Quotessence
Home / Topics / Kurosawa Quotes

Kurosawa Quotes

Browse 24 quotes about Kurosawa.

Related topics

FilmDirectors

Kurosawa Quotes

“The Heian Period (794–1185) was Japan’s classical era, a time of peace and opulence, when the imperial court in Heian-kyō (“Capital of Peace and Tranquility”: later Kyoto) was the fountainhead of culture, and the arts flourished. Toward the end, however, political power slipped from the aristocracy to the warrior class, the decline of the imperial court led to the decay of the capital, and peace gave way to unrest. This was the part of the Heian Period that interested Akutagawa, who identified it with fin-de-siècle Europe, and he symbolized the decay with the image of the crumbling Rashōmon gate that dominates his story. Director Kurosawa Akira borrowed Akutagawa’s gate and went him one better, picturing it as a truly disintegrating structure, entirely bereft of its Heian lacquer finish, and suggestive of the moral decay against which his characters struggle. His film Rashōmon (1950) was based on two of Akutagawa’s stories, “Rashōmon” and “In a Bamboo Grove.” Both—themselves based on tales from the twelfth century—reach far more skeptical conclusions than the film regarding the dependability of human nature and its potential for good. (Jay Rubin)”

Japanese LiteraturePerspectivesKurosawaHeianRashomon
Book:Rashomon and Other Stories
Create image

“In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to class. The experience of encountering films then is one of my greatest memories. Before that I'd never paid any attention to directors, but there I was taking a crash course in Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, Truffaut, Renoir, Fellini. Because I've always been naturally a more introspective person, I was more interested in becoming a screenwriter than a director.”

PersonsFilmCoursesHouseLeftMemoriesAttentionClassMorningBecomingDirectorsPaidTheaterNeighborhoodEvery MorningCrashIntrospectiveScreenwritersMovie TheaterKurosawaRenoir
Author:Hirokazu Koreeda
Create image

“I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country.”

KnowsFirstsCountryRememberFilmSawsDiscoveryFirst TimeI RealizedFascinatedLayersShockedNew DiscoveriesKurosawa
Author:Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Create image

“When I met Akira Kurosawa in Japan, one question he asked me was, "How did you actually make the children act the way they do? I do have children in my films but I find that I reduce and reduce their presence until I have to get rid of them because there's no way that I can direct them." My own thought is that one is very grand, like an emperor on a horse, and it's very hard for a child to relate to that. In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them.”

WayChildrenI CanFilmMetsDirectJapanKurosawa
Author:Abbas Kiarostami
Create image

“Dolby stereo increases the possibility of emptiness in film sound at the same time that it enlarges the space that can be filled. It's this capacity for emptiness and not just fullness that offers possibilities yet to be explored. Kurosawa has magnificently exploited this dimension in Dreams: sometimes the sonic universe is reduced to a single point-the sound of the rain, an echo that disappears, a simple voice.”

SometimesDreamFilmUniverseSoundVoiceSimpleSpacePossibilityOffersRainCapacityIncreaseFilledDisappearDimensionsEmptinessEchoesFullnessKurosawa
Author:Michel Chion
Create image