My Wikipedia Challenge to Kurosawa Fans (47 posts)

I would like to make the following modest proposal.

As Akira Kurosawa's centennial birthday will occur on March 23rd of this year, I propose that the biographic article on the filmmaker on Wikipedia.com be extensively revised so that it can be submitted to be upgraded to feature article status, and can thus be presented as the featured article on Wikipedia's home page on March 23rd, 2010. It is only right that one of the greatest directors who ever lived -- and the most famous Asian director who ever lived -- should be accorded this honor.

The current rating, according to Wikipedia's quality scale, of the Kurosawa article is, rather shockingly, "C-class," even though Kurosawa's biography as a topic has been rated of Top importance in the category of WikiProject Japan and of Core importance in the category of WikiProject Biography/Actors and Filmmakers. (It also appears in the WikiProject Screenwriters category.) Thus, the article would need to be upgraded pretty substantially in a hurry. I would like to consult with other Kurosawa experts (I definitely can't do this alone) about what needs to be done to bring this piece up to featured article status in two months.

I have reviewed the article and the following are some ways that I feel it can be improved:

(See my blog at http://cinegems.blogspot.com/2010/01/birthday-present-for-akira-kurosawa.html for the rest of the challenge.)

Great Idea dylanexpert ! We should have our best writers visit all the fims of Kurosawa, too, and upgrade on the wiki!
I am not a writer, but lawless, Vili, Ugetsu are, and Jeremy has really great insights, too. We have the brain power here, and it would be a fitting tribute.

Thank you for your reply. And the others -- Ugetsu, Vili, lawless, etc. -- can we work on this project together?

Dylanexpert, its a terrific idea, I'd be happy to help out with it. Your suggested layout is very good, it provides a good basis for a wiki entry I'd add that the entries to various Kurosawa films and his regular actors would be improved a lot too.

This is an excellent idea, and I'd be happy to contribute the best I can. How could we best proceed to get this thing off the ground?

Thanks for the enthusiasm of all of you. It is very inspiring. I suggest that we leave the pages of the individual films and actors alone for the time being and just concentrate on Kurosawa's bio itself, as we have the self-imposed time limit for that.

How many of you have experience editing Wikipedia articles? Your expertise would be invaluable.

I'll handle creating the section, "Criticisms of Kurosawa" and maybe one or two others. Who would like to handle other sections of his page? And who among you know of other Kurosawa experts who would like to work on this?

Lastly, what suggestions, after reading the Kurosawa wiki article, do you yourselves have?

Thanks.

I know less about Kurosawa and his films than the rest of the folks Coco mentioned, including herself (and don't sell your writing skills short, Coco), but I'm pretty good at editing and making something cohesive.

Seems to me we need to find a way to work on document(s) together. Any suggestions?

I'm not sure it needs to be all that organised, so long as everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing - after all, the spirit of Wiki should be that lots of people adding their bit should result in something better than the collective knowledge (or something like that ).

I can't say I've enough specific knowledge of any one aspect to pick one, although I think I could tackle any of the last four subsections dylanexpert sets out.

One suggestion I'd make would be that a suggestion that a section on 'Kurosawa and his contemporaries' might be useful - it would allow a discussion of Kurosawa in the context of Japanese cinema, specifically in the immediate post war period.

Under dylanexperts section on 'influence', I would suggest that it would be misleading to only list films that are acknowledged remakes - far too many films were made that were clearly remakes or 'influenced by', but it were not acknowledged as such, presumably for legal and financial reasons. The reality is that Kurosawa didn't just create films that were remade, he created entire sub-genres, and this should be part of his biography.

Ugetsu:

I've had a devil of a time this morning trying to figure out how to promote a "C" level article on Wikipedia (such as the one on AK) to a "B" or "A" level one, which I think can be done right now as the article stands. Anyone who knows how this can be accomplished should post to this thread to let me know.

I, for one, plan to post to this site my own sections as I write them before I post them on Wiki, to make all of you aware of what I'm doing and invite you to make changes to what I've done, if you feel it necessary.

