Kurosawa Dies: Cinema's Master Storyteller at 88
Akira Kurosawa made his first film in 1943 and his last in 1993. Fifty years. Rashomon won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1950 and introduced Japanese cinema to the world. Seven Samurai in 1954 set the template for the action ensemble film. Yojimbo in 1961 was remade almost shot-for-shot as A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone. George Lucas has acknowledged that Star Wars drew directly from The Hidden Fortress. His influence wasn't academic — it was structural. Directors who'd never seen his films made films shaped by people who had. He died at eighty-eight in 1998 having changed every genre he worked in.
September 6, 1998
28 years ago
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