Top 66 Kurosawa's Quotes
#2. A truly good movie is enjoyable too. There's nothing complicated about it.
Akira Kurosawa
#3. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself. [Pg.189]
Akira Kurosawa
#4. For many years, my favorite director has been the Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa.
Henry Rollins
#5. If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.
Akira Kurosawa
#6. 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
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. 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
#12. In Kurosawa's films, the tragedy is that this strong man was crushed by corruption or mistrust at the end.
Claire Denis
#14. The expected vertical line of Ikiru's narrative breaks when Kurosawa does a flash-forward in the middle of the film.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#15. 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
#16. 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
#17. 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
#18. I was in Japan, and my assistant director had worked with Kurosawa. I used quite of number of Kurosawa's crew.
John Boorman
#19. The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self- sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life.
Akira Kurosawa
#20. 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
#21. I want to be able to make westerns like Akira Kurosawa makes westerns.
Sam Peckinpah
#22. 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
#25. 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
#26. 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
#27. 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
#29. 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
#30. 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
#31. Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.
Akira Kurosawa
#32. 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
#33. I think Kurosawa was one of the first storytelling geniuses who began to change the narrative structure of films.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#34. 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
#35. 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
#36. It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.
Akira Kurosawa
#37. For the casual viewer, Kurosawa's films can be an exercise in endurance.
Jerry White
#38. I was influenced by European movies, old Fellini, old Kurosawa - any sort of foreign film.
Ted Demme
#39. 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
#40. I'm a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa, a big Hitchcock fan.
Jennifer Lynch
#41. I've wanted to work with [Kairo aka Pulse director] Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but he has not been making horror movies recently.
Roy Lee
#42. I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself.
Akira Kurosawa
#43. 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
#44. I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that kind of time.
Akira Kurosawa
#45. 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
#46. [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
#48. 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
#49. 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
#50. 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
#51. 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
#52. 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
#53. 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
#54. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.
Akira Kurosawa
#55. 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
#56. Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.
Akira Kurosawa
#58. 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
#59. 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
#60. 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
#63. 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
#64. 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
#65. Most directors have one masterpiece by which they are known. Kurosawa has at least eight or nine.
Francis Ford Coppola
#66. 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