Something Like a Short Bullet Point Autobio (71 posts)

A lot of Dylan fans also like Neil, and I suppose it's not hard to see why. I do like his earlier stuff, but I haven't heard anything he's done since Harvest Moon. "I'm Not There" does look interesting, though not sure how it will play to non fans.

Hello everyone (and Vili, what a wonderful site you've designed and moderated here!):

I discovered this site a few months ago, through a link at Greencine's daily blog, and have been checking in every few days since then. The prospect of dialogue with fellow Kurosawa admirers finally drew me out of lurker-hood.

I'm a fellow in his late 30's, living in beautiful East Tennessee, where I'm raising three splendid kids. I'm a psychiatrist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder and primarily treats combat veterans. My favorite Kurosawa films of the moment are 'Seven Samurai,' 'Rhapsody in August,' and 'Ikiru.' Besides Kurosawa, my favorite directors are probably Miyazaki, Truffaut, Danny Boyle, and the Coen Brothers. Besides film, I enjoy good food (one can never eat enough cheese and chocolate), good music (folk rock and classical mainly), and travelling far and near.

Although I have memories of watching 'The Seven Samurai' with my dad back when I was in college, I didn't really 'discover' Kurosawa until about 2 years ago. I'd always been a lover of film, but the affinity I found with Kurosawa's films has been life-changing. In him and his work, I find a warmth, beauty, worldview, and ethic that resonate strongly with me. A chronological review of his films, plus readings of articles and books on him and his work, have since led me to further amateur study of Japanese history and culture.

In addition, I discovered that Kurosawa's work resonated with me professionally, since much of his life and work seems to be about working through personal and societal trauma, with its attendant successes and failures (not an original idea, since Prince writes about this, too). Last year, I wrote an article/presentation entitled 'Trauma and Re-formation in the Films of Akira Kurosawa,' which I presented to my local colleagues and hope to share with a larger audience some year. If anyone would like a copy, just lemme know, and I'd be happy to share it. In addition, I've been able to track down a copy of the recently mentioned article entitled 'Poetry of Unadulterated Imagination: The Late Style of Akira Kurosawa,' and would be glad to pass along copies of this as well.

Sorry if I've rambled too long. My participation here will most likely be sporadic, given my typically chock-full schedule, but I look forward to reading what all of you have to say, and find the prospect of an AK film club especially exciting.

Hi Andrew, and welcome to the group! It's nice to know that there is a trained psychiatrist amongst us, as I'm sure you will be able to bring a point of view to the discussion that the rest of us probably wouldn't be the first to come up with.

I would be very interested in both of the articles that you mentioned, especially the one that you yourself presented. My email address is vili.maunula(at)gmail.com, so in case it isn't too much trouble, you can send them there.

It is interesting that you mention Rhapsody in August as being one of your three current favourite Kurosawa movies. It seems to me that the film is not too often given that honour. It probably just goes to show how wide a range Kurosawa had, since no movie seems to lack someone who considers it one of his finest.

(Although I yet need to meet the person who considers The Most Beautiful among Kurosawa's finest. I don't think anyone I know has promoted Sugata Sanshiro II, either.)

Andrew, I would be very interested in your "Trauma and Re-formation in the Films of Akira Kurosawa" article, if you have a chance be sure to email it to Vili.

By Miyazaki, do you mean the animated director? (I know of no other), I'm a bit of a fan myself, his works are fantastic.

Hi
I am a German 30 year old male that works in lighting area of movies, I do some work in USA and Germany. I know english because my mother but I still learn to write better everyday.
I dont know alot about Kurosawa but I have seen some of his more popular films. I watch most new movies. Old movies do not have much lighting principals so I forget to watch them. I start to watch older movies and find Kurosawa to be some of my favorites. I like the more action films I am not a big fan of dramas but I like Seven Samurais best because it is a mixture of everything. I like this site because I learn alot of information of great director Kurosawa and better like his movies.

I think Jeremy that I know you. I know you cycle names so I am not for sure if it who I think.
You work on a film in California where they call you pied piper like the book. I remember you make to fire everyone on the movie except the lighting which I did. I fought with you over some light problems and you like that I made a question instead of not question different principles.
You will remember me because you were to go to Czech republic and you called me to help but they got mad at both us and used another people. Its been a long time but it was good. I notice your name because of old email, I decide to join site because I know you like Kurosawa.

