Question for fellow Kurosawa fans (1 Viewer)

[doug zdanivsky]

I was ordering my Blu-ray of Ran, and I got to thinking.. I always tell people how pretty much all the common themes in films today boil down to Kurosawa films..


Ie. Story told from several different perspectives? Rashomon. Villiage saved by wandering hero(es)? Seven Samurai. Rogue plays 2 sides against each other, gets beat up/banished, has crisis of concience, returns to save day? Yojimbo, etc, etc. From Sci-fi to Westerns, the plots all have those common denominators..


But I wonder.. Was he really the originator, or was HE himself drawing on themes from film or literature?


Obviously Ran was an interpretation of W.S's King Lear, but can anyone cite other examples?


Thanks for any and all replies!

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yojimbo was based on Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (novel).

 

[doug zdanivsky]

Googled, thanks!


Any others?

 

[Stefan Andersson]

Some examples of literary material used by Kurosawa:

Throne of Blood - Macbeth, Shakespeare

High and Low - King´s Ransom, Ed McBain

The Idiot - The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Lower Depths - The Lower Depths, play by Maxim Gorky

Rashomon - In the Grove, short story by Ryonosuke Akutagawa

Dersu Uzala - novel by Vladimir Arsenyev


Many Kurosawa films are based on Japanese novels or short stories that are not very well known outside Japan. Check the listings on www.imdb.com for each Kurosawa film to get titles/authors for each text. Then search on Amazon or Google.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

*slaps forehead* That's a good idea, Stefan, thanks!

 

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[Martin Teller]

Kurosawa was also heavily influenced by John Ford.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

Originally Posted by Martin Teller

Kurosawa was also heavily influenced by John Ford.

I'll look him up, thanks!