List of works by Akira Kurosawa

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

The following is a list of works, both in film and other media, for which the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa made some documented creative contribution. This includes a complete list of films with which he was involved (including the films on which he worked as assistant director before becoming a full director), as well as his little-known contributions to theater, television and literature.

Filmography

As director

All the following are Japanese productions unless otherwise specified.

Year English title Japanese title Romanized title
1943 Sanshiro Sugata[lower-alpha 1] 姿三四郎 Sugata Sanshirō
1944 The Most Beautiful 一番美しく Ichiban utsukushiku
1945 Sanshiro Sugata Part II[lower-alpha 2] 續姿三四郎 Zoku Sugata Sanshirō
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail 虎の尾を踏む男達 Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi
1946 No Regrets for Our Youth わが青春に悔なし Waga seishun ni kuinashi
Those Who Make Tomorrow[lower-alpha 3] 明日を創る人々 Asu o tsukuru hitobito
1947 One Wonderful Sunday 素晴らしき日曜日 Subarashiki nichiyōbi
1948 Drunken Angel 酔いどれ天使 Yoidore tenshi
1949 The Quiet Duel 静かなる決闘 Shizukanaru kettō
Stray Dog 野良犬 Nora inu
1950 Scandal 醜聞 Sukyandaru (Shūbun)
Rashomon 羅生門 Rashōmon
1951 The Idiot 白痴 Hakuchi
1952 Ikiru 生きる[lower-alpha 4] Ikiru
1954 Seven Samurai 七人の侍 Shichinin no samurai
1955 I Live in Fear 生きものの記録[lower-alpha 5] Ikimono no kiroku
1957 Throne of Blood 蜘蛛巣城[lower-alpha 6] Kumonosu-jō
The Lower Depths どん底 Donzoko
1958 The Hidden Fortress 隠し砦の三悪人 Kakushi toride no san akunin
1960 The Bad Sleep Well 悪い奴ほどよく眠る[lower-alpha 7] Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru
1961 Yojimbo 用心棒[lower-alpha 8] Yōjinbō
1962 Sanjurō 椿三十郎 Tsubaki Sanjūrō
1963 High and Low 天国と地獄[lower-alpha 9] Tengoku to jigoku
1965 Red Beard 赤ひげ Akahige
1970 Dodes'ka-den どですかでん[lower-alpha 10] Dodesukaden
1975 Dersu Uzala[lower-alpha 11] デルス・ウザーラ Derusu Uzāra
1980 Kagemusha 影武者[lower-alpha 12] Kagemusha
1985 Ran[lower-alpha 13] [lower-alpha 14] Ran
1990 Dreams[lower-alpha 15] Yume
1991 Rhapsody in August 八月の狂詩曲 Hachigatsu no rapusodī (Hachigatsu no kyōshikyoku)
1993 Madadayo まあだだよ[lower-alpha 16] Mādadayo
  1. Alternatively known as Judo Saga.
  2. Alternatively known as Judo Saga 2.
  3. Co-directed with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajirō Yamamoto.
  4. Translated literally as To Live.
  5. Translated literally as Record of a Living Being.
  6. Translated literally as Spider Web Castle.
  7. Translated literally as The Worse a Person is, the Better They Sleep.
  8. Translated literally as Bodyguard.
  9. Translated literally as Heaven and Hell.
  10. Japanese onomatopoeia for "clickety-clack".
  11. Russian–Japanese co-production between Daiei Film and Mosfilm, with dialogue in the Russian language, the only Kurosawa-directed film in a language other than Japanese.
  12. Translated literally as Shadow Warrior.
  13. French–Japanese co-production.
  14. Translated literally as Chaos.
  15. Also known as Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.
  16. Translated literally as Not Yet.

