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Throughout much of his life in his native Japan, Akira Kurosawa was greeted as\u00a0 \u201cSensei\u201d \u2013 \u201cMaster,\u201d a title of affection and respect — by admirers and collaborators.\u00a0 Just as often, however, he was spoken of as \u201cTenno\u201d \u2013 \u201cemperor\u201d — by critics and detractors who mocked what they viewed as his aloof and aristocratic manner. His name became a kind of shorthand for the jidai-geki<\/em> (period costume films) that most Westerners viewed as most emblematic of Japanese cinema. But many of his finest efforts were 20th-century stories that did not showcase a single samurai.<\/p>\n Reveling in his own contradictions, Kurosawa fully appreciated the extreme responses he inspired as a living legend. In 1984, when he was ready to direct a storm sequence for Ran<\/em> — arguably, his last incontestable masterpiece — Mother Nature obligingly provided a special effect. Almost precisely on cue, a typhoon struck the shooting location in Kyushu. Later, Kurosawa joked: \u201cIn Japan, journalists often call me \u2018emperor\u2019 because they think I’m so tyrannical. Well, I guess I can now command even the elements.\u201d<\/p>\n On other occasions, however, Kurosawa lived down to expectations by behaving very much like the authoritarian autocrat he was rumored to be. Indeed, he was so demanding a taskmaster that even Toshiro Mifune, who starred in many of Kurosawa’s greatest films, refused to ever again work with the emperor after the completion of\u00a0 Red Beard<\/em> (1965).<\/p>\n Kurosawa made no apologies for embracing the style and substance of\u00a0 \u201cforeigners\u201d as diverse as John Ford and Vincent Van Gogh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read the final page of Something Like an Autobiography<\/em>, Kurosawa’s acclaimed 1982 memoir, and you find a self-portrait of the artist as a harshly judgmental know-it-all: \u201cI am often asked why I don’t pass on to young people what I have accomplished over the years. Actually, I would like very much to do so. Ninety-nine percent of those who worked as my assistant directors have now become directors in their own right. But I don’t think any of them took the trouble to learn the most important things.\u201d<\/p>\n Kurosawa obviously fared better as a mentor with his pupils who knew the artist almost exclusively through his art. George Lucas — who freely quoted Kurosawa\u2019s The Hidden Fortress<\/em> in Star Wars<\/em> — spoke for dozens of his contemporaries when he praised the emperor as \u201cone of the true masters of his art.\u201d Steven Spielberg went ever further, hailing Kurosawa as \u201cthe visual Shakespeare of our time,\u201d a magnificent artist \u201cwho right until the end of his life continued to make films that were recognized, or will be recognized, as classics.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of his death last September in 1998 at age 88, Akira Kurosawa was eulogized as one of the century’s greatest and most influential filmmakers, as the director who single-handedly brought Japanese cinema to the world’s attention with such early masterworks as Rashomon<\/em> (1950), Ikiru<\/em> (1952) and Seven Samurai<\/em> (1954). Tokyo film critic Yoshio Shirai only half-jokingly noted: \u201cBefore Rashomon<\/em>, the outside world’s image of Japan was Mount Fuji, geisha girls and cherry blossoms. After the movie, it changed to Kurosawa, Sony and Honda — in that order.”<\/p>\n Even so, Kurosawa’s international reputation did not always sit well with many of his countrymen. As early as 1951, when Rashomon<\/em> earned the grand prize at the Venice Film Festival and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, some members of the Japanese film community dismissed these unprecedented honors as \u201csimply reflections of Westerners\u2019 curiosity and taste for Oriental exoticism.\u201d Later, as his fame and influence spread across the world, Kurosawa found himself\u00a0 saddled with the dubious honor of being praised — and damned — as the \u201cmost Western\u201d of Japanese filmmakers.<\/p>\n Well into the late 1980s, the emperor remained enough of a superstar to command substantial sums for appearing in TV commercials for whiskey and home electronics. And yet journalist Ian Buruma insisted in a 1989 New York Times Sunday Magazine profile that Kurosawa was admired more abroad than at home. \u201cYounger (Japanese) critics tend to regard him as an anachronism,\u201d Buruma wrote. \u201cHis humanistic concerns and worship of classical art seem out of place in post-modern Tokyo.\u201d<\/p>\n Kurosawa made no apologies for embracing the style and substance of\u00a0 \u201cforeigners\u201d as diverse as John Ford and Vincent Van Gogh. (The latter appeared as a workaholic sage\u00a0 — played by Martin Scorsese, no less! — in Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams<\/em>.) He filmed\u00a0 Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot<\/em> as a contemporary drama set in the snow-country of Hokkaido,\u00a0 and transferred Gorky\u2019s The Lower Depths<\/em> to the slums of\u00a0 Edo-period Tokyo. At the same time, though, Kurosawa remained forever mindful of his roots. And while he refused to err on the side of romanticized nostalgia in his re-creations of Japan’s turbulent past, he viewed social changes, technological advancements and other breaks from tradition as extremely mixed blessings. It is well worth noting that, in Seven Samurai<\/em>, the 16th-century swordsman who best represents the bushido<\/em> code of honor is felled by rifle shot.<\/p>\n The seventh child of a military-school instructor — and, fittingly enough, a direct descendant of ancient samurai — Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo on March 23, 1910. He fell in love with the movies at an early age, but delayed the inevitable while dabbling in commercial art and painting as a young man. (Years later, he would create elaborately detailed storyboards for his films, many of which were displayed in major art galleries.) During his salad days, he flirted with radical leftist politics, a fact that has led many film historians, rightly or wrongly, to perceive a Marxist influence in his renderings of peasants, bandits and other fringe dwellers.<\/p>\n Kurosawa gate-crashed into film history in 1936. Evidencing all the brash confidence of youth, he answered a newspaper advertisement for assistant directors at the studio that would eventually become Toho Film Co. Applicants were required to submit an essay on the fundamental deficiencies of Japanese cinema. Kurosawa detailed the problems, suggested corrections — and landed a job. Right from the start, however, he was hard-pressed to accept any authority but his own. \u201cI am short-tempered and obstinate,\u201d he admitted in his memoir. \u201cThese defects are still pronounced, and when I was an assistant director they gave rise to some very serious problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Such is the magic of cinema: A man may die, but his films remain forever in the present tense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Almost in spite of himself, Kurosawa impressed enough of the right people, and was given the chance to direct his first feature\u00a0 — Sanshiro Sugata<\/em>, the saga of a 19th-century judo master — in\u00a0 1943. Rebelling against the restraints of wartime censorship, he emphasized the spiritual dimension of martial arts just when Japanese filmmakers were encouraged to be blatantly militaristic. (\u201cBeing young in those times,\u201d Kurosawa recalled, \u201cconsisted of suppressing the sound of one\u2019s breathing in the jail cell that was called the home front.\u201d) Much to the surprise of everyone but the man who wrote and directed it, Sanshiro Sugata<\/em> was a hit with critics and ticketbuyers. Almost overnight, the contentious apprentice was elevated to the rank of\u00a0 master craftsman.<\/p>\n Akira Kurosawa lived long enough to see his artistry labeled as obsolete. But his art has survived the stringent tests of time, and ensures his immortality. Such is the magic of cinema: A man may die, but his films remain forever in the present tense.<\/p>\n Throughout August, the Belcourt<\/span> Theater<\/span> in<\/span> Nashville<\/span><\/a> and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston<\/a><\/span> will be hosting Akira Kurosawa retrospectives. Here are some of my recommendations.<\/p>\n
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