Notes from a Legend: Akira Kurosawa’s Advice to Young Filmmakers

Akira Kurosawa, the legendary Japanese director, made his last film in 1985 and passed away in 1998. His films were a distinct product of his life and times – his unconventional childhood, filled with cinema that was yet to be seen as a respectable art form in Japan; his experience of the Second World War; his boredom with the way Japanese films were being made and his fascination with human nature. That his films transcend these specific settings – as the work of all great artists does – to inspire generations of filmmakers is well-documented. But turn the camera towards the artist and it’s just as much a treat. In his nearly two-hour-long interview with director Nagisa Oshima in 1993, titled My Life in Cinema, Kurosawa delves into his early battles with government censorship, his apprenticeship as an Assistant Director and his love for classic literature. As he talks about how his approach to filmmaking evolved, Kurosawa reveals timeless wisdom for any storyteller looking for guidance.

Learn every aspect of filmmaking

Kurosawa’s cinematic journey formally began when he was 25 years old and joined Photo Chemical Laboratory studio (which later merged into Toho) as an assistant director (AD). He was put through Japan’s pre-war ‘cadet system’ – every trainee worked from the bottom up, learning the intricacies of each film department before being given the opportunity to direct independently. “Unless you learned every aspect of filmmaking, you couldn’t become a first AD,” recalled the director. Later, this was appreciated greatly by his own crew and likely made the director a more capable decision-maker on-set. 

His time as an AD also helped Kurosawa realise the vision he had for his own films. While working under Eisuke Tazikawa on Saga of the Vagabonds (1937), Kurosawa saw the beauty of Mount Fuji as the village slowly woke up and followed the crew’s cars in a trot. “When the northerly wind blew, the peasant bandits would turn their horses’ rumps towards the wind and the clouds swept by above them,” he said, remembering a scene from 57 years ago. “But Takizawa didn’t shoot any of those images – he would just stick to the status quo.” Kurosawa’s frustration with his director pushed him towards figuring out how he would shoot his own films. Just think of how beautifully he’s used nature and weather in films like the looming clouds in the Seven Samurai (1954) or the shifting forest from Throne of Blood (1957).

“If you genuinely want to make films, then write screenplays.”

Kurosawa credited his mentor at PCL, director Kajirō Yamamoto, for teaching him the importance of screenwriting. “Yama-san told me you can’t become a director unless you could write scripts and edit,” said Kurosawa. The young apprentice initially began dabbling in screenplays for extra cash. “I would write a script when I’d run out of money,” he laughed. But the casual practice grew to become the foundation of Kurosawa’s filmography. The director wrote or co-write all 30 of his films. “It’s only through writing scripts that you learn specifics about the structure of a film and what cinema is,” he said. 

Drawing parallels to climbing a mountain, the director asks aspiring writers to focus not on the top but on the small, slow step ahead. Quoting French literary giant Honoré de Balzac, Kurosawad said, “For writers, including novelists, the most essential and necessary thing is the forbearance to face the dull task of writing one word at a time.” He also urged storytellers to make this tedious task second nature to them. While working on Horse (1941), his last film as an AD (which is largely believed to be fully directed by Kurosawa, despite the directorial credit going to Yamamoto), Kurosawa would often work on scripts after dinner in a storage room. His goal was to write a single page before going to sleep so that he would have 365 pages at the end of the year – a tip he passed on to his own crew in later years. “It can be done if you have the will,” he said.

“When you tackle a great work of literature, you make some amazing discoveries.”

Kurosawa repeatedly drew upon literature for his films. His debut film Sanshiro Sugata (1943) was based on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita. Throne of Blood and Ran (1985) were distinctively Japanese retellings of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear respectively. A voracious reader, Kurosawa was also an ardent admirer of Russian literature and believed that every generation should read widely. “Unless you have a rich reserve within, you can’t create anything,” said the director. “Creating comes from memory. Memory is the source of your creation.” 

This is especially relevant so far as Kurosawa’s relationship with his favourite author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Kurosawa read many of Dostoyevsky’s novels as a child and said the author’s stories filtered into his own films. “It’s mind-boggling how thoroughly he depicts human relationships,” said the director. This admiration translated into an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot in 1951. Though Kurosawa considers the adaptation an unsuccessful one, he sees merit in the experience of attempting it. “When you tackle a great work of literature, you make some amazing discoveries,” he said. 

“What concerns me most is being natural.” 

Decades later, Kurosawa's films continue to feel pathbreaking. Even a period film with Samurais – a genre fairly common in Japan – felt inventive because of the director’s intimate understanding of movement and film editing, and the way he used existential dread. At the start of his career, Kurosawa was often criticised for ‘pandering’ to the West, but the director didn’t let this deter him. “I always remain natural and follow my instincts when I work,” he said. He also admitted that he was never trying too hard to present one particular idea or theme. “I make films about things that I find fascinating. In doing so, I may end up examining human nature. But if you try to present some kind of theory in your film, you’ll fail to depict anything,” he said.