Books on Akira Kurosawa

Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa

I have been keeping an eye on this book and it appears today(11-28-06) it has become “in stock” from Amazon.com

I just ordered it, so I hope its a good book, at 296 pages it should be full of good information

Thanks for the information, Jeremy!

I just finished reading Waiting on the Weather, it is a wonderful book. Beware that it is actually a collection of newspaper clumns, so it does repeat itself from time to time, but that aside I found it to be a very delightful book that gave new insight to the Mifune - Kurosawa falling out. Good stuff!

I still need to get that book in English. Thanks for mentioning it, BMWRider!

As for the Mifune-Kurosawa falling out, may I ask what exactly it is that the book says about it?

BMW has a point the book repeats its self many times over, to me its more of a collection of journal entires. That often refer back to a time that we already read about. A fantastic book none the less.

Dont mean to rob BMW of his writing but since am here and happen to have the book nearby.

Nogami, qoutes Kurosawa, when asked why he hasnt work with Mifune since Red Beard “Mifune and I haven’t quarreled. Its just that I’ve already done everything possible with him. There’s nothing left to do”
It also appears for the first time ever that Kurosawa was not pleased in casting Mifune in Red Beard. He however never mentioned any dissatisfaction with Mifune personally but retreated and distanced himself with Mifune afterwards.

After there split, Nogami says that Mifune very much wanted to work with Kurosawa, it felt Mifune overseas works was a attempt to heal his wounded spirit. It does not explain as to way Kurosawa never seek out Mifune again, perhaps his quote Kurosawa believed true.

Kurosawa wanted to see Mifune at his death bed, so as to tell him what a fantastic job he did. Nogami mentions that she believed it was something Mifune really needed to hear. Kurosawa was not able to make it in time.

Thanks, Jeremy. I didn’t know about Kurosawa wanting to see Mifune at his death bed, but the rest of this seems to have made its way also to other books.

I wonder what Kurosawa didn’t like about Mifune in Red Beard. For me, it is one of Mifune’s most powerful performances.

It states that at a party celebrating the completion of Red Beard. Kurosawa told Nogami, that script writer Oguni told him(Kurosawa), that Mifune was all wrong. Nogmai tells that Kurosawa had a face of regret during their conversation. Yamamoto the author of the book that Red Beard is based off, told Kurosawa that he did a good job. Nogami states that despite that, Oguni’s statement “soaked through Kurosawa’s heart”

Thats about all it mentions, its not clear if Kurosawa was truly not pleased, or if it was Oguni comment that really got to him. The only fact is that Kurosawa started to pull away from Mifune.

AS for Kurosawa wanting to see Mifune on his death bed, it appears that way, but there is nothing to show a strong desire or no desire. Nogami telling Kurosawa over the phone of Mifune’s condition, she quotes Kurosawa saying “If I ever see Mifune again, I want to tell him what a good job he did. I want to praise him”. She later states without ever having the chance[Kurosawa] to see Mifune, Mifune dies.

Well, that would explain the fact that both parties always insisted that there was no falling out.

You know the only thing that I have ever wondered about was if Kurosawa was concerned that his and Mifune’s image were becoming too intertwined? There are people that AK worked with for much longer than Mifune, and he never stopped working with them. I am always amazed when I watch an early film and see an actor I know pops up in Dreams, or No, Not Yet. AK had a lot of loyalty for “his people.”

Maybe I am somewhat too cynical, but I personally tend to think that rather than being loyal, Kurosawa simply held on to the people that he knew worked well. So, rather than it being a case of him giving something to them, I think it was a question of what they could give him.

Or this is the picture that I have constructed of him from the books and articles that I have read — a man for whom everything in the world, including human relations, revolved around making movies.

I nearly submitted a long explanation, telling my thoughts about Kurosawa’s loyalty or lack thereof .
On second thought however, I really couldnt determine which comment I felt was closer to the my idea of Kurosawa. I simply drew a blank.
I never thought about, for what reason did Kurosawa choose who he did. In the end I couldn’t really lean in any direction. Its really got me thinking

I do not disagree with anything said here, but having studied Japan a great deal there used to be a “corporate loyalty” climate in the country. Film is a business like any other and certainly that culture of corporate loyalty was present there as well. Whether AK was loyal because the actors were good for his film or not, is not something I would dispute at all. In fact I am sure that if AK thought a performance was subpar, he never worked with the actor again. But loyalty does not have to be born of good feelings for a person, loyalty can come from the recognition of someone’s skills.

I think you have a point there, BMWRider.

I am also probably somewhat too influenced by Donald Richie’s and up to some extent Stuart Galbraith’s somewhat cynical look at Kurosawa’s life and working methods.

