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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one merely tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein

Akira Kurosawa

On September 1st, 1998, Akira Kurosawa died in Tokyo, leaving the movie-world a little poorer for it. His vision of human passions and emotions, of greed and honor, of Samurai and modern-day Japanese society, was universal. Perhaps is he a perfect illustration of what Jungle Echoes respects and wishes to promote most : a cultural identity that echoes nonetheless worldwide. Kurosawa was always Japanese, yet he touched audiences the world over.

He adroitely revealed the many faces of truth in Rashomon, the misery of inner-city slums in Dodes'Ka-den, spoke of intrigue and greed in Ran, kindled our spirit of honor and dignity in The Seven Samurai, but he also entertained us with greater-than-life emotions, with humor and a keen sense of aesthetics. His historical sagas filled the screens with the intensity of hundreds of foot-soldiers and cavalrymen bearing colourful uniforms and clan emblems.

Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo, of a veteran-army-officer-turned-athletic-instructor father . At the age of 17 Kurosawa enrolled at an art school and was unsuccesful as a commercial artist. In 1936, he began a seven year "apprenticeship" as an assistant and scriptwriter to director Kajiro Yamamoto at Photo Chemical Laboratories, later better known as Toho Studios. By 1941 he was writing scripts and directing whole sequences for Yamamoto's films. Two years later he made his own directorial debut with Judo Saga. This story of a 19th-century struggle for supremacy between adherents of judo and ju-jitsu so impressed the military government, that he was asked to make a sequel (Sanshiro Sugata Part II).

After World War II, Kurosawa's career blossomed with a widely diverse series of films, from crime thrillers to period dramas. Of the latter, his Rashomon (1951) became the first postwar Japanese film among Western audiences, simultaneously introduced leading (NB : and gorgeous !) man Toshiro Mifune. However, The Seven Samurai (1954) was Kurosawa's most popular movie outside Japan. Though heavily edited when originally released, this three-hour-plus medieval action drama, with its minute historical details, became one of the most popular Japanese films of all time abroad. Subsequenty, every Kurosawa film was released in the U.S. in some form, even if many - most notably The Hidden Fortress (1958) - were cut down in length. American and European filmmakers began taking a serious look at Kurosawa's movies as a source of plot material for their own work : Rashomon inspired The Outrage, in a western setting, while Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) (NB : with another gorgeous leading man : Clint Eastwood) and was then remade in 1996 by Walter Hill as a gangster story, Last Man Standing. In 1960, John Sturges's filmed a Seven Samurai-based The Magnificent Seven (this had been Kurosawa's original title). The remake actually did better business in Japan than the original film did, and still draws large audience and acclaim worldwide. In the early '80s, an unfilmed screenplay of Kurosawa's also served as the basis for Runaway Train (1985), a popular action thriller.

Following the period thriller Sanjuro (1962), Kurosawa favored more humane and serious drama, including his epic length medical melodrama Red Beard (1965). Despite international fame though, Kurosawa suffered a deep personal setback in the late '60s and early '70s. When Dodes'Ka-den (1970) failed at the box office, Kurosawa attempted suicide. After recovering Kurosawa spent nearly four years with Dersu Uzala, a Soviet-Japanese co-production, and returned with Kagemusha (1980) to the large-scale historical epic, which continued in Ran (1985). In the '90s Kurosawa made his last and most personal films, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) and Rhapsody in August (1991).

Akira Kurosawa is considered, with Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu, among the great directors and film-makers. He collabotated on the scripts of most of his films, and edited or closely supervised the editing. Four of Kurosawa's major works were adaptations of Western literary works, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, Gorky's The Lower Depths, Shakespeare's Macbeth (adapted into Throne of Blood) and King Lear (reworked as Ran).

Filmography

1993 Madadayo (aka Not Yet), Screenwriter/Director

1991 Rhapsody in August (aka Hachigatsu no Kyoshikyoku, aka Hachigatsu no Rapsodi), Screenwriter/Director

1990 Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (aka Dreams, aka I Saw a Dream Like This, aka Konna Yume wo Mita, aka Yume), Director/Screenwriter

1985 Ran, Screenwriter/Director/Editor

1985 A.K., a documentary (aka Akira Kurosawa), Actor

1980 Kagemusha (aka The Double, aka The Shadow Warrior), Screenwriter/Director/Producer

1975 Dersu Uzala Director/Screenwriter

1970 Dodes'ka-Den (aka Clickety-Clack, aka Dodesukaden), Director/Screenwriter/Producer

1965 Red Beard (aka Akahige, aka Red Beard), Director/Screenwriter

1965 Judo Saga, Screenwriter

1962 Sanjuro (aka Tsubaki Sanjuro), Editor/Director/Screenwriter

1962 High and Low (aka Heaven and Hell [1963], aka Tengoku To Jigoku, aka The Ransom [1963]), Director/Screenwriter

1961 Yojimbo (aka The Bodyguard), Editor/Director/Screenwriter

1960 The Bad Sleep Well (aka The Rose in the Mud, aka The Worse You Are, the Better You Sleep, aka Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru), Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Editor

1959 Saga of the Vagabonds, Screenwriter

1958 Kakushi Toride No San-Akunin (aka The Hidden Fortress (U.S. title), aka Three Bad Men in the Hidden Fortress, aka Three Rascals in Hidden), Forest Editor/Producer/Director /Screenwriter 1957 Throne of Blood (aka Castle of the Spider's Web, aka Cobweb Castle, aka Kumonosu-jo, aka Spider Web Castle), producer/Screenwriter/Editor/Director

1957 The Lower Depths (aka Donzoko), Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Editor

1955 I Live in Fear (aka Ikimono no Kiroku, aka Record of a Living Being, aka What the Birds Knew), Director/Screenwriter

1954 The Seven Samurai (aka Magnificent Seven, aka Shichinin no samurai), Director / Screenwriter/Editor

1952 Ikiru (aka Doomed, aka To Live), Director/Screenwriter

1951 The Idiot (aka Hakuchi), Director/Screenwriter

1951 Rashomon (aka In the Woods), Screenwriter/Editor/Actor/Director

1950 Scandal (aka Shuban, aka Shubun), Screenwriter/Director

1949 Quiet Duel (aka Shizukanaru ketto), Director/Screenwriter

1949 Stray Dog (aka Nora Inu) Screenwriter/Director

1948 Drunken Angel (aka Yoidore Tenshi) Screenwriter/ Director/Producer

1947 One Wonderful Sunday (aka Subarashiki nichiyobi, aka Wonderful Sunday), Screenwriter/Director

1946 No Regrets for Our Youth (aka No Regrets for My Youth, aka Waga Seishun ni Kuinashi), Director/Screenwriter

1946 Those Who Make Tomorrow (aka Asu o Tsukuru Hitobito), Director

1945 Sanshiro Sugata, Part 2 (aka Judo Saga II, aka Sanshiro Sugata Part Two, aka Zoku Sugata Sanshiro), Director/Screenwriter

1945 The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (aka They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail, aka They Who Step on the Tail of the Tiger, aka Tora no o wo Fumu Otokotachi, aka Walkers on the Tiger's Tail), Director/Screenwriter

1944 The Most Beautiful (aka Ichiban Utsukushiku, aka Most Beautifully), Director/Screenwriter

1943 Sanshiro Sugata (aka Judo Saga, aka Kurosawa's Judo Saga, aka Sugata Sanshiro), Director/Editor