Akira kurosawa autobiography
I watched my first Akira Kurosawa movie during my student days. It was &#;Rashomon&#;. My college film club screened it. It was amazing. I have wanted to read Kurosawa&#;s memoir since then. I finally got a chance to read it.
In his autobiography, Kurosawa-San starts by describing his earliest memory. He goes on to tell us about his family, his favourite brother and sister (his family was big – he had seven siblings), his favourite aunt who looked like a person from the Meiji era, his childhood, his favourite teacher in school, his love for reading, how he got into writing and painting, some of the big events that impacted his life like the earthquake in Tokyo in , how he was a left-leaning radical person for a few years and how he was part of the underground. All these form the first part of the book. In the second part, Kurosawa-San describes how he got into the film industry, and describes his time there. He describes events till the time his most famous film &#;Rashomon&#; won the Golden Lion in the Venice Film Festival. The end of the book has an eight-page chapter in which Kurosawa-San shares his thoughts on filmmaking. It is an eight page education on the art of filmmaking and it is fascinating.
I loved the book very much. But I loved the first part more. Because in that part Kurosawa-San describes his family, his childhood, his teachers, and takes us to the Japan of that era. It is fascinating! Many readers would be more interested in the second part however, because of the insights it offers on filmmaking. Kurosawa-San&#;s prose is simple and spare. This enhances the impact of some of the moving scenes that he describes – the way his brother is protective towards him, how his favourite sister showers her love on him, the letter his favourite schoolteacher writes to him after he becomes a famous film director (I cried after I read that letter). Kurosawa-San is very frank and doesn&#;t hesitate to speak his mind on different things. He doesn&#;t
Something Like an Autobiography
autobiography by Akira Kurosawa
Something Like an Autobiography (Japanese: 蝦蟇の油 自伝のようなもの, Hepburn: Gama no Abura: Jiden no Yō na Mono) is the memoir of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa. It was published by Iwanami Shoten in , and translated into English by Audie E. Bock the following year.
Sources
In , inspired by the memoir of one of his heroes, Jean Renoir, Kurosawa began to publish in serial form his autobiography, entitled Gama no Abura ("Toad Oil"; a traditional Japanese ointment for medical purposes). In English translations, the book's subtitle Jiden no Yō na Mono ("Something Like an Autobiography") is normally used as the title instead. The book deals with the period from the director's birth to his winning the Golden Lion for Rashomon from the Venice Film Festival in ; the period from through is not covered. The title of the book is a reference to a legend according to which, if one places a deformed toad in a box full of mirrors, it will become so afraid of its own reflection that it will begin to sweat, and this sweat allegedly had medicinal properties. Kurosawa compared himself to the toad, nervous about having to contemplate, through the process of writing his life story, his own multiple "reflections."
Synopsis
The book has 54 chapters that trace Kurosawa's early childhood through his teenage years, where he recollects memories of his schooldays, times spent with his elder brother, and the great Great Kantō earthquake and the destruction left in its aftermath.
At the age of 25, shortly after his older brother Heigo committed suicide, Kurosawa responded to an advertisement for recruiting new assistant directors at the film studio Photo Chemical Laboratories, known as P.C.L. (which later became the major studio, Toho) and was subsequently accepted for the position with four others.
During his five years as an assistant director, Kurosawa worked under numerous directors, but by far the “Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.” Like “but ignorance is a kind of insanity in the human animal. People who delight in torturing defenseless children or tiny creatures are in reality insane. The terrible thing is that people who are madmen in private may wear a totally bland and innocent expression in public.” Like “For me, filmmaking combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.” Like “As if Japan weren't small enough to begin with, I fail to understand why it is necessary to think of it in even smaller units. No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet?” Like “Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary J .Something Like an Autobiography Quotes
&#; Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography
&#; Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography
&#; Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography
&#; Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography