WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.839 You know, when we picture a modern movie blockbuster 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:07.280 being made today, there's this underlying expectation 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:10.320 of ultimate sterile control. Oh, completely. 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.179 Right, like you can picture actors wearing those 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:15.199 gray motion capture suits, standing in a massive, 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.039 totally climate -controlled warehouse that's 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:19.760 just completely surrounded by green screens or, 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:21.960 you know, LED volumes. Yeah, total environmental 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.500 manipulation. Exactly. Yeah. If the director 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:27.949 suddenly decides, hey, I want a thousand charging 00:00:27.949 --> 00:00:31.370 horses, or a towering castle, or a torrential 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:33.750 downpour. A visual effects artist just does a 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:36.049 few clicks on a keyboard, and boom, there it 00:00:36.049 --> 00:00:38.950 is. It's clean. It's so clean, it's safe. It's 00:00:38.950 --> 00:00:41.170 basically a digital laboratory, where all the 00:00:41.170 --> 00:00:43.810 chaotic variables of the real world have been 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:46.090 entirely eliminated. The filmmaker is totally 00:00:46.090 --> 00:00:48.130 insulated from the physical elements, which, 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:50.390 I mean, it makes the logistical process incredibly 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:52.490 efficient. But then, and this is where it gets 00:00:52.490 --> 00:00:55.149 crazy, you put on a black and white cinematic 00:00:55.149 --> 00:00:59.740 epic. from say the 1950s and suddenly that clean 00:00:59.740 --> 00:01:02.380 safe laboratory is just completely obliterated. 00:01:02.659 --> 00:01:04.760 Oh absolutely shattered. You're looking at a 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.540 screen that is absolutely drenched in real freezing 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:11.680 rain. You are watching actors literally sinking 00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:14.459 up to their knees in actual thick mud, swinging 00:01:14.459 --> 00:01:17.040 heavy wooden swords. Yeah, swinging for their 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:20.079 lives. There's a level of chaotic, visceral humanity 00:01:20.079 --> 00:01:23.760 happening on the screen that is so intense, it 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:25.400 makes you feel like you need a warm towel and 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:27.980 a hot shower just from watching it. It is the 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:31.200 absolute definition of raw, uncompromising filmmaking. 00:01:31.299 --> 00:01:33.840 Right. And the chaos you are feeling as a viewer, 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:36.219 it isn't an accident on the era, right? It is 00:01:36.219 --> 00:01:39.019 a highly engineered, deliberate assault on the... 00:01:38.569 --> 00:01:41.629 senses designed to force you to feel the reality 00:01:41.629 --> 00:01:43.909 of the scene. Welcome to this deep dive into 00:01:43.909 --> 00:01:46.849 the life, the intense personal struggles, and 00:01:46.849 --> 00:01:49.370 the unparalleled cinematic triumphs of Akira 00:01:49.370 --> 00:01:52.230 Kurosawa. A true master. Looking through the 00:01:52.230 --> 00:01:55.829 comprehensive biographical records and the historical 00:01:55.829 --> 00:01:58.390 accounts of his sprawling career, our mission 00:01:58.390 --> 00:02:00.450 today is to look way beyond the famous movie 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:02.030 titles you might have heard of. Yeah, the ones 00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:04.769 everyone knows. We want to unpack the life of 00:02:04.769 --> 00:02:07.989 the man who fundamentally revolutionized global 00:02:07.989 --> 00:02:10.930 cinema. We are going to explore how a painter 00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:14.729 turned director navigated intense wartime censorship, 00:02:15.169 --> 00:02:17.629 bridged a massive cultural gap between East and 00:02:17.629 --> 00:02:20.789 West, survived crushing personal and professional 00:02:20.789 --> 00:02:24.069 despair, and ultimately secured a legacy as one 00:02:24.069 --> 00:02:26.189 of the most influential storytellers in human 00:02:26.189 --> 00:02:28.909 history. It is a profound story of survival. 00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:31.590 I mean, the resilience he demanded from his characters 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:34.430 on screen was directly mirrored by the resilience 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:36.550 he had to manufacture in his own life, both in 00:02:36.550 --> 00:02:39.110 front of and behind the camera. And even if you, 00:02:39.389 --> 00:02:41.689 listening right now, have never consciously sat 00:02:41.689 --> 00:02:44.050 down to watch a single Kurosawa film in your 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:47.030 life, I guarantee you have consumed media shaped 00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:49.729 by his DNA. Oh, without a doubt. You are like 00:02:49.729 --> 00:02:52.039 the buddy cop genre. He pioneered it. Are you 00:02:52.039 --> 00:02:54.379 a fan of Star Wars? Huge influence there. George 00:02:54.379 --> 00:02:56.439 Lucas directly lifted his narrative structures 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:59.659 in visual editing techniques. Do you enjoy epic 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:02.120 movies with chaotic mud -soaked battle scenes 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:03.879 where the weather reflects the emotional turmoil 00:03:03.879 --> 00:03:07.620 of the characters? That is all Kurosawa. Okay, 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:10.099 let's unpack this. So to really understand the 00:03:10.099 --> 00:03:13.400 origins of that fearless unflinching directorial 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:16.900 style, we have to bypass the movie sets entirely 00:03:16.900 --> 00:03:19.060 and go back to his childhood in Tokyo. Right. 