A documentary film about the Noh theater, Gendai no No (Modern Noh), which was begun by the director during a break in the shooting of Ran, but was abandoned after about fifty minutes were filmed, is being completed according to Kurosawa's script and notes.[1][2][needs update]

As producer

Note: Data for the remainder of this filmography is derived primarily from the complete filmography created by Kurosawa's biographer, Stuart Galbraith IV,[3] supplemented by IMDb's Kurosawa page.[4]

For the following films that Kurosawa directed, he also received a production credit:

  • Stray Dog (associate producer)
  • Throne of Blood (co-producer)
  • The Lower Depths (producer)
  • The Hidden Fortress (co-producer)
  • The Bad Sleep Well (co-producer)
  • Yojimbo (associate producer)
  • Sanjuro (associate producer)
  • High and Low (associate producer)
  • Red Beard (associate producer)
  • Dodesukaden (executive producer and producer)
  • Kagemusha (producer).

In addition, Kurosawa received a production credit on one film that he himself did not direct: Haru no tawamure (1949) (Spring Flirtation), written and directed by Kajiro Yamamoto, on which he served as an associate producer.

As screenwriter

Kurosawa wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for all the films he himself directed. However, to supplement his income, he also wrote scripts for other Japanese directors throughout the 1940s, and even through the 1950s and part of the 1960s, long after he had become world-famous. He also worked on the scripts for two Hollywood productions he was slated to direct, but which, for complex reasons, were completed by and credited to other directors (although he reportedly did shoot some scenes for Tora tora tora!, the footage from which has apparently not survived). Finally, near the end of his life, he completed scripts he intended to direct but did not live to make, which were then filmed by others. A table of all these screenplays is given below; all titles are Japanese productions unless otherwise noted.

Year Original Title English Title
(International Release Title)
Director(s) Screenplay Collaborator(s)
1941 Uma Horse Kajirō Yamamoto Kajirō Yamamoto
1942 Seishun no kiryū Wind Currents of Youth Shū Fushimizu None
Tsubasa no gaika The Triumphant Song of the Wings Satsuo Yamamoto Bonhei Sotoyama
1944 Dohyōmatsuri Wrestling-Ring Festival Santaro Marune None
1945 Appare Isshin Tasuke Bravo! Tasuke Isshin Kiyoshi Saeki None
1947 Yotsu no koi no monogatari (dai ichi-wa Hatsukoi) Four Love Stories (segment First Love) Shirō Toyoda None
Ginrei no hate To the End of the Snow-Capped
Mountains
(Snow Trail)
Senkichi Taniguchi Senkichi Taniguchi
1948 Shōzō The Portrait Keisuke Kinoshita None
1949 Jigoku no kifujin Lady from Hell Motoyoshi Oda Motosake Nishikame
Jyakoman to Tetsu Jakoman and Tetsu Senkichi Taniguchi Senkichi Taniguchi
1950 Akatsuki no dassō Escape at Dawn Senkichi Taniguchi Senkichi Taniguchi
Jiruba no Tetsu Tetsu of Jilba Isamu Kosugi Goro Tanada
Tateshi danpei Fencing Master Masahiro Makino None
1951 Ai to nikushimi no kanata e Beyond Love and Hate Senkichi Taniguchi Senkichi Taniguchi
Kedamono no yado The Den of Beasts Tatsuyasu Osone None
1952 Araki Mataemon: Kettô kagiya no tsuji Mataemon Araki – Duel at Keymakers' Corner
(Vendetta for a Samurai)
Kazuo Mori None
Sengoku burai Vagabonds in a Country at War
(Sword for Hire)
Hiroshi Inagaki Hiroshi Inagaki
1953 Fukeyo harukaze Blow! Spring Wind
(My Wonderful Yellow Car)
Senkichi Taniguchi Senkichi Taniguchi
1955 Kieta chūtai Vanished Enlisted Man Akira Mimura Ryuzo Kikushima
Asunaro monogatari Hiba Arborvitae Story
(Tomorrow I'll Be a Fire Tree)
Hiromichi Horikawa None
1957 Nichiro sensō shōno hishi -
Tekichū ōdan sanbyaku ri
Three Hundred Miles Through Enemy Lines
(Advance Patrol)
Kazuo Mori Hideo Oguni[note 1]
1959 Sengoku guntō-den The Story of Robbers of the Civil Wars
(Saga of the Vagabonds)[note 2]
Toshio Sugie None
1962 Tateshi danpei[note 3] Fencing Master Harumi Mizuho None
1964 Jyakoman to Tetsu[note 4] Jakoman and Tetsu Kinji Fukasaku Senkichi Taniguchi
1965 Sugata Sanshirō[note 5] Sanshirō Sugata Sei-ichirō Uchikawa None
1970 Tora tora tora! (USA) Tora! Tora! Tora!
(uncredited)[note 6][5]
Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku Japanese sequences:
Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima;
American sequences:
Larry Forrester
1985 Runaway Train (USA) Runaway Train
(uncredited)[note 7][6]
Andrei Konchalovsky Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel
and Edward Bunker
(based on the script by
AK, Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima)
2000 Ame Agaru[note 8] After the Rain Takashi Koizumi None
Dora-heita Alley Cat Kon Ichikawa Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita
and Masaki Kobayashi
("The Club of the Four Knights")[note 9][7]
2002 Umi wa miteita[note 10] The Sea Was Watching
(The Sea Is Watching)
Kei Kumai None

