On August 6, 1998, Akira Kurosawa breathed his last. The news of his death shocked the film world, which owes him some of its greatest innovations.

Akira Kurosawa is often referred to as “Emperor” of directing, after he influenced modern cinema with his films and his unique directorial vision. All his films also contain a unique feature, which we will meet in the future in a Hollywood production. His unique touches are now considered cornerstones of world cinema.

He was born on March 23, 1910, in Omori, Tokyo, and was the last of eight children born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa. His original dream was to become a painter, but he failed to enter the Academy of Arts and so he began to look for a new path. In 1936 he became an assistant to the director Yamamoto Kajiro, and a new dream began to be born in him, that of directing.

At the production company working with Kajiros, the experience he provided was unique. In 1943, he managed to win everyone’s trust with his talent and they let him direct his first film, Sugata Sanshiro. It was an action film, which soon became a big hit in Japan, with an audience that quickly singled him out for his rare directorial skills. However, the control of the military government of Japan does not let him reach the top directly.

The path to the top

The entire intellectual creation of the time was strictly censored and the only thing that was allowed was the production of literary and cinematographic works, with a patriotic content. Because of this pressure, Kurosawa straightened his stature and was able to draw inspiration from the situation of the time. The experience of the reaction that Japan’s conservative classes brought to his work, the lack of freedom, and the experience of war were the most important influences on his later work.

In 1948, and with the war over and censorship now a distant nightmare, the great director releases the film Drunken Angel, which reflects his original talent and of course leaves audiences and critics stunned. It was at that time that Kurosawa took one of the highest positions in Japanese cinema and everyone is talking about the special director, who has now established himself among the most important of his country.

In 1950 Rasomon was released and it was then that the borders of Japan could not contain his talent, which traveled to many countries making him known abroad. The film was a huge critical and commercial success, and is considered one of the greatest films of all time. But success didn’t stop there, as Kurosawa won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, two honors unprecedented both for him and for Japanese cinema, which had existed until then only behind the closed doors of the country. The film’s success led Western film markets to focus on the products of the Japanese film industry for the first time, which led to international recognition and many other Japanese directors.

Recent years

His last epic samurai films, Kagemusa (1980) and Ran (1985) were a great and powerful farewell gift to audiences who loved this type of story. Both of these films won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, were nominated for an Oscar, and enjoyed great international success.

Several famous American directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese were big fans of Kurosawa and were greatly influenced by his earlier films. In fact, they had helped him significantly in his last productions as well.

In 1993, his last film, Madadayo, was released, which was about the story of a professor, with the dominant theme of imminent death. Five years later, he would welcome his own. Kurosawa died on September 6, 1998, aged 88, from a stroke. The world film community mourned a director “Emperor” of his kind, who had managed in a few years to introduce Japanese film production to the rest of the world.

His films have marked generations and generations of subsequent creators, while placing him in the Pantheon of the world’s most important directors. But there are five of his films, which left an era and are worth seeing for all those who want to know Kurosawa.

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