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:22.030 Way back. Yeah, Kurosawa was born in 1910, the 00:03:22.030 --> 00:03:24.370 youngest of eight children. His father was a 00:03:24.370 --> 00:03:26.569 strict military man who, rather unusually for 00:03:26.569 --> 00:03:28.550 the time, actually encouraged an appreciation 00:03:28.550 --> 00:03:31.229 for Western theater and film. Which is pretty 00:03:31.229 --> 00:03:33.870 rare for a military guy back then. Exactly. But 00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:36.189 the true architect of Kurosawa's worldview was 00:03:36.189 --> 00:03:38.610 actually his older brother, Heiko. And that worldview 00:03:38.610 --> 00:03:42.090 was forged in the fires of a literal historical 00:03:42.090 --> 00:03:45.310 disaster. It really was. In 1923, the great Kanto 00:03:45.310 --> 00:03:48.509 earthquake struck Japan. The devastation was 00:03:48.509 --> 00:03:51.810 just apocalyptic. Entire city blocks were flattened, 00:03:52.009 --> 00:03:54.050 firestorms swept through the wooden houses, and 00:03:54.050 --> 00:03:57.509 over 100 ,000 people lost their lives. Kurosawa 00:03:57.509 --> 00:03:59.909 is just 13 years old when the ground stops shaking. 00:04:00.009 --> 00:04:03.310 Barely a teenager. And in the immediate smoky 00:04:03.310 --> 00:04:05.789 aftermath, his older brother Haigo does something 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:08.860 unthinkable. He takes the young Kurosawa on a 00:04:08.860 --> 00:04:11.240 walking tour through the absolute epicenter of 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:13.060 the destruction. They were navigating through 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:15.620 absolute ruins. This wasn't a casual survey of 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:17.970 property damage, you know. They were walking 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:20.149 through streets scattered with the horrific aftermath 00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:22.509 of the fire. His body's everywhere. Human and 00:04:22.509 --> 00:04:24.829 animal corpses were everywhere. Naturally, a 00:04:24.829 --> 00:04:27.009 13 -year -old boy's instinct is to look away, 00:04:27.050 --> 00:04:30.350 to hide his face. But Hago physically gripped 00:04:30.350 --> 00:04:33.290 him and explicitly forbade him from averting 00:04:33.290 --> 00:04:35.949 his eyes. Wow. He forced his younger brother 00:04:35.949 --> 00:04:38.670 to look directly at the horror, telling him a 00:04:38.670 --> 00:04:41.209 psychological truth. If you close your eyes to 00:04:41.209 --> 00:04:43.610 a terrifying sight, the terror will only grow 00:04:43.610 --> 00:04:46.930 and fester inside you. You defeat fear by staring 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:50.449 directly at it. That is just staggering. I mean, 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:53.389 it is extreme exposure therapy. Yeah. You figure 00:04:53.389 --> 00:04:56.569 if you were forced to stare into the literal 00:04:56.569 --> 00:04:59.730 smoldering abyss of human mortality at age 13, 00:04:59.970 --> 00:05:02.149 what could possibly intimidate you later in life? 00:05:02.470 --> 00:05:04.089 Nothing, really. Right. If you're a blink at 00:05:04.089 --> 00:05:06.449 the end of the world, no cinematic subject, no 00:05:06.449 --> 00:05:08.470 matter how dark or violent, is ever going to 00:05:08.470 --> 00:05:10.750 scare you off. If we connect this to the bigger 00:05:10.750 --> 00:05:14.990 picture, that mandate from Hego to not look away 00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:18.170 became the defining philosophical ethos of Curaçao's 00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:20.649 entire body of work. It's all right there. It 00:05:20.649 --> 00:05:22.850 created a filmmaker with a total willingness 00:05:22.850 --> 00:05:25.470 to confront the darkest, most unpleasant and 00:05:25.470 --> 00:05:27.930 morally ambiguous truths of the human condition. 00:05:28.470 --> 00:05:31.170 He didn't shy away from poverty, greed or brutal 00:05:31.170 --> 00:05:33.670 violence because he had been taught from childhood 00:05:33.670 --> 00:05:37.129 that you must face the ugly reality head on to 00:05:37.129 --> 00:05:39.470 conquer it. But the tragedy surrounding Hego 00:05:39.470 --> 00:05:43.050 doesn't end with the earthquake. Hego was a brilliant, 00:05:43.410 --> 00:05:46.410 highly artistic, but deeply troubled guy. He 00:05:46.410 --> 00:05:48.949 made his living in the 1920s as a benshee. Right, 00:05:49.129 --> 00:05:51.930 a benshee. Which was, um... A benshi was a highly 00:05:51.930 --> 00:05:54.430 specialized celebrated profession in Japanese 00:05:54.430 --> 00:05:56.790 cinema before the advent of synchronized sound. 