As to your idea of "Kurosawa and His Contemporaries" I would like to do a section near the beginning of the article showing the social-political-artistic context in which AK began his career as an Assistant Director (the wars in Manchuria and China and the resulting thought control), and the ways in which AK surmounted these obstacles to make his debut. I've been reading Peter B. High's book The Imperial Screen, which has much information on this matter.

You've made your point about the "Influences" category, but for clarity's sake, perhaps the section should be subdivided in two, one called "Remakes" and the other "Homages." The two concepts are sort of jumbled together in the article as it stands.

That makes sense, dylanexpert.

I've no idea how to upgrade articles, but I guess if lots of people are working at edits, it comes to someones attention. I think if we all just added bits as we have time, it will start to take shape, then maybe we can reassess things in a few weeks.

I just hope I can make edits - thanks to someone in my office who uses the same feed making some imaginative 'additions' to a wikipedia page on a certain football team I think I might be blocked!

I think that this effort could actually benefit from proper organisation.

Would it for instance help if we first as a group created a skeletal structure for the "new and improved" article? What I have in mind is a simple list of headings and subheadings, and things that we think should be mentioned in each section. Basically, a list of all the information contents, everything that needs to be included in the article, and what goes where.

Once that list is created, it will be easier for us to divide the work of actually writing out the sections, as then we will each know what the overall plan is and what will be discussed where. If we all just go ahead and start editing the article as we see fit, the end result will have little coherence.

Or, this is the way I usually approach collaborative writing, but it's just a suggestion of course!

The last few weeks, I've actually been dabbling with a page for THE SEA IS WATCHING, which isn't even mentioned on Kurosawa's main page. I'll try to get that wrapped up and would be glad to help wherever needed.

Hello, everyone. I have just revised the Akira Kurosawa Wikipedia page to eliminate the last remaining "Citation needed" and submitted it for peer review. Someone sent me the link, where I found out how to submit peer reviews for articles, which turned out to be surprisingly easy. I have classified it for EXPEDITED peer review [caps mine], not even knowing if such a category exists, in order to stress the deadline factor, this being AK's centennial year. I also asked for Volunteers in the talk page of Wikipedia: WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers.

Vili: Your idea is a good one. Should the list appear somewhere on this website or somewhere else? If you can create the place for us to build the list, so we can each agree on it and then divide tasks amongst ourselves, I would appreciate it.

We may not be able to make the deadline of AK's birthday on March 23rd. However, if we fail to do that, we should set a secondary deadline of August 25th, the 60th anniversary of the Tokyo premier of Rashomon.

I quickly tried installing a wiki type addon for this site, but unfortunately it didn't quite work under my current setup. (I am actually seriously thinking about turning this site's "information" section into a fully wiki-type area one day, but more about that some other time.)

One option would be to have the article structure posted here in the forums, and discussed here. Someone (dylanexpert) should probably be the chief editor, meaning that he would post a new version of the structure whenever one is agreed on.

Another option would be to take this to your blog, dylanexpert, in which case you have the tools to constantly edit a main post (which would have the article structure), while we use the post's comments area for the discussion.

A third option would be to use the forum here to discuss the structure, and use a collaborative writing tool like Google Docs to keep the master document updated.

In any case, it might be a good idea to post to the discussion section of the Wikipedia page in question and link to our project so that anyone interested or currently working on the page there is alerted to what we are doing.

In any case, it might be a good idea to post to the discussion section of the Wikipedia page in question and link to our project so that anyone interested or currently working on the page there is alerted to what we are doing.

Sounds like a good place to begin, Vili. By letting others know where they can have discussion and find other resource material about Kurosawa, we already then, perform a service.

This is a great idea! I was actually the one who wrote most of what you see on the Influence section. I also added most of the existing citations that you see on the article. (before my edits the article had maybe two citations). Truthfully, I didn't try very hard with the Influence section. I read the Ingmar Bergman article, saw that it had an Influence section and decided I would one-up it by adding one on the Kurosawa article too (their Influence sections are virtually the same, take a look).