In addition, Kurosawa wrote the following unproduced scripts, composed during the pre-war period in the 1930s and also the wartime period in the 1940s, either when he was still an assistant director or had just graduated to full director. Some of these won prizes in screenwriting contests, establishing his reputation as a promising talent even though they were never filmed.[8]

  • Deruma-dera no doitsujin – A German at Daruma Temple
  • Shizukanari – All Is Quiet
  • Yuki – Snow
  • Mori no senichia – A Thousand and One Nights in the Forest
  • Jajauma monogatari – The Story of a Bad Horse
  • Dokkoi kono yari – The Lifted Spear
  • San Paguita no hana – The San Pajuito Flower
  • Utsukishiki koyomi – Beautiful Calendar
  • Daisan hatoba – The Third Harbor

As assistant director

Year Romanization of Japanese Title English Title Director Kurosawa's Credit
1936
Shojo Hanazono Paradise of the Virgin Flowers Shigeo Yagura Third Assistant Director
Enoken no senman chōja Enoken's Ten Million (The Millionaire
or Enoken the Millionaire)
Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Zoku Enoken no senman chōja Enoken's Ten Million Sequel Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Tōkyō rapusodi Tokyo Rhapsody Shū Fushimizu Third Assistant Director
1937
Sengoku guntō-den – Dai ichibu Tora-ōkami
(Sengoku guntō-den – Zenpen Tora-ōkami)
Saga of the Vagabonds – Part One: Tiger-wolf Eisuke Takizawa Third Assistant Director
Sengoku guntō-den – Dai nibu Akatsuki no zenhin
(Sengoku guntō-den – Kōhen Akatsuki no zenhin)
Saga of the Vagabonds –
Part Two: Forward at Dawn
Eisuke Takizawa Third Assistant Director
Otto no teisō – Haru kureba
(Otto no teisō – Zenpen Haru kureba)
A Husband's Chastity – If Spring Comes Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Otto no teisō – Aki futatabi
(Otto no teisō – Kōhen Aki futatabi)
A Husband's Chastity – Fall Again Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Nihon josei dokuhon Japanese Women's Textbook Kajirō Yamamoto
(Volume I only)
Third Assistant Director
(Volume I only)
Nadare Avalanche Mikio Naruse Assistant Director
Enoken no chakkiri Kinta – Zenpen
Mamayo sandogasa: Ikiha yoiyoi
Enoken's Chikiri Kinta Part 1 –
Momma, the Hat: The Nice Way
Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Enoken no chakkiri Kinta – Kōhen
kaeri wa Kowai mateba hiyori
Enoken's Chikiri Kinta Part 2 – Returning Is
Scary, but the Weather Will Clear If You Wait
Kajirō Yamamoto Third Assistant Director
Utsukushiki taka The Beautiful Hawk Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
1938
Chinetsu Subterranean Heat Eisuke Takizawa Chief Assistant Director
Tōjūrō no koi Tojuro's Love Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Tsuzurikata kyōshitsu Composition Class Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Enoken no bikkuri jinsei Enoken's Surprising Life Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
1939
Enoken no gatchiri jidai Enoken's Shrewd Period Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Chūshingura – Kōhen Chushingura Part 2 Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Nonki Yokochō Easy Alley Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
1940
Roppa no shinkon ryokō Roppa's Honeymoon Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Enoken no zangiri Kinta Enoken's Cropped Kinta Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Songokū – Zenpen Songoku Part 1 Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
Songokū – Kōhen Songoku Part 2 Kajirō Yamamoto Chief Assistant Director
1941
Uma Horse Kajirō Yamamoto Second Unit Director
(Also, editor,
co-screenwriter
and co-director (uncredited))