00:05:57.329 --> 00:05:59.910 When silent films played in theaters, the benshi 00:05:59.910 --> 00:06:02.089 would stand next to the screen and perform the 00:06:02.089 --> 00:06:04.430 movie live. Like a live narrator? Yeah, they 00:06:04.430 --> 00:06:06.470 would narrate the action, voice all the different 00:06:06.470 --> 00:06:08.990 characters, and explain the plot. They were massive 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.269 stars in their own right, sometimes drawing larger 00:06:11.269 --> 00:06:13.870 crowds than the films themselves. Heigo was a 00:06:13.870 --> 00:06:16.589 master of this craft. Then the 1930s arrive, 00:06:16.889 --> 00:06:19.620 and technology marches forward. The talkies hit 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:22.319 the market. Movies now have their own synchronized 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:25.040 audio tracks. And that changes everything. Almost 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:28.060 overnight, the entire benchy profession is rendered 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:31.660 completely obsolete. Haigo loses his livelihood, 00:06:32.279 --> 00:06:35.259 he loses his artisting purpose, and he organizes 00:06:35.259 --> 00:06:38.000 a massive failed strike against the studios. 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:42.139 Tragically, in 1933, Haigo took his own life. 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:44.579 Kurosawa had been living with Haigo at the time. 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:48.579 He deeply idolized him. The loss was profound 00:06:48.579 --> 00:06:51.620 and foundational. It had to be. Nearly 50 years 00:06:51.620 --> 00:06:54.319 later, when Kurosawa was writing his autobiography, 00:06:54.759 --> 00:06:57.160 the chapter covering this specific period of 00:06:57.160 --> 00:06:59.819 his life was simply titled, A Story I Don't Want 00:06:59.819 --> 00:07:02.779 to Tell. The wound never fully closed. It's that 00:07:02.779 --> 00:07:04.980 exact foundational trauma that eventually pushes 00:07:04.980 --> 00:07:07.420 him toward the film industry, almost by accident. 00:07:07.610 --> 00:07:09.810 Kurosawa originally wanted to be a painter, but 00:07:09.810 --> 00:07:12.529 he couldn't make a living at it. By 1936, he 00:07:12.529 --> 00:07:14.329 needed a paycheck, so he answered a newspaper 00:07:14.329 --> 00:07:16.310 ad for an assistant director position at a new 00:07:16.310 --> 00:07:19.029 film studio. He spent years learning the rigorous 00:07:19.029 --> 00:07:21.470 technical ropes of a film set, but he quickly 00:07:21.470 --> 00:07:23.670 realized something pragmatic scriptwriting paid 00:07:23.670 --> 00:07:26.089 significantly better than being a lowly assistant 00:07:26.089 --> 00:07:27.829 director. Just following the money, basically. 00:07:28.189 --> 00:07:31.350 Exactly. So he honed his writing skills. This 00:07:31.350 --> 00:07:33.790 gave him a massive structural advantage because 00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:35.589 he learned how to construct a narrative from 00:07:35.589 --> 00:07:39.300 the blank page up. By 1943, he finally gets the 00:07:39.300 --> 00:07:41.800 chance to direct his debut film, a martial arts 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:44.839 action movie about Judo called Senshiro Sugata. 00:07:45.019 --> 00:07:46.899 And his career almost ended before it began. 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:49.660 Japan is deeply embroiled in World War Two at 00:07:49.660 --> 00:07:52.240 this point, and the national wartime censors 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:55.579 review his debut movie and deem it too British 00:07:55.579 --> 00:07:58.160 American, which was incredibly dangerous. In 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:01.319 1943, Imperial Japan, calling a piece of media 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:04.040 British American, was basically a death sentence 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:06.639 for the film and potentially dangerous for the 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:08.779 film. filmmaker. The only reason the movie saw 00:08:08.779 --> 00:08:11.519 the light of day was because the legendary established 00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:14.920 Japanese director Yasujira Ozu intervened and 00:08:14.920 --> 00:08:17.100 championed the film's artistic merit to the censorship 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:19.730 board. The Japanese state wasn't interested in 00:08:19.730 --> 00:08:21.829 artistic nuance, you know? They wanted pure, 00:08:21.990 --> 00:08:24.490 galvanized propaganda. And Kurosawa was tasked 00:08:24.490 --> 00:08:26.670 with delivering exactly that for his next project 00:08:26.670 --> 00:08:30.009 in 1944, a movie called The Most Beautiful. The 00:08:30.009 --> 00:08:32.629 mandate was straightforward, make an inspiring 00:08:32.629 --> 00:08:35.509 propaganda piece about female factory workers 00:08:35.509 --> 00:08:38.309 happily supporting the war effort by manufacturing 00:08:38.309 --> 00:08:41.230 optical lenses. I have to hit pause and push 00:08:41.230 --> 00:08:43.129 back on this a little, because this is where 00:08:43.129 --> 00:08:45.429 his legendary method emerges, and I find it so 00:08:45.429 --> 00:08:48.649 surprising. How so? If you are hired by a strict 00:08:48.649 --> 00:08:52.149 military state to make a straightforward, government 00:08:52.149 --> 00:08:55.570 -mandated propaganda film, why go to extreme 00:08:55.570 --> 00:08:58.149 obsessive lengths? You'd think propaganda would 00:08:58.149 --> 00:08:59.649 be the one place where a director just tells 00:08:59.649 --> 00:09:02.129 the actors to hit their marks, smile patriotically, 00:09:02.149 --> 00:09:05.190 and go home. Why force the actresses to undergo 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:08.769 actual corment? Because Kurosawa found artificiality 00:09:08.769 --> 00:09:11.309 physically repulsive. He realized he had to balance 00:09:11.309 --> 00:09:14.149 the rigid demands of the military state, giving 00:09:14.149 --> 00:09:16.509 them the pro -war narrative they required with 00:09:16.509 --> 00:09:19.909 his own uncompromising pursuit of emotional realism. 