KARUNYA VINUKONDA

INTRODUCTION
From the Second World War to
the early nineties and that
stands as a monument of
artistic, entertainment, and
personal achievement
Kurosawa earned his Oscar
for Lifetime Achievement in
1989.
EARLY LIFE
Painter
Kurosawa brought the talents
and techniques of a painter
to his filmmaking.
an ability to manipulate
vivid color to outstanding
emotional effect
HISTORICAL ASPECT AND EARLY
LIFE
REFLECTIONS OF REAL LIFE
OVER CINEMA

study of Western painting,
literature and political
philosophy.
pro-war ideology in early
works
pro-democracy films
The consistency at the heart
of Kurosawa's work is his
exploration of the concept
of heroism
Ethical and moral choices
Kurosawa experienced the
twin devastations of the
great Kanto earthquake of
1923 and WWII, his cinema
focuses on times of chaos.
Kurosawa's characters are
situated in periods of
metaphysical eruption,
threatened equally by moral
destruction and physical
annihilation
Hero

Sanshiro Sugata/ Judo Saga
(1943)
The Most Beautiful (Ichiban
Utsukushiku )(1944)
Sanshiro Sugata Part I I
(1945)
Those who tread on Tigers
Tail (Tora noo wofu
muotokotachi) (1945)
Those Who Make Tomorrow
(Asuotsu kuruhitobito)
(1946)
Drunken Angel (Yoidore
Tenshi) (1948)
The Quiet Duel (S hizu kan
aru ketto) (1949)
Stray Dog (Nora in u )
(1949)
Scandal (S h u b u n )
(1950)
Rashomon (1950)
The Idiot (Haku ch i) (1951)
Ikiru (Living / To Live)
(1952)

Seven Samurai (S h ich in in
n o s amu rai) (1954)
I Live in Fear/ To Live in
Fear (I kimon o n o kiroku )
(1955)
Thron e of Blood (Ku mo n o
s u -jo) (1957)
The Lower Depth s (Don zoko)
(1957)
Red Beard (Akah ig e) (1965)
Kagemusha (The Shadow
Warrior) (1980)
Ran (1985)
Dreams (Y u me) (1990)
Rhapsody in August (Hach ig
ats u n okyos h ikyoku )
(1991)

STYLE, SCRIPT AND
CINEMATOGRAPHY

Kurosawa's attractions to
the West were apparent in
both content and form
Soviet-style montage
Master of dynamic montage,
he is equally the master of
the Japanese trademarks of
the long take and gracefully
mobile camera.
Hand painted the storyboards
and character studies for
his films for some time,
committing to paper images
that would later spring to
life on the screen
By traditional Japanese
painting as well as European
impressionists and
expressionists
Visual backbone
Kagemusha and Ran. Kurosawa
painted the storyboards for
both of these tales of war,
intrigue and political
strife in ancient Japan
dominated by long shots,
feature beautiful
landscapes, elaborate
costuming and intense color
contrasts
Blending of cinematic and
static visual elements that
Kurosawa is perhaps most
skilled.
In one of the most stirring
and iconic moments of Ran,
we see Kurosawa take this
trick to its ultimate level,
crafting a living, breathing
landscape from his actors.
Placement, angles and
framing are especially
important in Ran. The camera
elegantly frames scenes with
a visual artists precision,
and the brightly garbed
performers create human
landscapes
Ran, and makes for some of
the films most stirring
images, as when a gathered
crowd of retainers splits
open, their blue garb
parting like a sea to reveal
a spreading pool of scarlet
blood staining the white
stone of the road.
Many of the films cuts are
long, and often mostly
static
Kurosawa uses strict framing
and shots that are held and
repetition to create images
that retain a static
painterly quality even
within the context of film
As a small army of soldiers
ride, then march, from the
castle gates, the repetition
of images and consistency of
sound transform a multitude
of shots into one image,
simultaneously motive and
static
Presented in Kagemusha as a
retreating line of troops is
silhouetted against a
bright, impressionistic
sunset. Shot from a
distance, each individual
soldier is rendered
unrecognizable
Dreams, Kurosawa, never a
terribly wordy filmmaker,
largely eschews dialogue in
favor of allowing his
striking images and vibrant
colors to tell his stories.
From the hellish furnace of
Fuji in Red to the idyllic,
wildflower dotted village of
the watermill, from the
magical drama of the Peach
Orchard to the blasted,
nightmare landscape of the
weeping demon, each of the
setting in Dreams exists in
its own region of the mind,
playing by its own rules
Both periods features use of
multiple cameras using
telephoto lenses, though in
the later films he did not
flatten the image to the
degree that he did in the
earlier, especially in Red
Beard, where a character
both appears to be running
and not to be moving, or
more famously where the
insane woman enters the room
of the intern
From one angle she appears
to be only a step away, but
on the axial cut she is
shown to be as far as 15
feet away.
Kurosawa used increasingly
long scenes in the final
films, with fewer cuts, and
also used fewer and fewer
close ups
Dreams is a visual triumph;
the cinematography is truly
epic and the film succeeds
purely as spectacle. Indeed,
most of the action is
rendered through images, and
the emphasis is on showing,
not telling
Seven Samurai remains the
Kurosawa masterpiece,
whipping up bold effects and
contrasting moments
intense wind and rain,
violent wipes to join the
scenes, fast-tracking shots,
montages of action
The Early Period (sometimes
called the Creative Period)
extends from his brilliant
1943 debut Sanshiro Sugata
and Red Beard in 1965. The
Late Period begins in 1970
with DodesKa-den and
concludes with his final
film, Madadayo, in 1993.
Ikiru, 1952 [To Live]

Kanji Watanabi (Takashi
Shimura), a middle aged
government bureaucrat
the camera to distance
himself from his subject
deliberate pacing elicits a
sense that the story is
occurring in real-time
Shichinin no samurai,
1954 [Seven Samurai
16th century Japan
Kam bei Shim ada
medium shots and seamless,
slow motion in order to
temper the violence of
death, Akira Kurosawa
succeeds in creating a
delicate juxtaposition
between the samurais'
graceful art of combat and
the barbaric reality of war:

Tengoku to Jigoku,
1963 [Heaven and
Hell/High and Low]

a procedural crime story, a
social commentary on the
casualties of
industrialization, the
redemption of a man's soul
A wealthy executive, Gondo
Elevation provides a visual
leit motif to the narrative
development of High and Low
the smoke stack from a
garbage-burning plant (note
the only infusion of color
into the film ), all provide
pivotal clues to the
identity of the kidnapper
Madadayo
autobiographical essays of
writer Hyakken Uchida

CONCLUSION
In His Own Words: For me,
film making combines
everything. Thats the
reason Ive made cinema my
lifes work. In films
painting and literature,
theatre and music come
together. But a film is
still a film.
He would make the camera his
brush, and the world his
canvas.

REFERENCES
Cardullo, Bert. Out of Asia : The
Films of Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit
Ray, Abbas Kiraostami, and Zhang
Yimou; Essays and Interviews.:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
www.Sensesofcinema.com
www.criterion.com
www.turnerclassicmovies.com
www.film4.com
www.filmref.com
www.theguardian.com
www.newyorkfilmacademy.edu
www.popmatters.com