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Kurosawa was a man who came from humble beginnings, who, by his own admission, was a slow learner, who witnessed and experienced things that often sound like the fiction of a master storyteller, who rose from the bottom of the film industry to be internationally recognized as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I loved hearing his story in his own words; my one complaint is that he only gives us half of it.

Something like an autobiography, and something much more like a memoir, which is no bad thing. Kurosawa explains that he'd rather his work speak for him, but that in his old age, he's been persuaded to write about himself.
The first half of the book beautifully evokes the pre-war Japan of his childhood, his adventures with his friends, his brother and parents. Then, his 'bohemian' period as a struggling painter and writer, then his almost... 👇🏼

"There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself."

"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. ????

“Ignorance is a kind of insanity in the human animal.”

"If you shut your eyes to a frightening sight, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of."

13-year old Kurosawa's older brother told him this after leading him through the destruction & corpses left by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Kurosawa's descriptions & the photos & paintings of the disaster, seem to prefigure the horror & devastation wrought 22 years later in Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

"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?"

Continuing to be unable to stick to the books I'm already reading, I'm moving on to this memoir by Kurosawa of his early life up to roughly the release of Rashomon in 1950. I picked it up yesterday from our local community cinema, where we watched the entirely unrelated film, Wild Rose, about a Glaswegian woman's dream of becoming a Country Music singer in Nashville. Unlikely connections! 😃

The autobiography of one of the finest filmmakers in cinema history fell into my mailbox today. I cannot express the excitement and eagerness swelling within my heart. 🖤🖤

#ownvoices #japanese #diversebooks #memoir #nonfiction #akirakurosawa #somethinglikeanautobiography