I agree that the bullet-list should be changed. The names should be integrated into paragraphs and explained why and how they were influenced by Kurosawa. Maybe a paragraph about his influence on action films where Yimou, Woo, Peckinpah, and slow-motion influence can be added, then another paragraph on his influence on his contemporaries where you could add Fellini, Bergman, etc.

Also, if you want to upgrade the article into higher classes (as I have tried in the past), you should focus on, first and foremost, the LEAD section (the first paragraph you see on the article, basically a summary of the article) and citations. Add as much citations/references as you can.

Cheers

EDIT: I also tried to improve the awful state that the Seven Samurai article is in, but didn't know where to start. For a film that's considered one of the greatest of all time, its article is especially pathetic.

Ugetsu: If your IP is blocked, you can always make an account, which I think will allow you to edit.

Also, his filmography only lists films he directed, so no Runaway Train and stuff.

Welcome to the group Blah! It is great to have people in the project who have previously worked with the article.

I went through dylanexpert's original blog post and the discussion here, and taking your ideas came up with the following suggestion for the structure for the article. I'm sure that this won't be the final version, but maybe it will help us move forward?

I have replaced heading numbers with Xs, since it's not at this point important what the actual numbers are. Please ask if something is unclear. And, of course, comment and suggest modifications.

-------------------------
Lead section

x Life and career
x.x Youth [1910-1935]
x.x Director in training [1936-1942]
x.x Early works [1943-1945]
x.x Postwar years [1946-1950]
x.x International recognition [1951-1954]
x.x Late 50s [1955-1959]
x.x Final works with Mifune [1960-1965]
x.x Brushes with Hollywood [1966-1969]
x.x Difficult 70s [1970-1979]
x.x Resurgence of financing [1980-1989]
x.x Last decade [1990-1998]
x.x Death and posthumous works [1998-2010]

x Directorial Approach
x.x Influences
x.x Kurosawa and his contemporaries
x.x Working methods
x.x Collaboration and the Kurosawa-gumi
x.x Recurring themes
x.x Style
x.x "Western" director

x Legacy
x.x Kurosawa's Influence
x.x.x Influence on cinematic arts
x.x.x Remakes
x.x.x Homages and references
x.x Film studies and Kurosawa
x.x Criticism of Kurosawa

x Works
x.x Filmography
x.x As an assistant director
x.x As a scriptwriter
x.x Collaborations and television work
x.x Theatre
x.x Books
x.x Awards

x See also
x References
x Further reading
x External links
-------------------------

I think that's a good start, if that actually gets realized I have no doubt that the article can get Featured Article status.

I also think we should change Kurosawa's portrait in the article. The current one isn't very... exciting.

If you all manage to pull off the list of Vili's, then Kurosawa page would be perhaps the most in depth article of anyone listed on the website. I wish you all luck, I'm fairly worthless in these causes, but I know of some pretty good Kurosawa portraits, much better then the same old 3 or 4 everyone sees.

Vili's list is a fantastic start. I have a few changes (mostly minor) I would suggest for it, but I think we can proceed.

The Kurosawa article with my minor revision was peer reviewed by a not-terribly-experienced reviewer. (Think Minoru Chiaki in Seven Samurai.) He did not "graduate" the article from "C" to "B" status and in fact, did not know how to do this. He suggested some changes (particularly that we must increase the citations) and basically said we should revise the whole article and submit it for Featured Article status. ("Good" article nominees have a very heavy backlog, apparently.) I agree with this appoach.

I will soon post to my blog an article inviting those of you (and others) who want to work on this a place to input your suggestions. Simply use the reply function to enter your suggestions, using Vili's structure as a template.

I already have a draft of the revision of the article's introductory paragraph (the one that appears above the index), which I will put in my blog post.

My blog post requesting your assistance in creating the Kurosawa Wikipedia page is now online. I have made comments on Vili's proposed structure and added my revised draft of the Lead Section of the article. Please add your corrections/suggestions in the Comments area.

The post can be found at http://cinegems.blogspot.com/2010/02/creating-wikipedia-kurosawa-page.html.