00:09:20.049 --> 00:09:22.549 He couldn't just fake it. No, he figured if these 00:09:22.549 --> 00:09:24.370 women are going to represent the struggle and 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:26.870 sacrifice of the Japanese nation, the exhaustion 00:09:26.870 --> 00:09:28.990 on their faces needs to be real. The hunger in 00:09:28.990 --> 00:09:31.269 their eyes needs to be real. So he literally 00:09:31.269 --> 00:09:33.690 forces them to live in a real factory during 00:09:33.690 --> 00:09:35.470 the entire shoot. They weren't allowed to go 00:09:35.470 --> 00:09:38.750 home. At all? They had to eat the actual meager 00:09:38.750 --> 00:09:41.389 factory rations, sleep in the cramped dormitories, 00:09:41.710 --> 00:09:43.889 and he demanded they call each other by their 00:09:43.889 --> 00:09:45.830 character names, even when the cameras stopped 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:48.850 rolling. He created a pressure cooker. It was 00:09:48.850 --> 00:09:52.570 an incredibly early, extreme form of immersive 00:09:52.570 --> 00:09:54.909 directing. He was breaking down their polished 00:09:54.909 --> 00:09:57.929 acting habits to find the raw human beings underneath. 00:09:58.529 --> 00:10:01.210 Unsurprisingly, that stubbornness caused massive 00:10:01.210 --> 00:10:04.850 friction. On that factory set, The actresses 00:10:04.850 --> 00:10:07.250 were completely miserable. They ended up choosing 00:10:07.250 --> 00:10:09.909 one of their own, an actress named Yoko Yaguchi, 00:10:10.590 --> 00:10:12.850 to act as their unofficial union representative. 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:15.330 She was the brave one. She was tasked with presenting 00:10:15.330 --> 00:10:17.830 their collective demands and complaints directly 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:21.110 to Kurosawa. They clashed constantly. The arguments 00:10:21.110 --> 00:10:23.490 over the grueling set conditions were passionate 00:10:23.490 --> 00:10:27.029 and bitter. Which, amazingly, is exactly how 00:10:27.029 --> 00:10:29.649 they fell in love. It's so ironic. The friction 00:10:29.649 --> 00:10:32.389 turned into mutual respect, and they argued so 00:10:32.389 --> 00:10:34.049 passionately that they ended up getting married 00:10:34.049 --> 00:10:37.450 in 1945. She never acted again, and they stayed 00:10:37.450 --> 00:10:40.470 married for 40 years until her death. It is an 00:10:40.470 --> 00:10:42.970 incredible origin story for a relationship born 00:10:42.970 --> 00:10:45.669 entirely out of creative conflict. Fast forward 00:10:45.669 --> 00:10:48.769 a few years. The war ends, the atomic bombs are 00:10:48.769 --> 00:10:51.629 dropped, and Japan is now under American occupation. 00:10:52.090 --> 00:10:54.809 The censorship shifts drastically. A complete 00:10:54.809 --> 00:10:57.610 180. Right. Now the American censors are banning 00:10:57.610 --> 00:10:59.850 anything that looks too feudal or aggressively 00:10:59.850 --> 00:11:03.490 traditional. But this chaotic post -war era is 00:11:03.490 --> 00:11:06.389 where Kurosawa truly finds his cinematic voice. 00:11:06.730 --> 00:11:09.529 He also finds his greatest on -screen collaborator, 00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:13.230 the legendary actor Toshiro Mifune. They kick 00:11:13.230 --> 00:11:16.129 off a 16 -film collaboration, starting with a 00:11:16.129 --> 00:11:20.370 1948 film called Drunken Angel. Nefune was incredible. 00:11:20.570 --> 00:11:23.350 He possessed this explosive, animalistic, almost 00:11:23.350 --> 00:11:26.129 feral energy that perfectly matched Kurosawa's 00:11:26.129 --> 00:11:28.669 highly dynamic visual style. They were constantly 00:11:28.669 --> 00:11:30.809 innovating new cinematic languages together. 00:11:31.149 --> 00:11:33.970 In 1949, they made a film called Stray Dog. Oh, 00:11:33.990 --> 00:11:36.590 I love that one. It's a sweaty, desperate police 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:38.929 procedural where a rookie detective loses his 00:11:38.929 --> 00:11:41.210 gun and has to team up with a seasoned, cynical 00:11:41.210 --> 00:11:43.789 veteran to track it down in the sweltering slums 00:11:43.789 --> 00:11:46.799 of post -war Tokyo. Film historians widely consider 00:11:46.799 --> 00:11:48.960 this the birth of the entire buddy cop genre. 00:11:49.419 --> 00:11:51.679 Domestic success in Japan was one thing, but 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:54.220 we have to talk about how Kurosawa accidentally 00:11:54.220 --> 00:11:56.580 kicked down the door to the global market and 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:59.379 changed international cinema forever. And it 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:02.519 all revolves around a low budget 1950 movie called 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:05.919 Rashomon. Rashomon was structurally revolutionary. 00:12:06.299 --> 00:12:09.059 It recounts a single event, the murder of a samurai 00:12:09.059 --> 00:12:11.549 and the assault of his wife in a forest. but 00:12:11.549 --> 00:12:14.110 it tells the story from the conflicting, highly 00:12:14.110 --> 00:12:16.730 unreliable viewpoints of four different characters. 00:12:16.909 --> 00:12:20.149 The bandit, the wife, the samurai speaking through 00:12:20.149 --> 00:12:22.429 a medium, and a woodcutter who secretly watched. 00:12:22.730 --> 00:12:25.529 Exactly. The studio, Dai, hated the script. They 00:12:25.529 --> 00:12:27.509 didn't understand it. They gave him a tiny budget. 