Thanks you for such a good site webmaster Vili

:lol: That was me, I forgot about that whole deal, it wasnt one of my finer moments.
I did fire most of the crew, the whole thing was a giant mess, that later brought me down with it.
I want someone to agree with me, because they agree, not because they are too lazy to think for themselves. The crew didnt help, they were just passive and offered no advice, just did whatever someone said to do. I believe this is way they called me in.
I do remember getting in a debate with you, the only person that raise concerns, but I dont know what about, considering I dont know much about lighting, I have no idea what I could of disagreed on. I do know I went with your advice in the end, that was the only part of the entire thing that ended with success.

I didnt go to the Czech Republic, because I did make a lot people mad with my comments when we last meet. Your name properly got wrapped up in mine. I didnt know they canceled your job out, hopefully I caused no long term effects for you. I always thought you went there, whatever happened to that project?

I no longer doing corrective cinematography, but I will keep you in mind, but anything I would do in the future would be a much smaller production.
Are you in Germany or America now?

I also had no idea I was called the "pied piper" but the name fits I suppose, although I never got my revenge.

Whenever my real name in goggled, everything points to this site, your not the first to discover me that way. So far its just been old friends, hopefully no one make any connections with my job names, that would be a nightmare. Oh and all the other links with my name are not me, thats someone else with the same name, I think that guy is getting sick of strange emails intended for me.

Whatever email you have of mine, its still active, feel free to email me.

So far no on this site, has any lighting perspective, I dont know how much thought Kurosawa put into lighting maybe you can offer something. Thats one area I am really weak on. I check this site daily, I look forward to hearing more from you.

I am happy to know it is you because of many names. I was looking for many people I used to know and many are hard to find because of outside budget pay. I get lucky finding you and a good site to learn more about movies and great director Kurosawa.

It is best when everyone work together. You make no trouble for me it was of no large deal not working on film in the czech. I do not know what happens with that.
I live in Germany close to Berlin the company has works in USA and sometimes I lead the team but it has been a long time since I go back to USA.
I do know anything special with Kurosawa lighting. He appear to do normal like most old movies and dramas and do not use lots of special lighting. This is why I like the new action films this I see and do many principals.
Light is important but more with the new movies and color. I started to watch the old movies for fun I try many German directors and now doing Italian and Japanese. I can not say about anything special of the lighting of Kurosawa or any director of the old. I do not think new films are very good but they use many tricks and lighting is one of the more important. I only know of this and nothing else. Sometimes I do drama movies but it is simple lighting principals. I like do experiments and trick that are only possible with new action movies.

Alexander Hasler

Welcome to the group, Alexander!

If I recall correctly, lighting was quite an important aspect of film making for Kurosawa, and also one of the reasons why it took him so long to switch to filming in colour (the poor quality of colour film being the other major reason). I cannot claim to be an expert in the field, however, so I have no idea how his lighting choices compare with other directors of his time.

It's quite fascinating to see how AK worked with his cinematographers over the years. He used 16 different men (seven films credit two cinematographers, while Dersu Uzala credits three) in his 30 films.

Perhaps Kazuo Miyagawa was the most influential in certain ways -- although Kurosawa only managed to use his services twice (Rashomon and Yojimbo). I'm sure we can agree that those two films are memorable examples of startling use of lighting techniques.

[two great examples from Rashomon, and they are both "silent" -- the bandit under the shade tree when he first sees the samurai and woman; and the woodcutter's trek through the forest...]

However, Kurosawa used two men in 14 different films -- Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito.

Nakai lit Ikiru and Seven Samurai and Saito lit Red Beard. Pretty fine examples of superbly lit films, I think...

We can be sure that these two men had a very synergistic relationship with Kurosawa...

I believe that lighting was crucial in Kurosawa's thinking as early as No Regrets and Stray Dog, certainly...

Stray Dog is filled with interesting shadows and creative set-ups.

I too agree with Vili and Lewis, I do think Kurosawa took great care in lighting, but I cant really comment if there is anything unique or different compared to other films of the time period. Lighting is something I tend to overlook, likely due to not knowing enough to notice anything.

You should watch Rashomon if you havent already, thats one film where I noticed some nice work on the lighting.

I have only watch Seven Samurais* Sanjuro*Hidden Forest. I do not know the ways of lighting of black and white movies. I am trying to learn more about black and white and drama lighting. My working is in the color of film and making high contrast and harden shadows to make movie appear certain way. I have done many Germany WWII films to make the movie look dirty and unnatural colors to give settings. The movies are of drama but with lights to make action in feelings.Maybe members have seen Hirschbiegel films? I work on this some it give good look at what I work at. There are so many principals of lighting but I only know a few so to be very good at those now I try to learn more styles with watching of old movies.

