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BrianInAtlanta wrote:Also not getting why being thrown across the room by Sugata seems to lead to symptoms similar to tuberculosis.

Grand Illusion wrote:Just a heads up to anyone in the Los Angeles area, the Academy (it's on Wilshire in Beverly Hills) is holding a Kurosawa art exhibit through mid-December. They have old posters, paintings (a lot of reproductions), original storyboards, costumes, props, old correspondence, etc. It's really interesting, and there are a few gems. My favorite was a storyboard for Tora! Tora! Tora! drawn on hotel stationary.

HerrSchreck wrote:I Know Where I'm Going is not a Kurosawa film. This weekend or any weekend.

HerrSchreck wrote:Can anyone point out anything on film or video that features substantial interview footage with Toshiro Mifune? Or even just footage of him on the set but out of character.. i e just being himself?

I've obviously been looking in the wrong places, because despite snippets here and there (I recall some brief appearances on a disc or two-- one with AK & team in an inn I think? in color?.. but nothing substantial) I cannot find much.

HerrSchreck wrote:Yeah, isn't it curious that the guy who was probably Japans greatest male star of all time simply never seemed to have sat down for many interviews for the public to get to know him?

zedz wrote:Mifune in that interview seems really sweet and avuncular. I don't think I've ever seen him play that type onscreen. There's no real relevance to High and Low, but it's definitely a worthwhile inclusion. It hadn't occurred to me until I saw it, but like Schreck I don't think I'd ever seen Mifune just be himself before.

Wim Wenders's best shot

'The Coppolas, Kurosawa and my foot - on a lazy Sunday afternoon in paradise'

Interview by Leo Benedictus The Guardian, Thursday 12 March 2009

Summer 1978 in Napa Valley, California. Photograph: Wim Wenders

I confess to being a workaholic. And as movies always take up a year or two of your life, I'm happiest filling some of the time in between taking pictures.

This picture was taken in the summer of 1978, when I was living in San Francisco and working on a movie called Hammett, for Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Pictures. One weekend, at very short notice, I was told that I could join the film director Akira Kurosawa on a trip to Francis's home in Napa Valley. Kurosawa was in town to discuss a film that Francis and George Lucas were going to executive produce, which turned out to be one of his last great masterpieces - Kagemusha.

Francis sent his wonderful old Mercedes 600 limousine (pre-owned by the Pope, if I remember correctly) to drive Kurosawa, his translator and Tom Luddy of the Pacific Film Archive out into the country. The car was going to pick me up on the way, and I was standing on the street watching it arrive when I suddenly realised I should take a camera. I ran back up to my apartment and chose my old Russian Horizon, a 35mm panoramic gizmo that I liked because it was light and uncomplicated.

As it turned out, the trip became quite an adventure. The old Mercedes gave up in the middle of nowhere, its engine steaming. The driver didn't have a clue how to get it going again. So we all wandered into a country fair, where we could at least find some shade and cold drinks. I remember I took some pictures of Kurosawa walking around, including one that shows him in the midst of a Cajun band, the Louisiana Playboys.

Finally, our saviour appeared, in the person of the documentary film-maker Les Blank, who passed by in his beat-up old van and volunteered to take our entourage to Napa Valley. The van was a sort of hippy vehicle without seats, just mattresses in the back to lie on - so you can imagine Francis's amazement when this beat-up wreck stopped in front of his mansion and Akira Kurosawa climbed out.

The day was scorching hot, so Francis took his guests to a pond in the little forest behind his property. That's when I took this picture of a lazy Sunday afternoon in paradise. You can see Francis in the water and Tom Luddy on the big rock, along with Francis's wife Eleanor and his daughter

Sofia (still a little girl), as well as Kurosawa's translator. Kurosawa himself is sitting in the shade. He, of course, could not be persuaded to jump into the water. The fact that he had spent the excursion in shirtsleeves was quite a concession already.

The only great view of the whole group was from the water, so I swam out with my Horizon - you can see my foot in the foreground - and took this picture, guessing the exposure. For a long time, nobody said a word. It was as if we were all aware of this instant of bliss: the sun shining through the trees; the sound of the crickets; the utter peacefulness of a moment that united several generations of film-makers. Life is good - and every now and then a photograph can do it justice.

exte wrote:I was watching the "It's Wonderful to Create" segment on Seven Samurai, and noticed that there is an actual museum in his honor, complete with the "Akira Kurosawa Memorial Hall". I was wondering, has anyone gone there? Is it easy to visit if you've never been to Japan before? Here's the website if anyone else is interested. Anyone? Thank you.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Ryukoko University has finished digitizing over 27,000 personal documents/items belonging to Akira Kurosawa. They are now viewable right here.