00:12:28.149 --> 00:12:29.950 Kurosawa took his crew out into the primeval 00:12:29.950 --> 00:12:32.409 forest of Nara, and he broke a major technical 00:12:32.409 --> 00:12:34.570 rule of the era. He pointed the camera directly 00:12:34.570 --> 00:12:36.690 into the sun. Which you just didn't do back then. 00:12:36.769 --> 00:12:39.559 No. But the dappled light coming through the 00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:42.120 leaves created this mesmerizing, disorienting 00:12:42.120 --> 00:12:44.440 atmosphere. They rushed the post -production 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:47.340 because of studio fire, and it released to pretty 00:12:47.340 --> 00:12:50.220 lukewarm reviews in Japan. As far as Kurosawa 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:52.480 knew, it was a modest, slightly confusing little 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.000 picture. Undenounced to him, an Italian film 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.299 representative based in Japan named Giuliana 00:12:57.299 --> 00:12:59.779 Stramaggioli saw it. Here's where it gets really 00:12:59.779 --> 00:13:02.419 interesting. She was absolutely floored by its 00:13:02.419 --> 00:13:05.639 visual poetry and narrative complexity. Without 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:08.220 telling Kurosawa or the studio, she secretly 00:13:08.220 --> 00:13:10.759 submitted it to the Venice Film Festival. In 00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:14.679 1951, it wins the Golden Lion. the festival's 00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:17.740 highest prize. The entire international film 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:20.639 world, which had largely ignored or was completely 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:22.960 ignorant of Japanese cinema at the time, was 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:25.039 in absolute shock. They didn't know it hit them. 00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:27.559 A U .S. distributor takes a massive gamble and 00:13:27.559 --> 00:13:30.039 brings this subtitled Black and White Japanese 00:13:30.039 --> 00:13:33.899 Film to an arthouse theater in New York. It explodes. 00:13:34.299 --> 00:13:37.200 It makes an unheard of $35 ,000 in three weeks 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:39.570 at a single theater. This raises an important 00:13:39.570 --> 00:13:42.529 question. How did a deeply Japanese story set 00:13:42.529 --> 00:13:45.409 in the 12th century high end period manage to 00:13:45.409 --> 00:13:48.570 resonate so profoundly with a 1950s Western audience 00:13:48.570 --> 00:13:51.269 that had zero cultural context for samurai or 00:13:51.269 --> 00:13:53.269 Japanese history? I'm struggling to understand 00:13:53.269 --> 00:13:55.370 that exact point. How does a movie with that 00:13:55.370 --> 00:13:57.649 much cultural distance shatter the language barrier 00:13:57.649 --> 00:14:00.210 and captivate New York audiences? Because Kurosawa 00:14:00.210 --> 00:14:03.269 proved that human psychology is universal. The 00:14:03.269 --> 00:14:05.750 film isn't really about a samurai or a bandit, 00:14:05.750 --> 00:14:08.529 you know, it's an exploration of the subjectivity 00:14:08.529 --> 00:14:11.429 of truth. Everybody lies. Right. It's about how 00:14:11.429 --> 00:14:13.409 human beings will desperately lie to protect 00:14:13.409 --> 00:14:16.710 their egos and how our selfish perspectives warp 00:14:16.710 --> 00:14:19.009 our reality. That isn't an Eastern or Western 00:14:19.009 --> 00:14:22.649 concept that is a fundamental flawed human trait. 00:14:22.830 --> 00:14:25.590 It's just human nature. Exactly. Kurosawa laid 00:14:25.590 --> 00:14:28.309 it bare with such technical mastery using the 00:14:28.309 --> 00:14:30.490 camera to visually distinguish the lies from 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:33.710 the truth that the cultural barrier completely 00:14:33.710 --> 00:14:36.899 evaporated. That international cash flow changed 00:14:36.899 --> 00:14:40.179 his entire trajectory. Suddenly, Kurosawa is 00:14:40.179 --> 00:14:43.399 bankable on a massive global scale. This blank 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:45.879 check allows him to make his sprawling, insanely 00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:48.740 expensive epics, most notably Seven Samurai in 00:14:48.740 --> 00:14:52.000 1954. A true masterpiece. This is the three and 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:53.980 a half hour masterpiece of action and character. 00:14:54.299 --> 00:14:56.200 It took a year to shoot. It went three times 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:58.080 over budget. It was the most expensive Japanese 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:00.179 film ever made at the time. The mechanics of 00:15:00.179 --> 00:15:03.240 how he shot Seven Samurai revolutionized action 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:06.779 cinema. Prior to this, action was often shot 00:15:06.779 --> 00:15:10.379 wide and static. Kurosawa pioneered the use of 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:13.279 multiple cameras simultaneously, an A, B, and 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:16.120 C camera running at the same time from different 00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:19.019 angles. Just brilliant. He did this because he 00:15:19.019 --> 00:15:21.740 realized that in a chaotic battle scene involving 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:24.399 dozens of horses, thick mud, and heavy rain, 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.440 you cannot ask an actor to perfectly repeat a 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:30.440 spontaneous moment of exhaustion or terror. You 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:32.559 have to capture the lightning in a bottle from 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:34.879 every angle the first time it happens. He also 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:37.659 perfected the axial cut. Oh, yes. Instead of 00:15:37.659 --> 00:15:39.460 smoothly zooming in on an actor's face during 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:42.200 a tense moment, the camera aggressively jumps 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:44.460 forward along the exact same line of sight in 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:47.320 jarring increments. It creates this percussive 00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:49.960 energetic punch to the viewer's focus. He built 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:52.259 an entire medieval village just to burn it to 00:15:52.259 --> 00:15:54.519 the ground. He created the modern action epic. 00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:57.360 But massive ambition eventually becomes a double 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:00.179 edged sword. As we move into the late 1960s, 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:02.620 the landscape of global entertainment fundamentally 00:16:02.620 --> 00:16:05.240 shifts. Television begins dominating Japanese 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:07.899 leisure time. Movie theater attendance plummets. 00:16:08.220 --> 00:16:10.940 The studios panic. Right. Kurosawa is still demanding 00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:13.419 year -long shoots, infinite takes, and massive 00:16:13.419 --> 00:16:17.159 budgets. But the studios no longer view his perfectionism 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:20.279 as an artistic necessity. They view it as a terrifying 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:22.539 financial liability. Which forces him to look 00:16:22.539 --> 00:16:25.879 to America. He attempts a massive Hollywood transition 00:16:25.879 --> 00:16:31.559 with a product called Tora. Tora. Tora. The concept 00:16:31.559 --> 00:16:34.179 was fascinating. Make a definitive film about 00:16:34.179 --> 00:16:36.799 the attack on Pearl Harbor showing both sides. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:39.679 An American director handles the US side and 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:42.379 Kurosawa directs the Japanese side. The production 00:16:42.379 --> 00:16:45.259 was a catastrophic culture clash from day one. 00:16:45.580 --> 00:16:48.440 Kurosawa was used to absolute dictatorial authority 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:50.669 on his sets in Japan. Suddenly, he's dealing 00:16:50.669 --> 00:16:53.250 with strict American Union rules, an unfamiliar 00:16:53.250 --> 00:16:56.009 crew, a massive language barrier, and the rigid 00:16:56.009 --> 00:16:58.870 corporate oversight of 20th Century Fox. It perfectly 00:16:58.870 --> 00:17:01.629 mirrors a visionary tech founder being aggressively 00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:04.009 ousted by a corporate board of directors. You 00:17:04.009 --> 00:17:06.329 have this unorthodox genius who built the industry 00:17:06.329 --> 00:17:08.630 from the ground up, but the corporate suits don't 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:10.349 understand his grueling methods. They just saw 00:17:10.349 --> 00:17:12.680 numbers on a page. They just see a guy burning 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:15.019 through their cash reserves, waiting days for 00:17:15.019 --> 00:17:17.640 the exact right cloud formation to pass over 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:20.480 the set. The American producers, led by studio 00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:23.440 executive Darrell Zanuck, literally couldn't 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:26.359 comprehend his process. They assumed his intense 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:29.220 erratic behavior meant he was losing his mind. 00:17:29.420 --> 00:17:31.799 So they basically called in a doctor. They brought 00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:34.880 in a neuropsychologist to examine him. This doctor 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:37.359 forwarded a diagnosis to the Fox executives, 00:17:37.700 --> 00:17:40.539 claiming Kurosawa was suffering from neurasthenia, 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:43.599 citing sleep disturbance, anxiety, and manic 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:45.940 excitement. Which honestly just sounds like the 00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:48.019 medical definition of a passionate director trying 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:51.319 to make a massive movie. But Fox used that diagnosis 00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:54.980 as corporate ammunition. On Christmas Eve 1968, 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:57.160 they released a statement announcing Kurosawa 00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:59.789 was leaving the production due to Fatigue. That's 00:17:59.789 --> 00:18:01.730 such a cover -up. They effectively fired him 00:18:01.730 --> 00:18:05.089 and replaced him. Not a single frame of his meticulously 00:18:05.089 --> 00:18:06.890 planned footage made it into the final film. 00:18:07.230 --> 00:18:10.210 His reputation back in Japan was shattered. The 00:18:10.210 --> 00:18:12.089 industry whispered that the master was finished, 00:18:12.430 --> 00:18:15.470 that his sanity had fractured. Desperate to prove 00:18:15.470 --> 00:18:17.950 them wrong, he quickly pulled together an independent 00:18:17.950 --> 00:18:21.069 film in 1970 called Dore Sukarin, focusing on 00:18:21.069 --> 00:18:23.690 outcasts living in a garbage dump. A huge pivot. 