Kurosawa got his first studio job with an essay mocking the question
In 1935 a new Tokyo studio asked applicants to explain the fundamental flaws of Japanese cinema and how to fix them. A failed painter named Akira Kurosawa replied, half joking, that fundamental flaws could not be fixed. An examiner loved it, and Rashomon later opened the West to Japanese film.
Kurosawa was born in 1910 in what is now Tokyo's Shinagawa ward, the youngest of eight children. His father, from a samurai family in Akita, ran a school at the army's physical education institute but also welcomed Western culture and believed films could educate, so Akira saw his first movie at six. A progressive teacher sparked his love of drawing, and he studied calligraphy and kendo.
His brother Heigo, four years older, shaped him most. After the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Heigo made the 13-year-old walk through the ruins and refused to let him look away, a lesson some critics link to the director's readiness to face hard truths on screen. Heigo became a celebrated narrator of silent foreign films in Tokyo theatres, and Akira, then set on painting, moved in with him and absorbed cinema, theatre and circus. Talking pictures ended the narrators' trade, and Heigo died in 1933; decades later Kurosawa titled the memoir chapter about it A Story I Don't Want to Tell. Disillusioned with painting and with propaganda-heavy proletarian art, he answered the P.C.L. advertisement, and director Kajirō Yamamoto insisted he be hired. He joined in 1936 at 25.
After years as assistant director and writer, he debuted at 33 with Sanshiro Sugata in 1943. Drunken Angel in 1948 made his name and began his partnership with Toshiro Mifune, who appeared in 15 more of his films. Rashomon won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, and its success opened Western markets to Japanese cinema for the first time.
Through the 1950s and early 1960s he made roughly a film a year, including Ikiru, Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, many of them endlessly remade. He worked less often afterwards, yet Kagemusha and Ran still drew acclaim. A hands-on director who also wrote, produced and edited, he completed 30 features, received an honorary Oscar in 1990 and died in 1998.
Source: Akira Kurosawa