Thanks you Vili and Lewis and Jeremy

Wow, what Hirschbiegel films have you worked on?

I loved The Experiment, which I picked up solely because of Moritz Bleibtreu, who I thought was fantastic in Run Lola Run...

As a Jew, I'd be very interested in seeing Ein ganz gewöhnlicher Jude, but it doesn't appear to be released in the US as of yet...

I totally forget that he also made Der Untergang.

Very controversial film, perhaps greatly misunderstood as being somewhat sympathetic. In any case, in the hands of a good director, a film of this nature is much more powerful in the language in which the history actually took place. Bruno Ganz gave me chills.

Superb film.

I did not do Experiment movie, but yes I get to work on the film ein gewöhnlicher Jude but only as second lead member of crew. It is a very good movie for the understanding of the Jewish people of Germany. My favorite is der Untergang I was to do some of the main key light and lots of the outdoor scenes. I learn lots of great importance of lighting with the indoor bunker. The lighting had to look like it came from the small lights in bunker but the cameras could not expose well so it was hard to make very bright light for camera but dull light to feel like bunker. Bruno Ganz is very great actor sometimes I get distracted with the acting and forget to watch the light.
Some do say der Untergang is making great Hitler but to me it is wrong. I like it because itt is interesting and very well made and acted. The movie doesnt not hide the bad parts or make great the war or Hitler.

Sorry I didn't reply to your comments sooner, Jeremy, but I was computer-less for a few days. Yes, I have forwarded my article to Vili, and you're certainly welcome to it also. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on it here, if you or others are inclined to read it.

And yes, I was referring to Hayao Miyazaki - my first viewing of 'Spirited Away' was truly transporting, and I return to it frequently. I've since dug into more of his films, as well as that of his Ghibli colleague, Isao Takahata; other favorites would include 'Castle in the Sky' and 'Pom Poko' (a delightful, but seemingly neglected, work about a group of mystical renegade raccoon dogs).

Welcome, Alexander - how fascinating to hear that you worked on 'Der Untergang.' I thought it was an engrossing, convincing depiction of Hitler's final hours with a terrific lead performance by Bruno Ganz.

Alex, your emails come back rejected, but the problem with the login appears to be with the German keyboard profile would cause it to fail login sometimes, with the English keyboard I logged in to your profile with no problem every time.
Do they still only credit one tech per city group? The American studio stopped doing that.

I look forward to reading your article Andrew

Yes my yahoo USA account was full because I just use to not get junk in yahoo Deutschland account. I fix now the problem thanks for help it was my computer and not anything else. You can now use it and I send you yahoo Deutschland email now.

Andrew it is nice to meet you.

I have use this site for information and will buy some Kurosawa movies when I leave my work soon. Thanks you webmaster Vili.

Hello everyone, just a self introduction here - I've been lurking on this for a few weeks, thought it was time I'd join in, although I don't have as much to offer as you guys. I was delighted to find this site - great (as someone above mentioned) to find a site that isn't full of trolls or people trying to show off their knowledge.

I'm Philip,yr old 41 in Dublin, Ireland. I've had an interest in Kurosawa and Japanese culture in general lurking in the back of my mind for quite a while, but its not been something I actively pursued. A trip to Japan a few years ago primed a stronger interest to learn more about Japanese culture with the aim of a few better planned trips - currently thinking of a bike trip from north tip to south tip, taking my time as i meander up (or down) as the case may be. I've even been mulling over following the wanderings of the characters in Sansho the Bailiff on a mountain bike! No doubt everything of interest is now covered with a pachinko parlour or a Starbucks, but I'd still like to do it.

I started working my way through my local dvd library of '50's Japanese cinema mainly due to being housebound a year ago due to an accident - its the best thing that came out of the accident! I adore Ozu and Mizoguchi of course, but its Kurosawa I keep coming back to. Its coincided with the start of my personal disillusionment with so much modern cinema - too many movies made by people who know everything about the cinema, but nothing about life.