Well I picked up three additional Kurosawa books this week. I received Filming Shalespeare’s Plays, it has about 23 pages on Throne of Blood. These pages are shared with Peter Brook’s King Lear.

I also received an 84 page Ikiru script book. It was published in 1968 and is very nice.

My third treasure is an Kurosawa guide to references and resources, this was printed in 1979. It has a biography of Kurosawa, film credits and synopsi through Dersu, and an extensive bibliography. It is 135 pages.

I have everything listed here, except the Complete Drawings. Additionally I have the Seven Samurai (two of them), Rashomon, and Ran script books. I also have Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema and Perspectives on Akira Kurosawa.

All of these are in English. I have read about half of them, and am currently working on The Warrior’s Camera. I hope to finish all of them this century.

I finished “Waiting on the Weather” last week, and will post a short review at some point when I will find the time. I quite liked it, though.

I am now reading “Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema”,which I now see I haven’t mentioned on this site yet. I should actually do a complete rewrite of this page (probably the whole site) once I find the time.

Of the books you mentioned, BMWRider, I have never heard of “Kurosawa guide to references and resources”. I need to check that out. Is it worth getting?

I have only briefly leafed through the Kurosawa guide to references and resources and it looks like a decent reference, not a sit down and read book. I basically picked up out of curiousity, it was not too expensive. I will now quietly search out the drawings book.

Wow, BWMRider your collection is impressive, I really wish I had something like that.

Not all that impressive. Just a matter of shopping used until you find them at the right price. I do not think I spent more than $10.00 for any of them except “Something More” and “The Emperor and the Wolf,” which I bought for a film class.

My Book Reports- or Never Mind the Bollocks

actually, just notes on a very few ideas picked up in some of the books below:

“Waiting for the Weather”, “The Emperor and the Wolf” a cautionary note on “Kurosawa and Japanese Cinema”, “Akira Kurosawa Interviews” by Bert Cardullo and “Something Like an Autobiography” and “Films of Akira Kurosawa”. (I’ve already pronounced “Intertextual” by Goodwin a crock. Risking the tag of closemindedness, I’ll stick to my evaluation!)

Certain things float through conversations and books about Kurosawa time and time again. The end of the Mifune/Kurosawa collaboration, as has been mentioned in posts above, is one I wonder about.

Teruyo Nogami, in “Weather” comes closest to satisfying my sense of what might possibly have happened. Her understated account feels closest to truth. I believe that Kurosawa lost faith in Mifune because of Oguni’s comment. Once Kurosawa lost faith, it might have been impossible for him to regain it. In fact, I am sure of it.

It must have become imperative for Kurosawa to find an alternative to Mifune. And, he couldn’t. But, he had to go on. No wonder that “Dodeska’den” is an omnibus film. Kurosawa probably tried to tell himself “You’ve made films without Mifune before….”. He had made them before, yes. But, before a loss of faith and after are two different things. Like before a divorce and after.

The loss of faith is the most troubling thing that can happen to an artist. Once it starts, perhaps he loses faith in everything. Perhaps he attempts suicide. I don’t think that Kurosawa’s suicide attempt is a surprise. If a man says, “Me minus the cinema equals nothing” his whole identity would be shaken by a loss of faith in his choices, in his art. A mistake as huge as mis-casting Mifune as “Red Beard”? Then, to have the failure of his next film. And to bring down the other three artists involved in the venture! Horrible! I can feel Kurosawa’s despair.

Sometimes, I think of Van Gogh seeing the vast store of his unsold paintings Theo had kept. Vincent committed suicide not long after that sight. Artists have their identities so wound-up in what they make! And, is it any wonder, when young people define themselves by the music they listen to? How much more for the artist is the art a reason to live!

I think that Nogami also has some insight into the divergent careers of both men after the split. I believe that Kurosawa first struggled, then had a bright world-stage luminance, while Mifune worked a bit sporadically, then, finally, somewhat meaninglessly. She implies a rather tragic end to MIfune’s life…something confirmed by the Galbraith book, as well. I really cried reading about the ends of both of their careers and lives in “Emperor and Wolf”. There were a few bits in that book that were quite insightful. And, the comprehensive filmographies and critical receptions are amazingly researched.

“…and Japanese Cinema” So, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto is a very nice guy. I wrote him an E-mail just to touch base with him on his book, and he wrote back. That’s pretty sweet! He’s a peach, but I want to just put out this cautionary message about over-intellectualizing things: just as Kurosawa keeps reminding every interviewer who gets a little too academic, we have to be careful about being too clever in analysing his films. In one passage on “Stray Dog” Yoshimoto makes an apophenic connection between a sign “Muraki” that seems to conflate the name of Mifune’s character “Murakami”, a loss of sexuality, and the lost gun of the story. But, on the Criterion DVD, the assistant art director Yoshiro Muraki said he put the sign in the movie so that his own name would be seen! Ah, sometimes there is a simple answer that has NOTHING to do with some secret meaning!

