Famous People in Japan



Kurosawa Akira

Date of Birth 23 March 1910
Place of Birth Tokyo
Date of Death 9 September 1998

Kurosawa Akira is one of the greatest directors of film in the world. His film "Rashomon" won the great prize at the movies festival in 1951. And "Kagemusya, The Seven Samurais, Ikiru, Kumonosujo, Yojinbo, Akahige, Throne of Blood Sanjuro and Rhapsody In August" are also very famous and great works.

In Japanese film circles, Kurosawa Akira is known as "The Emperor." His triumph at the Cannes Festival of 1980, where Kagemusha shared the Grand Prix with All that Jazz, marked a peak in his long and distinguished career. He is the complete auteur- a master editor, an excellent screen writer and an imaginative set designer, each in the service of an artist of uncompromising vision.

When he was a child, he was retarded. So his life of school was very hard, and it is well reflected in his works. In them, besides, the relation of a master and a pupil appears again and again, and it's well reflected he and his brother, Heigo, who had been a genius student and had back him up concerning various matters. No matter how Heigo was a genius, he became a foremost speaker of the Western movies but killed himself in 1933. But Akira looked up to him like a father. And that was why he became interested in movies.

Furthermore, for a person supported the pupil kindly, Akira's teacher, Tachikawa Seiji, appears in it. He is one of the liberalist in that times, and in other works, they appear; for instance, Yagihara Yukie and Nomo Takayoshi in "Wagaseisyunnikuinasi" and Odagiri Toyo in "Ikiru."

Before he became to a movie director, he aspired to be a painter. He was joining a alliarance of proletarian art, at that times. But he wasn't a complete leftist. And, after, he didn't concentrate his energy on it.

In his works, besides, Samurai spirit appears very often. It shows manliness. It had for the western movies the important effect. And efficacy he created change movies to that time.

Even now, over 80 years old, he is the greatest director in the world.[Kurosawa passed away at the age of 88, on September 9, 1998]

References: Gendai Nihonjinmeiroku, 1994 p.610-11

Reported by: Kenji Sawa
Data verified by: Mikako Mizutani
Date of Report: November 1995
Updated by: Asako Itsumi, May 1998

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