directing work, Akira Kurosawa attempted suicide by slashing his wrist thirty times with a razor in December 1971. However, the wounds were not fatal and he made a full recovery. The veteran filmmaker also faced acute financial crunch during this period, which eventually forced him to direct and even appear in Japanese television commercials. The troubled filmmaker shortly recollected the fighter within himself and went on to make few films undeterred by the lack of domestic financing despite his international reputation. His film Dersu Uzala, which was about the friendship of a Russian explorer and a nomadic hunter, earned him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in Siberia in the early 20th century, Dersu Uzala was the only Kurosawa film that was made outside of Japan and not in the Japanese language. With the help of his ardent fans and famous admirers like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Akira produced and directed the samurai epic Kagemusha (1980), which was in many ways a dry run for Ran (1985), his second Shakespeare adaptation.On training Those who know Kurosawa, believe that his years as an assistant director were invaluable as those were the years in which Akira dabbled in and learned virtually every aspect of film production. Kurosawa, besides learning the basics of film production, also excelled in the art of film editing, set designing, costume-selection, and PR works required for the promotion of a film. "When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit," he once said A perfectionist Akira Kurosawa’s lust for perfection is well known to his admirers. His enthusiasm for experiments and readiness for last minute changes in the final draft were among those qualities, which eventually catapulted him into the elite directors’ list. His habit of checking even the minimal details in the frame be it dialogues, costumes, set design, background score, lighting etc often produced the much desired and the pre-conceived impact on the minds of the spectators. He is said to very choosy in his approach to costumes. Contrary to the common trend of getting the cast draped in brand new costumes, he preferred his actors to wear their costumes weeks before shooting was to begin. He had a pure simple logic behind it- he felt that the daily wear and tear of the costumes would enable the actors to get into the skin of their characters and bring authenticity to the script. During the shooting of his famous Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor farmers, he asked his actors to make sure the costumes were worn down and tattered by the time shooting started! A collaborator Akira had a great respect for his crew, his close friends, and all those who worked with him or contributed in his success in whatever ways. He was a great collaborator since he liked working with most of his cast and repeated his crew in every new venture. In a way, he actually emulated his idol iconic film director John Ford, who repeated his crew in all his projects. When Kurosawa was at the summit of his success, it was widely believed that if one does not get a chance to work with Akira again, it clearly meant that the director did not like his work at all.With the help of his ardent fans and famous admirers like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Akira produced and directed the samurai epic Kagemusha (1980), which was in many ways a dry run for Ran (1985), his second Shakespeare adaptation. On training Those who know Kurosawa, believe that his years as an assistant director were invaluable as those were the years in which Akira dabbled in and learned virtually every aspect of film production. Kurosawa, besides learning the basics of film production, also excelled in the art of film editing, set designing, costume-selection, and PR works required for the promotion of a film. "When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit," he once said A perfectionist Akira Kurosawa’s lust for perfection is well known to his admirers. His enthusiasm for experiments and readiness for last minute changes in the final draft were among those qualities, which eventually catapulted him into the elite directors’ list. His habit of checking even the minimal details in the frame be it dialogues, costumes, set design, background score, lighting etc often produced the much desired and the pre-conceived impact on the minds of the spectators. He is said to very choosy in his approach to costumes. Contrary to the common trend of getting the cast draped in brand new costumes, he preferred his actors to wear their costumes weeks before shooting was to begin. He had a pure simple logic behind it- he felt that the daily wear and tear of the costumes would enable the actors to get into the skin of their characters and bring authenticity to the script. During the shooting of his famous Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor farmers, he asked his actors to make sure the costumes were worn down and tattered by the time shooting started! A collaborator Akira had a great respect for his crew, his close friends, and all those who worked with him or contributed in his success in whatever ways. He was a great collaborator since he liked working with most of his cast and repeated his crew in every new venture. In a way, he actually emulated his idol iconic film director John Ford, who repeated his crew in all his projects. A lover of tele-photo lens The maverick director had a unique cinematic technique, which he had developed by the 1950s. His fondness and excessive use of telephoto lens, which gave his films a unique look, were actually trendsetters in the late fifties and sixties in the category of serious cinema. He loved using telephoto lenses, which he felt flattened the frame and produced excellent results if positioned farther away from his actors. He also liked using multiple cameras, which allowed him to shoot an action scene from different angles. Apart from his fondness for telephoto lens and multiple camera set up, the element of silence and the use of weather were another classic Kurasawa trademarks which added to heighten the mood in the scenes. The heavy rain in the opening scene of Rashomon, the final battle in Seven Samurai, the intense heat in Stray Dog, the cold wind in Yojimbo, the snow in Ikiru, and the fog shown in Throne of Blood is remembered for the kind of visual impact it created on the viewers’ mind. Kurosawa also liked using frame wipes one of the common transition devices. Tenno – The Emperor Akira rightfully earned the sobriquet of "Tenno" in the Japanese language, which meant "Emperor" mainly due to his distinctive and dictatorial directing style. He was so full of patience that he used to sit for hours undeterred by takes and retakes just to be able to obtain desired effects. In Rashomon, he dyed the rain water black with calligraphy ink in order to achieve the effect of heavy rain, and ended up using up the entire local water supply of the location area in creating the rainstorm. In the final scene of Throne of Blood, in which Toshiro Mifune is shot by arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range, landing within centimetres of Mifune`s body. In Ran, an entire castle set was constructed on the slopes of Mt. Fuji only to be burned to the ground in a climactic scene. Trivia

He shared a special bonding with director Ishiro Honda, who directed the Kaiju masterpiece "Gojira."

He was a well built man with over 6` feet in height extremely large by Japanese standards.

The Japanese media always portrayed him as a tyrant and criticised him for being too western.

He was named the 6th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. He was the only Asian in the 50 greatest directors’ list and the highest ranking non-American.

Akira was an ardent fan of legendary American director John Ford and Indian film maker Satyajit Ray.

Despite an Honorary Award in 1990 for his significant contribution to the world of cinema, Akira Kurosawa was nominated only once for a Best Director Oscar for Ran (1985).

His film Dersu Uzala (1975), which received the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was not made in Japanese. It was made in Russian.

Kurosawa`s wife was Yoko Yaguchi. He had two children with her: a son named Hisao and a daughter named Kazuko.

Kurosawa made 16 films with Toshiro Mifune (almost always in a leading role) and 19 films with Shimura (in either a leading or supporting role).

Kenji Mizoguchi was his favourite Japanese director.

His mega epic Seven Samurai has been remade several times in assorted cinema genres, including Westerns, Science Fiction, and Chinese Martial Arts.