I look forward to your comments.

Thanks dylanexpert. Great to see this project happening. Hope it suceeds for the birthday.

By the way Bob Dylan is playing in Tokyo on the 23rd and the 24th - which is Bob's 69th birthday. But by your nickname I assume you knew that already.

Doh! Dylan's birthday is 24 May not 24 March.

I have just made comments on my blog in reply to Blah's and Vili's comments. Please check them out at http://cinegems.blogspot.com/2010/02/creating-wikipedia-kurosawa-page.html.

Yes, Master Thief, I was aware that May 24th was Bob Dylan's birthday, but it's great that he's playing in Tokyo this month even if it's not his birthday.

What's happened to this now? And if anyone, cares, add Henry Sellick to the list of influenced directors.

Blah:

This effort has not been abandoned, but to move this forward, we need quite a few writers to work on it. (Optimally, we would need, say, seven. ; - )) I can't do this gigantic project alone. If you know any AK scholars (pro or amateur) out there who would like to work on this, please send me a message to let me know how to get in touch with them.

I will be posting to my blog my draft of the revised structure for the Wiki article that I think will work, plus my outline for one of the main sections (Criticisms of Kurosawa).

Vili:

This is the first paragraph and the outline of the "Criticisms" part of the Wikipedia article. Please note that when I describe the negative criticism to which Kurosawa and his films have been subjected, it doesn't mean that I agree with it, I am just recording what others have written on the subject, as a balance to the general praise appearing elsewhere in the article. I have written several topics listed in the bullet points below and will finish the rest soon.

"Despite the great acclaim Kurosawa’s work has received, his films, as well as Kurosawa as an individual, have also been subjected to considerable criticism, much of it harsh. The majority of these negative judgments fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Adverse comparisons with the work of Kenji Mizoguchi
• Accusations of sentimentality, naiveté and/or didacticism
• Alleged emotional detachment and “superiority”
• Political controversies
• Alleged lack of contact with contemporary realities
• Claims of personal arrogance and harsh treatment of colleagues
• Criticisms by Kurosawa of himself."

That looks like a good list, dylanexpert. Would the criticism launched by Japan's New Wave directors be included in the "Alleged lack of contact with contemporary realities" part?

Have you found writers for the different sections of the article? I could try to find the time to write something, if you just let me know what you'd like to assign to others, rather than work on yourself. May for me currently looks like a month when I will spend more time travelling than home, but I'd be happy to contribute, and I feel bad for not having been more active in this project.

I've been very slack about doing anything about this, but I hope I can contribute over the next few months.

As for the criticisms of Kurosawa, Mellen mentions quite a few of them in her book on Seven Samurai. There are also discussions of various criticisms of Kurosawa in her book 'The Waves at Genji's Door'. Yoshimoto mentions a few in his book.

I'd list others as:

- Misogyny (or at least, not being interested in women as characters). In the BFI Region II dvd of Red Beard Alex Cox accuses Kurosawa of creating female characters that only exist as people for the male heroes to save. Mellen, having praised his early films, writes that he seemed repulsed by the wife in Rashomon and after this never created a realistic female in future films.

- Pandering to the west. Mellen thinks that a comment made by Ozu that some Japanese film makers were like craftsmen who made tawdry coloured clothes for western tourists as being a reference to Kurosawa - a number of Japanese critics and western critics have suggested that his films were aimed at a western audience and so weren't really 'Japanese'. David Thomson argues that Rashomon was 'shrewdly aimed at western audiences'. Thompson also describes Throne of Blood as being 'as Oriental as a travel agents window'.

- Some western critics accused Kurosawa of historical revisionism and anti-Americanism following Rhapsody in August (I think the NYTimes review may have taken this view).

- His 1970's critics, including film makers like Oshima, argued that Kurosawas refusal to take a clear political stance in his films was reactionary and out dated.

Ugetsu - I'd suggest that the last two items on your list are already covered by political controversies and alleged lack of contact with contemporary realities, but those are good additions to the foregoing.