Akira Kurosawa

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NexAmery
Joined: Sun Dec 28, 2008 8:08 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#51 Post by NexAmery » Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:14 pm

Major Kurosawa retrospective on at BFI Southbank now (June 2010) I want to see Yojimbo , Seven Samurai ,but also Bad Sleep Well which i believe is being remade

BB
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 4:58 pm
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#52 Post by BB » Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:38 pm

They're showing kurosawa this week at VIZ cinema, the new theatre in japan town, san francisco. Next week is ozu, and the week after that mizoguchi.
I just saw high and low. The print was ok and the sound system and comfy seats were great.

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Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#53 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jun 08, 2010 2:58 pm

BB wrote:the sound system and comfy seats were great.
Monty Pythons 'Spanish Inquisition' team will be disappointed to hear that!
(unless, of course, you're a masochist!)

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AWA
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#54 Post by AWA » Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:43 am


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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#55 Post by knives » Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:45 am

Those stories for the most part have become so ubiquitous in pop culture that it really means nothing beyond their ability to use the names.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#56 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:42 pm

Toho itself has also been doing the Kurosawa remake thing for a while, with new versions of Sanjuro and The Hidden Fortress only a couple of years ago, though Hidden Fortress apparently departs from the Kurosawa in a number of ways (according to Mark Schilling's review in the Japan Times at the time of its release, this new film swaps out one of the bickering peasants for a young 20 something chap who immediately becomes the love interest for the princess).

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kindaikun
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:04 pm

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#57 Post by kindaikun » Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:58 am

Asahi Shinbun (Japanese) - Kurosawa's 659 page original script for Tora Tora Tora to be made available as a free e-book.

The script, co-written by Oguni Hideo and Kikushima Ryuuzou, will be made available on the 8th Dec. at the homepage of the company who handled the scanning of the text, Voyager.

It appears the book will be released on for their BinB service which be made available on the same day. Apparently it uses any HTML5-enabled browser to display books with Japanese characters, images, etc. and also supports EPUB. Since copy-write is far shorter in Japan than many other countries it will be interesting to see what else is made available for free in the future.

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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#58 Post by manicsounds » Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:18 am

Awesome, just finished watching "Tora!" and the special features. This will be an interesting read.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#59 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:32 am

An English translation of Kurosawa´s script The Masque of the Black Death is/was available at the Kurosawa Digital Archives. But now it seems inaccessible online AFAIK. If anybody knows anything about this, please post, thanks!

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#60 Post by Stefan Andersson » Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:05 am

Nifty litte article about Dersu Uzala.

Includes info about the colour film stock used, a Soviet brand called Svema and apparently prone to early fading -- which might indicate restoration problems, and why the film looks the way it does on available DVDs

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FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#61 Post by FrauBlucher » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:48 pm


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bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#62 Post by bottled spider » Sun Mar 22, 2015 8:45 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:Video: Composing Movement from Tony Zhou
Excellent. I learned stuff. F'rinstance, hadn't noticed before that Kurosawa' shots have a discernible beginning, middle, & end.

wattsup32
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#63 Post by wattsup32 » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:27 am

bottled spider wrote:
FrauBlucher wrote:Video: Composing Movement from Tony Zhou
Excellent. I learned stuff. F'rinstance, hadn't noticed before that Kurosawa' shots have a discernible beginning, middle, & end.
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not and I don't think it matters either way. I can say that I learn something every time I watch one of Tony Zhou's videos and I very much appreciate that he continues to make them.

This one, especially, made me anxious to see a decent print of Ran (I only have the copy from that old Kurosawa collector's set put out by a company I can't even recall). Does anyone have the Criterion DVD? I have several Criterion OOPs that I'd be willing to let you choose a couple from in trade.

