Kurosawa Quotes & Sayings

You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas something like Jaws winds up having a huge effect on me. If only my parents had been taking me to Kurosawa films when I was eight, but no. — Ann Patchett

A lot of my stories are inspired by Japanese folklore or literature or movies: I've done stories based on Kabuki and Noh plays, and on Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' movies. — Stan Sakai

I'm a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa, a big Hitchcock fan. — Jennifer Lynch

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly. — Akira Kurosawa

The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self- sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life. — Akira Kurosawa

When I met Akira Kurosawa in Japan, one question he asked me was, "How did you actually make the children act the way they do? I do have children in my films but I find that I reduce and reduce their presence until I have to get rid of them because there's no way that I can direct them." — Abbas Kiarostami

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? — Akira Kurosawa

Most directors have one masterpiece by which they are known. Kurosawa has at least eight or nine. — Francis Ford Coppola

I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself. — Akira Kurosawa

The great appeal of film is its relatability. — Akira Kurosawa

The censors were so far gone as to find the following sentence obscene: 'The factory gate waited for the student workers, thrown open in longing.' What can I say? This obscenity verdict was handed down by a censor in response to my script for my 1944 film about a girls' volunteer corps, Ichiban utsukushiku (The Most Beautiful). I could not fathom what it was he found to be obscene about this sentence. Probably none of you can either. But for the mentally disturbed censor this sentence was unquestionably obscene. He explained that the word 'gate' very vividly suggested to him the vagina! For these people suffering from sexual manias, anything and everything made them feel carnal desire. Because they were obscene themselves, everything seen through their obscene eyes naturally became obscene. Nothing more or less than a case of sexual pathology. — Akira Kurosawa

I like silent pictures and I always have ... I wanted to restore some of this beauty. I thought of it, I remember in this way: one of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film. — Akira Kurosawa

If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter. — Akira Kurosawa

In order to find reality, each must search for his own universe, look for the details that contribute to this reality7 that one feels under the surface of things. To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means never to look away. — Akira Kurosawa

Man is a genius when he is dreaming. — Akira Kurosawa

If I were to write anything at all, it would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies. In other words, take 'myself,' subtract 'movies,' and the result is 'zero.' — Akira Kurosawa

Now I want to make it plain that 'The Virgin Spring' must be regarded as an aberration. It's touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa. — Ingmar Bergman

The truth is in the mystery. — Akira Kurosawa

I am not a special person, I am not especially strong; I am not especially gifted. I simply do not like to show my weakness, and I hate to lose, so I am a person who tries hard. That's all there is to me. — Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa is the pictorial Shakespeare of our time. — Steven Spielberg

I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can't people be happier together? — Akira Kurosawa

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 Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three feet. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities. — Akira Kurosawa

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream. — Antoine Fuqua

I've wanted to work with [Kairo aka Pulse director] Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but he has not been making horror movies recently. — Roy Lee

Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. — Ingmar Bergman

Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied ... That's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good. — Akira Kurosawa

To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means to never look away. — Akira Kurosawa

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. — Akira Kurosawa

Granting that there is some truth to the theory that defects in society give rise to the emergence of criminals, I still maintain that those who use this theory as a defense of criminality are overlooking the fact that there are many people in this defective society who survive without resorting to crime. The argument to the contrary is pure sophistry. — Akira Kurosawa

The contemporary Japanese directors who are well-known in the West - say, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase - are mostly unknown to Japanese, particularly of the younger generation. — Hirokazu Koreeda

If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of. — Akira Kurosawa

A truly good movie is enjoyable too. There's nothing complicated about it. — Akira Kurosawa

In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to class. The experience of encountering films then is one of my greatest memories. Before that I'd never paid any attention to directors, but there I was taking a crash course in Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, Truffaut, Renoir, Fellini. Because I've always been naturally a more introspective person, I was more interested in becoming a screenwriter than a director. — Hirokazu Koreeda

The films an audience really enjoys are the ones that were enjoyable in the making. Yet pleasure in the work can't be achieved unless you know you have put all of your strength into it and have done your best to make it come alive. A film made in this spirit reveals the hearts of the crew. — Akira Kurosawa

If you want to make films, you'll watch Kurosawa. If you want to play a violin, you listen to Seghetti. Same with somebody who has the ambition to play in the NBA. I watch a basketball game; I enjoy it. Somebody who really wants to learn to play is studying whatever is most magnificent that's going on out there. — Robert Pinsky

Life in Japan, nowadays, is nothing like a Kurosawa movie, and only the contemptible Weeaboo thinks that it is. In order to be a whole, well-rounded Otaku, you need to be up on Japanese popular culture, as much as you may be up on anime, samurai philosophy or the canon of Square Enix games. — Alexei Maxim Russell

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. — Akira Kurosawa

I was influenced by European movies, old Fellini, old Kurosawa - any sort of foreign film. — Ted Demme