I have no educational background in the cinema, I'm just a fan. I'm an urban planner by profession. But I would comment that a background in geography and environmental science stimulates one thing that fascinates me about Kurosawa - more than any other film maker I can think of (maybe Kubrick comes close), he has a 'sense of place'. All his stories have a very precise and distinct geography. He draws out the physical confines of his stories brilliantly. Most famously of course in Seven Samurai where the characters even draw a map to help you out, but in every movie from the meandering offices of Ikiru to the physical geography of the unnamed city in High and Low he creates a three dimensional world for the viewer.

Ok, enough rambling, I'll get back to reading some of the threads!

Hi Everyone. I posted earlier on the other place, but Jeremy is probably right, that space should probably be Vili's as the creator, administrator and everything guy to this site. So, hi again, all.
Happy to know that Kurosawa is still relevant and meaningful to people out there, and that there are those looking forward to celebrating his upcoming 100th!
I belong to an OZU group, as well, (http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/ozu/) and if you love Ozu, they could use a little energy. I've been on that site a couple years.
I am also interested in Mizoguchi, Kobayashi (Japanese post-War cinema in general) and the writings of Yasunari Kawabata. My other interests are in the visual arts, art history, educational travel and culture studies. I am a (lapsed) language learner of Chinese, a painter and I work at a university.

Welcome to the group, Ugetsu! It's great to have someone in the group with a professional's eye on urban planning and geography. Kurosawa, indeed, had an incredible "sense of place", which even I as someone who has no background in planning can appreciate.

I hope that you will have the time to contribute to our discussion and, among everything else that you will have to offer, are ready to give us an expert's view on Kurosawa's sets and buildings. I'm sure that there are many insights that you could offer and that the rest of us would really appreciate reading!

And welcome to Yippee as well, again.

Funnily enough, although there aren't that many of us active users, the mixture of people here is quite fascinating, providing for interesting insights and discussion, as I think we have already seen a number of times over in the past couple of years.

And then there are, of course, those over 200 silent registered users who are out there somewhere, many of them apparently checking the site every week or so, but not ready to jump into the discussion quite yet.

I really like you comments Ugetsu, about Kurosawa's sense of space, it's not something I overly noticed before, but as I was reading about it, a ton of scenes came into my mind. This among the great things that having a wide variety of backgrounds from the members of this site can offer.

A bike ride though Japan would be really cool. The mountain regions still hold some old characteristics, the rare small city that is still laid back. Plus I cant recall ever seeing a Starbucks or McDonalds. I found cities in Gifu prefecture to be among the best, the train ride up there is worth the visit in itself.

Takayama was the only place in my last visit, where I felt like I was inside a Kurosawa movie. Of course getting lost and wonder down a river stream late at night, while drunk off sake, my not be the wisest thing-there is nothing else that will make think your a Mifune character. It was really a joyful experience.

Of course getting lost and wonder down a river stream late at night, while drunk off sake, my not be the wisest thing-there is nothing else that will make think your a Mifune character. It was really a joyful experience.

Sounds amazing! BTW, I couldn't log in under YIPPEE but I am the same person. Sorry for any confusion.

Thanks for the welcome Vili and Jeremy, as soon as I catch up from reading past comments, I'd be very happy to contribute. Its great to see intelligent analysis of movies that is so clear and free from jargon.

On a related point - I'm maybe showing my technical innocence here, but how exactly do you take stills from dvd's and post them here? Is there specific software that allows you to do that, or is there some simple way to do it?

I'm maybe showing my technical innocence here, but how exactly do you take stills from dvd's and post them here?

I'd be interested to know this as well. (Maybe someone could post a good solution in a separate thread?) I personally use VLC Media Player, which as well as being a brilliant all-around media player has this function. But I'd love to be able to capture from DVDs that aren't Region 2, too.

I wont have any time for a while to make a how-to, but I can do it at a later period.

There are literally hundreds of ways to go about it. Most ways are free, some paid programs make it easier. I like WinDVD9 simply for ease, but it is around $70.

I'll just mention quickly:

I use WinDVD9, setting the window size to capture size o avoid having to resize the photos to fit this site. Then I run a batch color adjustment though IrfanView, so the pictures look good on a wide variety of monitor adjustments.. I did this for Yojimbo

If you dont want to buy anything, then use Windows media player and if you have Windows Vista, then use the snippet tool to grap a screen shot. Then run it though IrfanView. I did this for Rashomon, when I wasnt on my other computer with WinDVD9.

Getting around region coding is easy, but it depends on your computer, sometimes a only a program, only a setting, or a modded version of your DVD player's firmware is required.

