“Most directors have one film for which they are known or possibly two,” said Francis Ford Coppola. “Akira Kurosawa has eight or nine.” Through masterpieces such as Kagemusha, Seven Samurai, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa (1910–98) influenced directors from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to Martin Scorsese, and his groundbreaking innovations in cinematography and editing, combined with his storytelling, made him a cinematic icon. In this succinct biography, Peter Wild evaluates Kurosawa’s films while offering a view of the man behind the camera, from his family life to his global audience.
           
After discussing Kurosawa’s childhood in Japan, Wild explores his years as an assistant director at a new film studio and his early films during and after World War II before he won international acclaim with Rashomon. While surveying Kurosawa’s impressive career, Wild also examines the myriad criticisms the director faced both within his own country and abroad—he was too influenced by Western cinema; not authentically Japanese; and he was too sentimental, naïve, arrogant, or out of touch. By placing Kurosawa and his films in the context of his times, Wild helps us to understand the director and the reproaches against him. Cogent and concise, Akira Kurosawa will be essential reading for anyone interested in the work of this masterful filmmaker.

Rashomon is one of the greatest of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's films, the winner of the 1951 Venice Festival prize and the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1952. It features Toshiru Mifune, the best-known Japanese actor in the West, as the bandit, an accused rapist and murderer. At the beginning of the film, a woodcutter, priest, and commoner happen to meet at the ruined gate--Rashomon--outside the city of Kyoto. This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and the priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The cynical, detached commoner, "everyman," listens to and comments upon their stories. 

The central section of the film, a series of flashbacks and tales within tales, consists of the same events retold by the husband (speaking through a medium, from the grave), the wife, the bandit, and the woodcutter. Each tells what happened--or possibly, what should have happened. The film deals with multiple truths; Richie summarizes the director's point of view in the introduction: "the world is illusion, you yourself make reality, but this reality undoes you if you submit to being limited by what you have made."

The sixth title in the Rutgers Film in Print Series and the first Japanese film, this volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon; an introductory essay by Donald Richie; the Akutagawa stories upon which the film is based; critical reviews and commentaries on the film; a filmography; and a bibliography.