00:18:23.819 --> 00:18:26.500 He shot it rapidly and cheaply to prove he could 00:18:26.500 --> 00:18:28.980 adhere to a tight schedule. The audience completely 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:31.339 ignored it. It bombed at the box office. And 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:33.579 this is where the story hits its most tragic 00:18:33.579 --> 00:18:38.420 low. In December 1971, a 61 -year -old Kurosawa 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:41.450 is sitting at home. He is convinced he will never 00:18:41.450 --> 00:18:44.349 be allowed to work again, that his life's singular 00:18:44.349 --> 00:18:46.890 purpose has been permanently revoked. It's heartbreak 00:18:46.890 --> 00:18:49.109 though. He takes a razor and slashes his wrists 00:18:49.109 --> 00:18:51.589 and his throat in this suicide attempt. It is 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:54.329 a stark, sobering reality of what happens when 00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:57.289 an artist's entire identity is inextricably linked 00:18:57.289 --> 00:18:59.789 to their output. When the ability to create was 00:18:59.789 --> 00:19:02.170 removed, he simply couldn't justify his own existence. 00:19:02.589 --> 00:19:05.529 Thankfully, miraculously, he survived the attempt. 00:19:06.109 --> 00:19:08.269 His family found him, and he slowly recovered 00:19:08.269 --> 00:19:10.829 his physical health. But the looming question 00:19:10.829 --> 00:19:13.650 remained, how does a 60 -something director come 00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:16.289 back from total industry excommunication? He 00:19:16.289 --> 00:19:19.670 finds salvation in unexpected places. First, 00:19:19.849 --> 00:19:22.549 the Soviet Union offers him a lifeline. The USSR. 00:19:22.869 --> 00:19:25.890 Yeah. He travels to the literal freezing taiga 00:19:25.890 --> 00:19:30.329 of Siberia to direct Dersu Uzala in 1975, enduring 00:19:30.329 --> 00:19:33.849 incredibly harsh natural conditions that reinvigorated 00:19:33.849 --> 00:19:36.960 his spirit. That film goes on to win the Academy 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.180 Award for best foreign language film. But the 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:41.839 punchline is, even with a fresh gleaning Oscar 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:44.920 in his hand, the Japanese studios still refuse 00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:46.940 to fund his next movie. They wouldn't touch him. 00:19:47.099 --> 00:19:49.880 They still view him as radioactive. That is the 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:52.240 moment two young, wildly successful American 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.180 directors step in, George Lucas and Francis Ford 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:57.279 Coppola. George Lucas had just fundamentally 00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.960 altered pop culture with Star Wars in 1977. And 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:02.900 Lucas has always been incredibly open about the 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:04.720 fact that the narrative architecture of Star 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.559 Wars was heavily lifted from Kurosawa's 1958 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:09.980 film, The Hidden Fortress. It wasn't just visual 00:20:09.980 --> 00:20:12.299 nods. It was the core storytelling mechanic. 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:14.980 Kurosawa had the revolutionary idea to tell a 00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:17.599 massive sweeping epic about princesses and generals, 00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:20.160 but entirely from the point of view of the two 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.980 lowest, most ignorant, bickering peasants. Lucas 00:20:22.980 --> 00:20:25.539 took that exact framework and turned those two 00:20:25.539 --> 00:20:29.000 peasants into R2 -D2 and C -3PO. Recognizing 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:32.259 his profound debt, Lucas uses his massive new 00:20:32.259 --> 00:20:36.099 industry clout to force 20th Century Fox to help 00:20:36.099 --> 00:20:39.019 finance Kurosawa's next epic, a samurai film 00:20:39.019 --> 00:20:42.859 called Kajimusha. It's amazing. Isn't it incredibly 00:20:42.859 --> 00:20:46.140 poetic that the very studio that fired him, 20th 00:20:46.140 --> 00:20:48.660 Century Fox, the ones who called him crazy on 00:20:48.660 --> 00:20:51.119 Christmas Eve a decade earlier, is now being 00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:53.519 strong armed into writing him a check by the 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:55.579 kid who grew up studying his framed compositions. 00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:57.990 It perfectly mirrors the master and disciple 00:20:57.990 --> 00:21:00.549 dynamic that runs through so many of Kurosawa's 00:21:00.549 --> 00:21:03.269 own films. The older, weathered mentor passes 00:21:03.269 --> 00:21:05.569 his knowledge down to the young novices, and 00:21:05.569 --> 00:21:07.470 in the third act, the novices use their newly 00:21:07.470 --> 00:21:10.359 acquired power to protect the master. Kajimusha 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:13.359 comes out in 1980, wins the Palme d 'Or at Cannes, 00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:16.319 and acts as the stepping stone to his 1985 magnum 00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:19.079 opus, Ran, which is a breathtaking adaptation 00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:21.099 of King Lear. It is fascinating, though, to look 00:21:21.099 --> 00:21:23.099 at the historical records of how his later work 00:21:23.099 --> 00:21:25.400 was received, because his massive cultural footprint 00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:27.480 became a roll shot test for different political 00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:29.799 anxieties. Well, heavily. Now, obviously, we're 00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:31.680 just reporting these critiques from