As editor

Kurosawa edited all his own films, though he only occasionally took screen credit for it. There are, however, a few instances in which he edited the work of others, as listed below.

  • Horse (1941) (Uma), directed by Kajiro Yamamoto (also second unit director, co-writer (uncredited), co-director (uncredited))
  • Snow Trail (1947) (Ginrei no hate), directed and co-edited by Senkichi Taniguchi (also co-writer)
  • The Hiba Arborvitae Story (1955) (Asunaro monogatari) (also co-writer), directed by Hiromichi Horikawa
  • Legacy of the 500,000, AKA 500,000 (1963) (Gojuman-nin no isan) (uncredited), directed by Toshiro Mifune[note 11][9][10]

Theater work

During the mid-to-late 1940s, for the first and apparently the only time in his career, Akira Kurosawa involved himself in a number of theater-related projects.

  • Shaberu (Talking) – In 1945, immediately after the war, Kurosawa wrote a one-act play entitled Talking, for, in his words, "Kawaguchi's troupe" (presumably meaning playwright Matsutarō Kawaguchi, who was prominent at this time and who also worked in the film industry). The central character of the drama is a fish merchant who, during the war, greatly admires Prime Minister Tōjō. In emulation of his patriarchal hero, the merchant plays the tyrant at home, but when the war ends, his angry family members air their long pent-up grievances against him. Kurosawa called it "a comic treatment of... Japanese who all begin talking at once", because "we who had been able to express nothing of what we were thinking up to that time [the end of the war] all began talking at once."[11][12][13]
  • Yoidore Tenshi (Drunken Angel) – During the Toho strike of 1948, when Kurosawa could not work, he wrote and directed a stage adaptation of his acclaimed 1948 film (see above), with Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune playing the same roles they played in the movie. The production ran for brief periods in a number of Japanese cities, apparently with great success.[14][15]
  • Predlozhenia (A Marriage Proposal) by Anton Chekhov – Also during the Toho strike, Kurosawa directed a production of this popular early Chekhov farce. Neither the actors who appeared in the production nor its reception by the public is known.[14]

Television work

A documentary about horses called Song of the Horse (or Uma no Uta), directed by Kurosawa, was broadcast in Japan, supposedly on August 31, 1970 (Kurosawa otherwise totally avoided working in television). Very little is known about the film, and its release date is even in question. For instance, though the film is often said to have aired in August 1970, it is thought that the film features footage of events that did not take place until the summer of 1971. It was considered a lost film for decades and was not available on home video in any form.[2][16] At some point in the 2010s, the film was rediscovered. It was remastered and released on DVD by the American independent company SamuraiDVD in 2017, complete with English subtitles.[17]

Books

Prior to writing the screenplay to his film, Stray Dog (Nora Inu, 1949), Kurosawa created, in about six weeks, a novel based on the same story (presumably also called Stray Dog), which he never published. It was written in the style of one of his favorite writers, the French crime author Georges Simenon. Writing it was supposed to help him compose the script as quickly as possible, but he found that writing the screenplay took even longer than usual because of the complex differences between literature and film.[18][19]

