Akira Kurosawa(1910-1998)

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut withSugata Sanshirô (1943).Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater creative freedom.Yoidore tenshi (1948)was the first film he made without extensive studio interference, and marked his first collaboration withToshirô Mifune.In the coming decades, the two would make 16 movies together, and Mifune became as closely associated with Kurosawa's films as wasJohn Waynewith the films of Kurosawa's idol,John Ford.After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made his international breakthrough filmRashomon (1950)in 1950. It won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West. The next few years saw the low-key, touchingIkiru (1952)(Living), the epicSeven Samurai (1954),the barbaric, riveting Shakespeare adaptationKumonosu-jô (1957),and a fun pair of samurai comediesYojimbo (1961)andTsubaki Sanjûrô (1962).After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture withDodesukaden (1970),a larger-scale Russian co-productionDersu Uzala (1975)and, with the help of admirersFrancis Ford CoppolaandGeorge Lucas,the samurai taleKagemusha (1980),which Kurosawa described as a dry run forRan (1985),an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear." He continued to work into his eighties with the more personalYume (1990),Hachigatsu no rapusodî (1991)andMâdadayo (1993).Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where critics have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors (William Shakespeare,Fyodor Dostoevsky,Maxim GorkyandEvan Hunter) with suspicion - but he's revered by American and European film-makers, who remadeRashomon (1950)asThe Outrage (1964),Seven Samurai (1954),asThe Magnificent Seven (1960),Yojimbo (1961),asPer un pugno di dollari (1964)andKakushi-toride no san-akunin (1958), asStar Wars (1977).