the source 00:21:31.680 --> 00:21:33.880 material. We aren't taking a side or validating 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:36.619 either political viewpoint here. But on one hand, 00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:39.849 you had left -wing Japanese critics accusing 00:21:39.849 --> 00:21:43.190 him of being elitist, arguing he focused too 00:21:43.190 --> 00:21:46.410 heavily on heroic individuals rather than the 00:21:46.410 --> 00:21:48.509 collective struggles of the working class. And 00:21:48.509 --> 00:21:50.829 then on the other side. Right. On the other side, 00:21:50.829 --> 00:21:53.230 when he released Rhapsody in August in 1991, 00:21:53.329 --> 00:21:55.369 which dealt with the emotional fallout of the 00:21:55.369 --> 00:21:58.349 Nagasaki atomic bombing, some American critics 00:21:58.349 --> 00:22:00.890 loudly accused him of pushing anti -American 00:22:00.890 --> 00:22:04.430 sentiment and ignoring Japan's own wartime atrocities. 00:22:04.490 --> 00:22:06.910 As the inevitable friction of being a global 00:22:06.910 --> 00:22:09.269 icon bridging to cultures that were recently 00:22:09.269 --> 00:22:12.250 at war. Art of that magnitude always invites 00:22:12.250 --> 00:22:15.029 sharp polarized critique. It comes with the territory. 00:22:15.670 --> 00:22:17.670 But regardless of the political debates, his 00:22:17.670 --> 00:22:19.789 technical innovations, like his mastery of the 00:22:19.789 --> 00:22:22.069 axial cut, his brilliant use of extreme weather 00:22:22.069 --> 00:22:25.269 to externalize internal emotion, and his iconic 00:22:25.269 --> 00:22:27.789 screen wipes to transition scenes, which Lucas 00:22:27.789 --> 00:22:30.789 also borrowed, they permanently rewired the grammar 00:22:30.789 --> 00:22:33.650 of modern filmmaking. So what does this all mean? 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:37.640 It means Kurosawa's story is the ultimate masterclass 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:40.380 in creative resilience. Whether you're prepping 00:22:40.380 --> 00:22:42.920 for a massive corporate pivot, trying to learn 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:45.940 a dense new field, or pursuing your own artistic 00:22:45.940 --> 00:22:48.900 endeavors, Kurosawa proves that staying fiercely 00:22:48.900 --> 00:22:52.180 true to your vision can cement your legacy. Even 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:54.420 when the industry calls you obsolete. Exactly. 00:22:54.980 --> 00:22:57.380 Even when corporate boards oust you, and even 00:22:57.380 --> 00:23:00.259 when you hit absolute rock bottom, outlasting 00:23:00.259 --> 00:23:02.920 your critics through sheer, uncompromising force 00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:05.660 of will is sometimes the only way forward. He 00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:08.180 didn't alter his sweeping vision to fit the cheap, 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:11.799 fast television models of the 1970s. He patiently 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:13.619 waited until he could force the world to let 00:23:13.619 --> 00:23:15.839 him make his movies again. Before we wrap up, 00:23:15.900 --> 00:23:17.579 I want to leave you with a final thought to mull 00:23:17.579 --> 00:23:20.140 over. building on the core of what made Kurosawa 00:23:20.140 --> 00:23:22.299 a genius. We spent a lot of time talking about 00:23:22.299 --> 00:23:24.980 how he relied on grueling, physical, practical 00:23:24.980 --> 00:23:27.460 filmmaking. He forced actresses to live in real 00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:29.460 factories. He dragged his crew to the freezing 00:23:29.460 --> 00:23:32.160 Siberian wilderness. He demanded actors swing 00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:35.299 swords in thick, freezing mud. The physical struggle 00:23:35.299 --> 00:23:37.500 against the elements was completely inseparable 00:23:37.500 --> 00:23:40.380 from the art itself. But imagine for a moment 00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:43.720 if Kurosawa were alive today with total access 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:46.440 to that modern sterile digital laboratory we 00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:48.839 talked about at the very beginning. The LED volumes 00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:52.019 and green screens. Yeah. Imagine he has limitless 00:23:52.019 --> 00:23:55.799 CGI, powering LED screens and perfect digital 00:23:55.799 --> 00:23:58.680 control over every single raindrop and background 00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:02.220 extra. Would this infinite control have unleashed 00:24:02.220 --> 00:24:06.680 an even greater uninhibited genius, or, and this 00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:09.319 is the real question, would the removal of that 00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:11.700 physical struggle, the total elimination of the 00:24:11.700 --> 00:24:14.059 freezing mud and the unpredictable wind, have 00:24:14.059 --> 00:24:17.039 actually destroyed the raw, authentic humanity 00:24:17.039 --> 00:24:19.539 that made his film's masterpieces in the first 00:24:19.539 --> 00:24:22.420 place? That's a huge what -if. What happens to 00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:24.140 human art when the struggle against physical 00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:26.809 limitation is completely removed? It is something 00:24:26.809 --> 00:24:28.529 to think about the next time you watch a modern 00:24:28.529 --> 00:24:30.210 movie where the environment looked perfectly 00:24:30.210 --> 00:24:32.849 digitally flawless. A truly profound question 00:24:32.849 --> 00:24:34.809 to consider. Thanks for diving deep with us. 00:24:34.910 --> 00:24:35.930 Keep questioning the picture.