The cinematic language and interior destiny of each Iranian film-maker is different. The international influences on them vary from Rossellini to Fellini, Akira Kurosawa to Hou Hsiao-hsien, but there is a strong sense of solidarity. — Tariq Ali

I have no idea who the characters are, later, their personalities take over anything I might want to do. I end up writing not from my own will, but from theirs-they come alive as I write and make me do things that I couldn't have planned. — Akira Kurosawa

For many years, my favorite director has been the Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa. — Henry Rollins

There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can only be expressed in a film, and it must be present for that film to be a moving work. When it is very well expressed, one experiences a particularly deep emotion while watching that film. I believe that it is this quality that draws people to come and see a film, and that it is the hope of attaining this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make his film in the first place. — Akira Kurosawa

I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that kind of time. — Akira Kurosawa

In a mad world, only the mad are sane. — Akira Kurosawa

In the pre-war era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional patter for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3,721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion.
When writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box. — Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa was one of film's true greats ... His ability to transform a vision into a powerful work of art is unparalleled. So it seemed appropriate to name the new digital studio for him. — George Lucas

In Kurosawa's films, the tragedy is that this strong man was crushed by corruption or mistrust at the end. — Claire Denis

I was in Japan, and my assistant director had worked with Kurosawa. I used quite of number of Kurosawa's crew. — John Boorman

The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get there is to look away and avert our eyes. — Robert Olen Butler

Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one ... I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favourite author, and he is the one - I still think - who writes most honestly about human existence. — Akira Kurosawa

Yes, sir. Certainly, it was I who found the body. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

[Akiro] Kurosawa, no doubt, was a big influence. Movies sometimes more than directors have influenced me: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Ford, was an extraordinary discovery. Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar] Bergman. — Costa-Gavras

Take me, subtract movies, and you get zero. — Akira Kurosawa

In a mad world, only the mad are sane. - AKIRA KUROSAWA — Michael R. Fletcher

Page 61: 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 earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is and the would be put an end to it. — Akira Kurosawa

The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies, and thrillers, and Kurosawa films, you know, where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that. — Lawrence Kasdan

I'm a huge lover of 'Seven Samurai' and anything Kurosawa ever did. The comedic work out of Japan in terms of martial arts movies, some of them are hilarious. — Ann Nocenti

The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits. — Martin Scorsese

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. — Akira Kurosawa

South Africa had very poor repertory distribution. I didn't find out about Akira Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and Werner Herzog until I got to the U.K. — Richard Stanley

To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes. — Akira Kurosawa

I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing. — Akira Kurosawa

For the casual viewer, Kurosawa's films can be an exercise in endurance. — Jerry White

The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they've been given. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heroes. — Akira Kurosawa

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. — Akira Kurosawa

Dolby stereo increases the possibility of emptiness in film sound at the same time that it enlarges the space that can be filled. It's this capacity for emptiness and not just fullness that offers possibilities yet to be explored. Kurosawa has magnificently exploited this dimension in Dreams: sometimes the sonic universe is reduced to a single point-the sound of the rain, an echo that disappears, a simple voice. — Michel Chion

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters. — Henry Selick

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this. — Akira Kurosawa

I want to be able to make westerns like Akira Kurosawa makes westerns. — Sam Peckinpah

The expected vertical line of Ikiru's narrative breaks when Kurosawa does a flash-forward in the middle of the film. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Man is a genius when he dreams. Dream what you are capable of. The harder you dream it, the sooner it will come true. — Akira Kurosawa

I'm not Akira Kurosawa. He used to write ... He used to write a completely new spec script over a couple of nights. I'm not like that. It takes me a long time to put a film together that I want to make. — Duncan Jones

I think Kurosawa was one of the first storytelling geniuses who began to change the narrative structure of films. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I am inspired by both Japanese Samurai films, in particular the films of Kurosawa, and how they share the spirit of American Westerns, with the influences running in both directions, and including the 'Spaghetti Westerns' and films of Sam Peckinpah. — Ann Nocenti

There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself. [Pg.189] — Akira Kurosawa

IT IS QUITE ENOUGH IF A HUMAN BEING HAS BUT ONE FIELD WHERE HE OR SHE IS STRONG. IF A HUMAN BEING WERE STRONG IN EVERY FIELD, IT WOULDN'T BE NICE FOR OTHER PEOPLE, WOULD IT? — Akira Kurosawa

It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination. — Akira Kurosawa

The role of the artist is to not look away. — Akira Kurosawa

People today have forgotten they're really just a part of nature. Yet, they destroy the nature on which our lives depend. They always think they can make something better. Especially scientists. They may be smart, but most don't understand the heart of nature. They only invent things that, in the end, make people unhappy. Yet they're so proud of their inventions. What's worse, most people are, too. They view them as if they were miracles. They worship them. They don't know it, but they're losing nature. They don't see that they're going to perish. The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water. — Akira Kurosawa

I've watched too many Kurosawa movies, she thought, but couldn't quite abandon the idea. The imagery was a lovely way of turning angst and suicidal ideation into honor and noble sacrifice. — James S.A. Corey