Jump to content

Talk:Akira Kurosawa

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by J Edward Malone (talk | contribs) at 17:32, 23 June 2018. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Template:Vital article

Good articleAkira Kurosawa has been listed as one of the Media and drama good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 11, 2010Peer reviewReviewed
September 14, 2010Featured article candidateNot promoted
October 6, 2015Good article nomineeNot listed
June 25, 2017Good article nomineeListed
August 12, 2017Featured article candidateNot promoted
Current status: Good article

Common Themes

I suggest someone add the quote listed in the NY Times that says "I suppose all of my films have a common theme, Mr. Kurosawa once told the film scholar Donald Richie. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can't people be happier together? "

I don't think that's the full truth of the matter, there are other reoccurring themes, but it's a good start. Personally, I find that Kurosawa has taken a pretty strong stance against fighting and war as a means to a good end. This might be what he is referring to in his above statement. This is evident in the Seven Samurai at the end when the samurai are disappointed that they fought a war for the peasants who were ungrateful. In Kagemusha the story also ends in a bloody battle that the protagonists tried to prevent from occurring. In Dreams, there are several stories where war has caused major problems, one in which the main character, a veteran has a dream of his dead war comrades as well as the story about the horned demons who exist because of radiation caused by a nuclear blast.

There might be a slight connection between the theme of "nothing is ever as it initially appears" or "Hidden Identity" as well. Rashomon is the biggest example, but in the Hidden fortress, the two peasants are unsuspecting of the princess and the general because of their false identity. Kagemusha also supports this theme with the "shadow warrior" of the late lord. Seven Samurai has Mifune's character, who is actually a farmer not a true blue samurai. (and don't quote me on this one, but I believe in Ikiru the main character starts out by telling those around him, the girl and the writer, that he is someone who he is not. I will have to rewatch that one to find out for certain).

RE: mistake

The Author of this article credits Stray Dog as Kurosawa's first collaboration with Toshiro Mifune, when it is in fact Kurosawa's breakthrough film, Drunken Angel which first starred the then unknown Mifune in a Kurosawa film. Drunken Angel was released in April of 1948 while Stray Dog was released in October of 1949. By this point Kurosawa had already collaborated with mifune a second time in The Quiet Duel. I believe it is important to recognize the significance of Drunken Angel, It is a spectacular film that is tremendously important to Japanese cinema and it is also responsible for launching Mifune's career as a actor and also introducing Kurosawa as a truly talented and skilled director. Donald Ritchie notes the importance of this film in his book, The Films of Akira Kurosawa. "Japanese critics have agreed that this picture is to Japanese cinema as Paisa or Bicycle Thieves is to Italian, that it perfectly epitomizes a period, its hopes, its fears: that it marks the major 'breakthrough' of a major directorial talent who has finally 'realized' himself."(Ritchie, 47) I will try to formalize this correction within the actual article, but am new to Wikipedia, so if anyone reads this and notices that the error was left uncorrected than please assume I was unable to do so and please correct it if you are able.

  • Any quoted material is taken from The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Ritchie.

filmography

I know there is a separate page for Kurosawa's filmography, but only because I did a search for it. You would never be able to find it from this page, yet it must be one of the main items of interest for someone looking up Kurosawa in Wikipedia.

I would recommend having a clearly labeled link to the Filmography page, easily visible upon first glance at the page. Either within the introductory paragraphs (maybe make it its own short one sentence paragraph, to draw the eye), or within the Table of Contents link to a new section called Filmography, and that section simply has the sentence, with appropriate aliased hyperlink: "See Akira Kurosawa Filmography page." No further text required for this section, but it would be easy to find at first glance.

Theres a lot of info on this page, all of it great, but that simple tabular filmography would be of interest to a new reader before the lengthy essay style historical sections.

J Edward Malone (talk) 19:45, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your post J Edward Malone. I've added a link based on your request. Due to the way the film sections are spread out I felt a see also section was best. If other editors can think of something better that is fine. MarnetteD|Talk 21:18, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ack messed up my ping so here it is again J Edward Malone. MarnetteD|Talk 21:19, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciated, but there is still nothing that actually says Filmography, which is what a person would be looking for. The link in Table of contents says "see also", then the section it leads to says "List of creative works by Akira Kurosawa". Note Hitchcock's page has Filmography as one of the sections in its Table of Contents. Kubrick's page makes it a little bit harder, it has a section called Film Career, but the very first thing you see in that section is a clearly labelled link to the Kubrick filmography page. In either case the director created Creative Works other than films, but they were primarily film directors and a clearly labelled link to the filmography would be (probably) the first thing a new visitor to a film director's main page would be looking for.
I see what you mean, the sequence of film productions is mixed up in biographical subsections. How about this, instead of calling the new section See Also, just call it Filmography (why not?), and the contents of the section remain exactly as is. A user lands in that very short section and all they see is that one hyperlink, first guess would be to click on it. That should be more intuitive.
I should probably just make the edit myself, since I can imagine it better than I can explain it. But I've kind of gone off editing wikipedia lately, and am more comfortable just leaving suggestions.
J Edward Malone (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

@JJMC89: That was really a well-commented critique. My responses are above as well as a group of new images in the article following your comments. I hope this is getting closer to improving the article and look forward to your notes and comments. JohnWickTwo (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Akira_Kurosawa&oldid=847208054"