In 1980, inspired by the memoir of one of his heroes, Jean Renoir, he began to publish in serial form his autobiography, entitled Gama no abura (An Oily Toad). 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 1951; the period from 1951 through 1980 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." It was published as a book in Japan in 1981, and in English translation the following year under the title Something Like an Autobiography. The book's appearance coincided with the revival of interest in Kurosawa's work following the international release of Kagemusha. (ISBN 0394509382)[20][21]

In 1999, his book, Yume wa tensai de aru (A Dream Is a Genius) was published posthumously. It has not been translated into English, except for Chapter 3. This chapter consists of a selection of 100 of the director's favorite films, listed in chronological order, with detailed commentaries on each film, all given at the request of Kurosawa's daughter, Kazuko. (Since he deliberately limits himself to one film per director, however, the list emerges as more of a "favorite directors" list than a "greatest films" list.) This chapter, but not the remainder of the book, can be found in English on the Internet. (ISBN 4163555706)[22]

Complete Drawings (with text in Japanese) was published by Shogakukan in 1999. (ISBN 4096996114)

The screenplays of many of Kurosawa's films have been published in English. For further information, consult the Wikipedia articles relating to the individual films.

References

Notes
  1. Oguni and AK based this script on an unproduced screenplay they had written near the end of World War II.
  2. This film was a remake of a 1937 film of the same name by Eisuke Takizawa, on which production Kurosawa had served as assistant director: see "As assistant director" table.
  3. Remake of the 1950 film of the same name.
  4. Remake of the 1949 film of the same name.
  5. Remake of Kurosawa's films Sanshiro Sugata and Sanshiro Sugata Part II.
  6. AK was hired as director of the Japanese sequences of this film, but left the project; his name was taken off the credits at his request, but the screenplay he co-wrote was still used.
  7. AK was originally slated to direct this project in 1966-67 but dropped out; AK received a "based on a screenplay by..." credit, but neither Oguni nor Kikushima were credited at all in the final film.
  8. Originally conceived as a project for AK to direct; filmed after his death by Koizumi.
  9. These three directors and AK wrote this script, allegedly for all four to direct together, around the time of Dodesukaden (1970), but due to the box-office failure of that film, the project was canceled; it was finally directed by the last surviving member of the club, Ichikawa.
  10. Originally conceived as a project for AK to direct, it was filmed after his death by Kumai. It was the last film Kumai directed before his death in 2007.
  11. Mifune, directing his first film, was not confident of this suspense thriller's reception, so he hired Kurosawa to travel to the location and re-edit the footage. The latter agreed to do this more as a favor to his favorite actor than because of any belief in the project. The picture was a modest box-office success, but a critical disaster, and Mifune never directed another film.
References
  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. Galbraith, pp. 651–751
  4. Akira Kurosawa at the Internet Movie Database
  5. Galbraith, pp. 448–471
  6. Galbraith, pp. 441–448
  7. Galbraith, p. 646
  8. Galbraith, p. 30
  9. Galbraith, pp. 364–370, 703
  10. Nogami, pp. 246–247
  11. Kurosawa 1982, p. 144
  12. Galbraith, p. 63
  13. Seven Samurai, DVD featurette: My Life in Cinema (Waga Eiga Jinsei): Interview of Akira Kurosawa by Nagisa Oshima)
  14. 14.0 14.1 Galbraith, p. 98
  15. Drunken Angel, DVD featurette "It Is Wonderful to Create"
  16. Galbraith, pp. 486–487
  17. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. Kurosawa 1982, pp. 172–173
  19. Galbraith, p. 109
  20. Kurosawa 1982, p. vi
  21. Galbraith, p. 561
  22. Kurosawa 1999, Chapter 3, found at: http://ww.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=7192; translation: Noriyo Hoozawa-Arkenau
Sources
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.