One of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema,
and one who helped bring international attention to Japanese filmmaking,
the distinguished
Akira Kurosawa continues to influence moviemaking the world over.
The Seven Samurai and
Yojimbo
director would have celebrated a birthday today, and to honor his
memory, we’re revisiting some of his most compelling quotes about
filmmaking. Through Kurosawa’s words, many of which come from the
insightful
Something Like An Autobiography, we get a feel for his complexity, incredible technique, passion, the poetry of his process, and profound philosophy.
“Being an artist means not having to avert one’s eyes.”
“I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself.”
“The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of
the lives they’ve been given. I believe you must live honestly and
develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real
heroes.”
“Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.”
“For me, filmmaking combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made
cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and
music come together. But a film is still a film.”
“There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.”
“There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can
only be expressed in a film, and it must be present for that film to be a
moving work. When it is very well expressed, one experiences a
particularly deep emotion while watching that film. I believe that it is
this quality that draws people to come and see a film, and that it is
the hope of attaining this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make
his film in the first place.”
“With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with
the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a
bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For
truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able
to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The
script must be something that has the power to do this.”
“In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and
dramas of the world. You must consider why they are great. Where does
the emotion come from that you feel as you read them? What degree of
passion did the author have to have, what level of meticulousness did he
have to command, in order to portray the characters and events as he
did? You must read thoroughly, to the point where you can grasp all
these things. You must also see the great films. You must read the great
screenplays and study the film theories of the great directors. If your
goal is to become a film director, you must master screenwriting.”
“I‘ve forgotten who it was that said creation is memory. My own
experiences and the various things I have read remain in my memory and
become the basis upon which I create something new. I couldn’t do it out
of nothing. For this reason, since the time I was a young man I have
always kept a notebook handy when I read a book. I write down my
reactions and what particularly moves me. I have stacks and stacks of
these college notebooks, and when I go off to write a script, these are
what I read. Somewhere they always provide me with a point of
breakthrough. Even for single lines of dialogue I have taken hints from
these notebooks. So what I want to say is, don’t read books while lying
down in bed.”
“I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it,
though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t
people be happier together?”
“It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.”
“Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very
greedy and they can never be satisfied. That’s why they keep on working.
I’ve been able to work for so long because I think, ‘Next time, I’ll
make something good.’”
“A truly good movie is enjoyable too. There’s nothing complicated about it.”
“What is Cinema? The answer to this question is no easy matter. Long
ago the Japanese novelist Shiga Naoya presented an essay written by his
grandchild as one of the most remarkable prose pieces of his time. He
had it published in a literary magazine. It was entitled ‘My Dog,’ and
ran as follows: ‘My dog resembles a bear; he also resembles a badger; he
also resembles a fox. . . .’ It proceeded to enumerate the dog’s
special characteristics, comparing each one to yet another animal,
developing into a full list of the animal kingdom. However, the essay
closed with, ‘But since he’s a dog, he most resembles a dog.’ I remember
bursting out laughing when I read this essay, but it makes a serious
point. Cinema resembles so many other arts. If cinema has very literary
characteristics, it also has theatrical qualities, a philosophical side,
attributes of painting and sculpture and musical elements. But cinema
is, in the final analysis, cinema.”
“A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its
three or four movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Nob
play with its three-part structure: jo (introduction), ha (destruction)
and kya (haste). If you devote yourself fully to Noh and gain something
good from this, it will emerge naturally in your films. The Noh is a
truly unique art form that exists nowhere else in the world. I think the
Kabuki, which imitates it, is a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I
think the symphonic structure is the easiest for people of today to
understand.”
“I began writing scripts with two other people around 1940. Up until
then I wrote alone, and found that I had no difficulties. But in writing
alone there is a danger that your interpretation of another human being
will suffer from one-sidedness. If you write with two other people
about that human being, you get at least three different viewpoints on
him, and you can discuss the points on which you disagree. Also, the
director has a natural tendency to nudge the hero and the plot along
into a pattern that is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing
with about two other people, you can avoid this danger also.”
“Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that
the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation
to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap
you can fall into. It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a
character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it
through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not
impossible. A great deal about this can be learned from the study of the
great plays, and I believe the ‘hard-boiled’ detective novels can also
be very instructive.”
“During the shooting of a scene the director’s eye has to catch even
the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at
the set. While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the
actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. By doing this I sense
instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean
fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way. I
believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami
meant by ‘watching with a detached gaze.’”
“I am often accused of being too exacting with sets and properties,
of having things made, just for the sake of authenticity, that will
never appear on camera. Even if I don’t request this, my crew does it
for me anyway. The first Japanese director to demand authentic sets and
props was Mizoguchi Kenji, and the sets in his films are truly superb. I
learned a great deal about filmmaking from him, and the making of sets
is among the most important. The quality of the set influences the
quality of the actors’ performances. If the plan of a house and the
design of the rooms are done properly, the actors can move about in them
naturally. If I have to tell an actor, ‘Don’t think about where this
room is in relation to the rest of the house,’ that natural ease cannot
be achieved. For this reason, I have the sets made exactly like the real
thing. It restricts the shooting, but encourages that feeling of
authenticity.”
“When I begin to consider a film project, I always have in mind a
number of ideas that feel as if they would be the sort of thing I’d like
to film. From among these one will suddenly germinate and begin to
sprout; this will be the one I grasp and develop. I have never taken on a
project offered to me by a producer or a production company. My films
emerge from my own desire to say a particular thing at a particular
time. The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express
something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the
script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.”
“The films an audience really enjoys are the ones that were enjoyable
in the making. Yet pleasure in the work can’t be achieved unless you
know you have put all of your strength into it and have done your best
to make it come alive. A film made in this spirit reveals the hearts of
the crew.”
“Japan does not understand very well that one of its proudest cultural achievements is in film.”
“I don’t really like talking about my films. Everything I want to say
is in the film itself; for me to say anything more is, as the proverb
goes, like ‘drawing legs on a picture of a snake.’ But from time to time
an idea I thought I had conveyed in the film does not seem to have been
generally understood. On these occasions I do feel an urge to talk
about my work. Nevertheless, I try not to. If what I have said in my
film is true, someone will understand.”
“I am a maker of films; films are my true medium. I think that to learn what became of me after
Rashomon the most reasonable procedure would be to look for me in the characters in the films I made after
Rashomon.
Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with
total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to
be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very
straightforward way. I am certain that I did.”