Allright, the Bert Cardullo book “Akira Kurosawa Interviews” has bits and pieces that help to fill in the corners, but strangely, the penultimate interview is Cardullo’s own with Kurosawa, and seems a re-telling of the last pages of “Something Like an Autobiography”. I can only assume, since “Something” was published in 1983, that this 1992 “Interview” ’s similarity comes from Kurosawa repeating the same bits and pieces over and over again!

So, we have this general lament from Donald Richie, in “Films of” stating that Kurosawa was only interested in talking about the current or next film, and never made “small talk” (but, my goodness, you can easily tell from any Criterion commentary by Richie that he is a man who likes to talk too much! In fact, some of his comments fall wide of the mark, just because of the momentum of his talking…! You can actually feel his mind wandering away from his mouth. How in the world can “The Idiot” be “just a filmed book” and too close to the original? That’s crazy! A film is always a translation into visual terms…! Oh, Donald!) and, as I read above, in the official book reviews, we really do not get the things we want from Kurosawa, do we? The tiny bits of autobiography we get from Kurosawa in “Something” aren’t enough. I am grateful for them, though! They have the quality of myth, and it makes me think that Kurosawa used his life as a totem-real experiences were remembered and related only in their relationship to their use in later life in cinema. Really interesting to me, that!

Anyway, we can’t seem to get really close to the man, nor can we get really close to his theory of film-making, ‘cuz Kurosawa keeps batting us away from theory, like a hand waved against a troublesome gnat. And, the big fat books like Richie’s are polluted by “humanism” and a sourness toward the late works, which make later efforts like Prince’s come up with such crap lines as “…the passage from willed optimism of the early films to the ethic of resignation and despair that pervades the late works…” (154). That also made me cry. I also don’t believe any of it. Kurosawa had some dedication that was his version of love. To make a film was Kurosawa’s version of love. Through the making of a film, he felt something, and made us feel something, and that’s true even unto the last. So there, Richard Prince! I could hardly call “Madadayo” pessimistic!

Urggghhh! I say, read everything, then forget ninety percent of it, except for the “Dersu” passages in Nogami, (keep those real close-they’re lovely!) and the “Something” by Bock and Kurosawa (which, I believe-is the closest Kurosawa got to theory-and, guess what? It really is Kurosawa believing in the transformative, meaning-making of making art. Auteur theory anyone? Ya know, you can fight it all you want, but Kurosawa believed it! In “Interviews” he says, “Although human beings are incapable of of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth when you pretend to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a straightforward way. And, as their very auteur, I am certain that I did, too. After all, there is nothing thart says more about a creator than the work itself.”).

After you’ve thrown away most of it, except for the sweet passages that feel meaningful to you, and you’ve placed the books on the shelf for references on filmography, etc., as Kurosawa urged, “Go to the films” for the rest.

Might be worth your time (has some new stuff in it): Akira Kurosawa: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers) (Paperback)
by Bert Cardullo (Editor) Here.

Thanks, Coco. I actually reviewed the book back in February, but haven’t got around to updating this page yet to include it.

Oh, I’m a late joiner to these discussions, sorry I overlooked that nice review, Vili. It’s nice enough, it made me pick up the book (underneath paperwork on my desk) and look at the Lillian Ross pages again.
It’s also interesting what Gabriel Garcia Marquez was able to get out of him, eh? I think Kurosawa must have felt that Marquez was a colleague in writing…but, I love on p.146 where he gives a cautionary tale of someone falling in love with the writing who forgets that film is visual. (Maybe just asserting Kurosawa’s area of expertise to Marquez?)
Anyway, really nice review, thanks!

No problem at all, Coco. Obviously, you couldn’t go through the whole archive before (or even after) starting to contribute here. It’s me who should apologise for being so busy and/or lazy that I haven’t got around to writing that summary-review here, or even linking to my full review.

A book I’ve recently read and would recommend is ‘Seven Samurai’ by Joan Mellen, part of the BFI Film Classics series. Its particularly good on the historical context of the movie, something overlooked by many writers on it (including to a certain extent Richie). She is particularly good at analysing what it was about this movie that so irked some Japanese critics of Kurosawa - she also takes issue with Richie on his emphasis on the influence of the Western on Kurosawa.

Thanks for the pointer, Ugetsu. I yet have to read Mellen’s book. I don’t know why it doesn’t appear on the list above, though. I should really do an overall update of this website. Or turn it into a Wiki or something…