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bottled spider
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#64 Post by bottled spider » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:32 pm

Not facetious at all. I had never consciously noticed the beginning/middle/end aspect of individual shots in Kurosawa. Nor had it occurred to me that the most basic (but not sole) reason for Kurosawa's pronounced interest in weather is that it provides a way to add movement to an otherwise static scene. I've seen one other Tony Zhou video, also kindly linked by someone somewhere on this site (The Bad Sleep Well thread?), which was equally informative. My only criticism would be that I find the background score unnecessary and distracting.

wattsup32
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#65 Post by wattsup32 » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:16 pm

bottled spider wrote:Not facetious at all. I had never consciously noticed the beginning/middle/end aspect of individual shots in Kurosawa. Nor had it occurred to me that the most basic (but not sole) reason for Kurosawa's pronounced interest in weather is that it provides a way to add movement to an otherwise static scene. I've seen one other Tony Zhou video, also kindly linked by someone somewhere on this site (The Bad Sleep Well thread?), which was equally informative. My only criticism would be that I find the background score unnecessary and distracting.
Glad you're enjoying the videos. I highly recommend his other videos (distracting background scores notwithstanding). They are so short that even if you only glean a thing or two from them, they end up being worth the time investment. They're all on the Vimeo channel you end up on from the link to the Kurosawa video.

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colinr0380
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#66 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:25 pm

wattsup32 wrote:Glad you're enjoying the videos. I highly recommend his other videos (distracting background scores notwithstanding). They are so short that even if you only glean a thing or two from them, they end up being worth the time investment. They're all on the Vimeo channel you end up on from the link to the Kurosawa video.
Not quite all sadly as Vimeo pulled the Snowpiercer: Left or Right video a week or so ago. It is still up on YouTube, but we'd better watch it fast!

This latest video is a wonderful one, especially with its focus on movement informing character behaviour (or multiple characters behaving, either contrasting differently against each other or moving as one) beyond the more common approach of how the action is composed through foreground/background, aspect ratio and so on. Even the atmosphere is a character in Kurosawa's films!

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#67 Post by Stefan Andersson » Tue Jul 21, 2015 5:18 am

Red Beard, restored, to screen at this year´s Venice Film Festival:
http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/ve ... ntID=42422" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also:

Toho has restored all of their Kurosawa productions. All films screen later this year as part of the Lumiere Film Festival in France:
http://www.festival-lumiere.org/en/prog ... ogram.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The French boutique label Wild Side Video is partnering with Toho for the screenings.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Akira Kurosawa

#68 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Jul 03, 2016 10:35 am

Kurosawa´s only (?) TV commercial, animated, for Calpis, Japanese yoghurt, probably made 1996 or 1997:

http://lovehk888.exblog.jp/19348377/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - look in topmost Youtube screen - boy meets girl in bamboo forest

Article, early 1997:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 35a6cd85f/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#69 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Sun Jul 03, 2016 8:57 pm

Well, it may have been the only TV commercial he directed—I assume he didn't direct the commercials he starred in, which included spots for NEC and Suntory—but it certainly wasn't his first directorial work for television as the article claims. He made a 75-minute television documentary called Uma no uta ("Song of the Horse") in 1970, which was long MIA but popped up on the bootleg/file-sharing circuit a few years ago. There's a Spanish-subbed version on Youtube.


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Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#71 Post by Brian C » Fri Mar 10, 2017 9:42 am

That's weird, I thought Kurosawa was dead.

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Ovader
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:56 am
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#72 Post by Ovader » Fri Mar 10, 2017 9:54 am

Brian C wrote:That's weird, I thought Kurosawa was dead.
Nopers as it must have been a publicity stunt to hide the (alternative) fact AK had trouble getting financing all of these years for this film project. Such is the life of a legendary filmmaker in today's film climate.

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Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#73 Post by Brian C » Fri Mar 10, 2017 10:41 am

Maybe he's been living anonymously as a toy-maker in a Tokyo train station all this time!

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solaris72
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:03 pm
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#74 Post by solaris72 » Fri Mar 10, 2017 11:33 am

I wonder if he painted any storyboards for it as he did for other projects.

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FigrinDan
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Re: Akira Kurosawa

#75 Post by FigrinDan » Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:38 am

The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) will be screening an Akira Kurosawa Retrospective at the Doris Duke Theatre, OCT 7-NOV2. The full schedule has yet to be revealed, but will include 25 films.

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