Akira Kurosawa

The distinguished filmmaker chronicles his life from his birth in 1910 to the worldwide success in 1951 of his film "Rashomon" and provides a provocative account of the Japanese film industry

Something Like an Autobiography

ما يشبه السيرة الذاتية

A Film

Seven Samurai

Mizutaka Suhou

Honor Against Thieves Threatened by plundering cyborg bandits, an innocent village defies its inhuman enemies with the help of mortal men born to do battle and bound to die for honor: humanity’s champions, the seven samurai. This thrilling manga is based on the classic film by Akira Kurosawa. Includes special extras after the story!

Samurai 7

Donald Richie

Shinobu Hashimoto

Rashomon is one of the greatest of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's films, the winner of the 1951 Venice Festival prize and the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1952. It features Toshiru Mifune, the best-known Japanese actor in the West, as the bandit, and accused rapist and murderer. At the beginning of the film, a woodcutter, priest, and commoner happen to meet at the ruined gate--Rashomon--outside the city of Kyoto. This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The cynical, detached commoner, "everyman," listens to and comments upon their stories. The central section of the film, a series of flashbacks and tales within tales, consists of the same events retold by the husband (speaking through a medium, from the grave), the wife, the bandit, and the woodcutter. Each tells what happened--or possibly, what should have happened. The film deals with multiple truths; Richie summarized the director's point of view in the introduction: "the world is illusion, you yourself make reality, but this reality undoes you if you submit to being limited by what you have made." The sixth title in the Rutgers Films in Print Series and the first Japanese film, this volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon; an introductory essay by Donald Richie; the Akutagawa stories upon which the film is based; critical review and commentaries of the film; a filmography; and a bibliography. Donald Richie is the author of the definitive books in English on Kurosawa and Ozu. In addition, he is coauthor of the standard English-language history of the Japanese film and author or editorof several other books on the subject. He has also served as film critic for the Japan Times and as curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Rashomon

This work includes the collected interviews with the first Japanese film director to become widely known in the West when his film "Rashomon" won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951.

Interviews

A multifaceted portrait of the great Japanese director For years, Akira Kurosawa resisted writing about himself. “It would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies,” he said. “In other words, take myself, subtract movies, and the result is zero.” The memoir he finally started serializing in 1978, Something like an Autobiography, ended with Rashomon, the film that launched him on the world’s stage in 1950. Long Take, first published in Japan shortly after Kurosawa’s death in 1998, at last tells the story of the rest of his life. By turns intimate, provocative, and revealing, Long Take creates a dynamic portrait of Kurosawa from his own writings; his conversations with writer Inoue Hisashi and director Yamada Yōji; and essays by his daughter and colleague Kurosawa Kazuko, who details the collaborative history of the “Kurosawa crew.” It features a wealth of industry lore, cultural reference points, inside jokes with other filmmakers and writers, and backstories for his own productions, from the earliest to the last. Of particular interest to all cinephiles is an annotated list of Kurosawa’s 100 favorite films. A survey of Kurosawa’s prodigious career, this book situates the visionary in the media milieu of his youth, in the literature and performing arts of twentieth-century Japan and Hollywood, and among the myriad films he loved, admired, and referenced, including Japanese silent film and comedy as well as productions from India, Iran, and Soviet-era Russia. Now available to English readers for the first time, Long Take offers a lasting picture of the peerless filmmaker in his element.

Long Take

The Seven Samurai

The Seven Samurai; a Film by Akira Kurosawa. English Translation and Introd. by Donald Richie

This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and the priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The film deals with multiple truths. This volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon

Akira Kurosawa, Director

A Translation of the Dialogue from the Film "Rashomon", a Scenario Based on Ryunosuko Akutagawa's "Rashomon" and His "In a Grove", with Supplementary Articles

Akira Kurosawa

Books

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