When I do screen shots for another region DVD or PAL format. I normally just copy the movie to my computer, and break encryption. Makes things easy for me.
Since it's sort of illegal I avoid mention programs, unless Vili gives it a go. A bit of internet research should lead you to success anyways.

Find a place to host the photos, and everything is good. There are lots of free picture hosts out there, and if you need, I can always host anything on my server.

I normally just copy the movie to my computer, and break encryption. Makes things easy for me. Since it's sort of illegal I avoid mention programs, unless Vili gives it a go. A bit of internet research should lead you to success anyways.

Go ahead. I wouldn't like to see links to direct downloads, but giving names certainly shouldn't be breaking any laws.

Am I right, by the way, that the name of the encryption breaking software that allows you to copy a DVD on your hard drive is "DVD Decrypter"?

Hi everyone. Although I lurked for awhile, and joined the discussion with Seven Samurai, I haven't introduced myself formally yet.

My name is Cheryl and I'm a lawyer - or at least I was until leaving active practice due to medical conditions. My interest in film, pop culture, manga, anime, and most things Japanese is all my own and probably an shock to my Korean grandparents who are spinning in their graves, considering both the country's history and their personal history with the Japanese.

As I mentioned in one of my posts on Seven Samurai, I first saw it, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo and Sanjuro on a PBS program showing classics of foreign cinema when I was a teenager. Seven Samurai immediately became my favorite film ever - I spent the following day humming the theme and picking it out on the piano - and Kurosawa became my favorite director ever, opinions which haven't changed in the intervening (cough cough) three plus decades.

I've been spending some of my time watching Kurosawa movies ordered from Netflix. So far, I've revisited the ones I saw in my youth, plus Stray Dog, Ikiru, Rashomon (which I had seen once before and didn't much like), The Hidden Fortress (which I'd also seen at a local film fesival not long ago), and The Lower Depths. I'm waiting to see some more of his work from the 50s and 60s, even the ones that are considered lesser movies or failures. I also saw Ran during its first run and was impressed (especially by the effective use of color to connote which army was which) but found it very depressing and despairing compared to his earlier movies.

I am looking forward to next month's discussion, which if I remember correctly is about Throne of Blood. Some of the ones I've seen had already been discussed when I came across this site, so I've missed out on all but the Seven Samurai discussion.

I am also fascinated by pop culture. For me, as Seven Samurai is to film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is to TV, and I've read most of the academic Buffy studies books with interest.

My daughter, who's 14, has gotten me into manga, and that, plus my newfound free time, has led down some odd paths, including joining LiveJournal and honing my nonexistent creative writing skills (I haven't done any since high school unless you count the descriptions of services provided I wrote as an attorney) on fan fiction, which I never would have believed I'd read, much less write, in the boys love/shonen ai/yaoi genre (for the uninitiated, that means that the main characters are guys in romantic and/or sexual relationships). Once again, this is both a subset of pop culture and, since most of it is produced and published in Japan and then translated for an American/English-speaking audience, a point of contact with Japanese culture. It may surprise you to know that this subgenre of manga is shojo/josei - that is, written and drawn by women for an overwhelmingly female audience. I am exploring why that is in an article I'm writing for my own amusement but intend to shop around in both an academic and popular magazine version.

The relevance of the above is that since the manga on which what I mostly write is based - Gravitation - is set in Japan and the main characters are a (male) romance novelist and an aspiring J-technopop singer, in order to write stories I wind up doing fairly extensive research on Japan and Japanese culture which both informs and is informed by my love for Akira Kurosawa and his films.

Thanks for the introductory text, lawless! It's always great to read more about the people frequenting this website.

And let us know if we can in any way help with your article. I don't know much about manga (I much prefer European comics), but I'm sure there are people around here who could offer valuable help, if you feel like having it read and commented by peers!

Hey Lawless, you 4chan? I have no personal experience...last thing in the world I need is one more addiction.

So many of our Japanese language students get to the university with a tremendous love of Manga and Anime-(not so much Kurosawa and Ozu or Mizoguchi...) and some hope to be program developers, artists...some hope to work as translators. Many end up going to JCMU spending a semester or year in Japan, or to Kansai Gaidai, and now, our new Tokyo partner Tokyo Gakugei. But very few like "old" Japanese movies, until they "learn" to appreciate them a bit...most find them dusty old relics.

No personal experience? Right, I know it your on 4chan coco, you in fact are likely the sole provider of all those horrible, and disturbing post on /b/.