Friday, October 22 2010
The Individual As Institution: Power, Loss and Madness in Kurosawa’s Ran and Shakespeare’s King Lear
By identifying Lear with the ancient Japanese warlord Hidetora, whose violations emerge from a breach of publicly identified self-hood, Akira Kurosawa plays with the quintessentially Shakespearean focus on individual personality.
Thursday, October 21 2010
Monster Dandelions and Weeping Demons
In the early 1990s, The Hollywood Reporter picked up on an emerging ‘trend’ of what it called cinema vert -- films about ‘green issues’. Kurosawa’s Dreams, though not financed by the American studio system, fits well in this cohort, albeit as the most formally distinct example of this miniature film movement.
Kurosawa 101: Day Nine, 1975 - 1985
The three films featured today represented the director's ascendance to greater international acclaim, even while he struggled to find financing in Japan, where the movie industry was shriveling. All three of these films were made either in whole or in part by Soviet, American, or French financing.
Monday, October 18 2010
The Brush and the Lens: Kurosawa As Painter and Filmmaker
As a painter and filmmaker, Kurosawa stuck to his own style, informed heavily by traditional Japanese painting as well as European impressionists and expressionists, another arena of art where he answered to both Eastern and Western influences.
Wednesday, October 13 2010
West By East By West: The Influence of Kurosawa on the West and Vice Versa
Through his influences and achievements, Kurosawa became one of the first true international filmmakers, inspiring several generations of filmmakers who would explore notions of genre and identity in film.
Thursday, June 21 2007
Part 4: Challenging Convention
As cinema went completely commercial, abandoning art for artifice, true aesthetic acumen was hard to come by. Luckily, for the movies included herein, it was their difference, as well as their diversity, that helped them stand out from the rest of the high concept hackwork.
Sunday, January 1 1995
Ran (1985/2000)
Kurosawa achieves an almost perfect fusion of storyteller and painter.
