GENERATION e

AKIRA KUROSAWA KARUNYA VINUKONDA

INTRODUCTIONFrom the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievementKurosawa earned his Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1989. EARLY LIFEPainterKurosawa brought the talents and techniques of a painter to his filmmaking.an ability to manipulate vivid color to outstanding emotional effect HISTORICAL ASPECT AND EARLY LIFE REFLECTIONS OF REAL LIFE OVER CINEMA

study of Western painting, literature and political philosophy. pro-war ideology in early workspro-democracy filmsThe consistency at the heart of Kurosawa's work is his exploration of the concept of heroismEthical and moral choicesKurosawa experienced the twin devastations of the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 and WWII, his cinema focuses on times of chaos.Kurosawa's characters are situated in periods of metaphysical eruption, threatened equally by moral destruction and physical annihilationHero

Sanshiro Sugata/ Judo Saga (1943)The Most Beautiful (Ichiban Utsukushiku )(1944)Sanshiro Sugata Part I I (1945)Those who tread on Tigers Tail (Tora noo wofu muotokotachi) (1945)Those Who Make Tomorrow (Asuotsu kuruhitobito) (1946)Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenshi) (1948)The Quiet Duel (S hizu kan aru ketto) (1949)Stray Dog (Nora in u ) (1949)Scandal (S h u b u n ) (1950)Rashomon (1950)The Idiot (Haku ch i) (1951)Ikiru (Living / To Live) (1952)

Seven Samurai (S h ich in in n o s amu rai) (1954)I Live in Fear/ To Live in Fear (I kimon o n o kiroku ) (1955)Thron e of Blood (Ku mo n o s u -jo) (1957)The Lower Depth s (Don zoko) (1957)Red Beard (Akah ig e) (1965)Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior) (1980)Ran (1985)Dreams (Y u me) (1990)Rhapsody in August (Hach ig ats u n okyos h ikyoku ) (1991)

STYLE, SCRIPT AND CINEMATOGRAPHY

Kurosawa's attractions to the West were apparent in both content and formSoviet-style montageMaster of dynamic montage, he is equally the master of the Japanese trademarks of the long take and gracefully mobile camera.Hand painted the storyboards and character studies for his films for some time, committing to paper images that would later spring to life on the screen

By traditional Japanese painting as well as European impressionists and expressionistsVisual backbone

Kagemusha andRan. Kurosawa painted the storyboards for both of these tales of war, intrigue and political strife in ancient Japandominated by long shots, feature beautiful landscapes, elaborate costuming and intense color contrasts

Blending of cinematic and static visual elements that Kurosawa is perhaps most skilled.

In one of the most stirring and iconic moments ofRan, we see Kurosawa take this trick to its ultimate level, crafting a living, breathing landscape from his actors.

Placement, angles and framing are especially important inRan. The camera elegantly frames scenes with a visual artists precision, and the brightly garbed performers create human landscapes

Ran, and makes for some of the films most stirring images, as when a gathered crowd of retainers splits open, their blue garb parting like a sea to reveal a spreading pool of scarlet blood staining the white stone of the road. Many of the films cuts are long, and often mostly staticKurosawa uses strict framing and shots that are held and repetition to create images that retain a static painterly quality even within the context of filmAs a small army of soldiers ride, then march, from the castle gates, the repetition of images and consistency of sound transform a multitude of shots into one image, simultaneously motive and staticPresented inKagemushaas a retreating line of troops is silhouetted against a bright, impressionistic sunset. Shot from a distance, each individual soldier is rendered unrecognizableDreams, Kurosawa, never a terribly wordy filmmaker, largely eschews dialogue in favor of allowing his striking images and vibrant colors to tell his stories. From the hellish furnace of Fuji in Red to the idyllic, wildflower dotted village of the watermill, from the magical drama of the Peach Orchard to the blasted, nightmare landscape of the weeping demon, each of the setting in Dreams exists in its own region of the mind, playing by its own rulesBoth periods features use of multiple cameras using telephoto lenses, though in the later films he did not flatten the image to the degree that he did in the earlier, especially in Red Beard, where a character both appears to be running and not to be moving, or more famously where the insane woman enters the room of the intern

From one angle she appears to be only a step away, but on the axial cut she is shown to be as far as 15 feet away. Kurosawa used increasingly long scenes in the final films, with fewer cuts, and also used fewer and fewer close upsDreams is a visual triumph; the cinematography is truly epic and the film succeeds purely as spectacle. Indeed, most of the action is rendered through images, and the emphasis is on showing, not telling

Seven Samurai remains the Kurosawa masterpiece, whipping up bold effects and contrasting moments intense wind and rain, violent wipes to join the scenes, fast-tracking shots, montages of actionThe Early Period (sometimes called the Creative Period) extends from his brilliant 1943 debut Sanshiro Sugata and Red Beard in 1965. The Late Period begins in 1970 with DodesKa-den and concludes with his final film, Madadayo, in 1993. Ikiru, 1952 [To Live]

Kanji Watanabi (Takashi Shimura), a middle aged government bureaucrat the camera to distance himself from his subjectdeliberate pacing elicits a sense that the story is occurring in real-time

Shichinin no samurai, 1954 [Seven Samurai16th century JapanKam bei Shim ada medium shots and seamless, slow motion in order to temper the violence of death, Akira Kurosawa succeeds in creating a delicate juxtaposition between the samurais' graceful art of combat and the barbaric reality of war:

Tengoku to Jigoku, 1963 [Heaven and Hell/High and Low]

a procedural crime story, a social commentary on the casualties of industrialization, the redemption of a man's soulA wealthy executive, Gondo

Elevation provides a visual leit motif to the narrative development of High and Lowthe smoke stack from a garbage-burning plant (note the only infusion of color into the film ), all provide pivotal clues to the identity of the kidnapperMadadayo autobiographical essays of writer Hyakken Uchida

CONCLUSIONIn His Own Words: For me, film making combines everything. Thats the reason Ive made cinema my lifes work. In films painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.He would make the camera his brush, and the world his canvas.

REFERENCESCardullo, Bert. Out of Asia : The Films of Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Abbas Kiraostami, and Zhang Yimou; Essays and Interviews.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,www.Sensesofcinema.comwww.criterion.comwww.turnerclassicmovies.comwww.film4.comwww.filmref.comwww.theguardian.comwww.newyorkfilmacademy.eduwww.popmatters.com

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