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Akira Kurosawa QUOTES

Akira Kurosawa QUOTES

41 " When I was small, it seems that I was very weak and sickly. My father used to complain about this state of affairs in spite of the fact that “we had the yokozuna [champion sumo wrestler] Umegatani hold you in his arms when you were a baby so that you would grow strong. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

42 " Anyone can criticize. But no ordinary talent can justify his criticism with concrete suggestions that really improve something. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

43 " As the teacher gave his lessons, he would look over at me from time to time and say, “Akira probably won’t understand this, but …” or “This will be impossible for Akira to solve, but …” The other children would turn to look at me and snicker when he did this, but no matter how bitter I felt, he was right. Whatever the subject, it was completely incomprehensible to me. I was pained and saddened. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

44 " With my head crammed full of art, literature, theater, music and film knowledge, I continued to wander, vainly looking for a place to make use of it. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

45 " It’s a mistake to decree that a year’s progress must take place within exactly one year, no more and no less. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

46 " To be an artist means never to avert your eyes. "

― Akira Kurosawa

47 " You don’t need what you don’t need. Yet human nature wants to place value on things in direct proportion to the amount of labor that went into making them. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

48 " But I often wonder what would have happened if I had actually been drafted. I had failed military training in middle school, and I had no certificate of officer’s competence. There would have been no way for me to stay afloat in the Army. On top of that, if I had ever run into that Army officer who had been attached to Keika Middle School, it would surely have been the end for me. Even thinking about it now makes me shudder. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

49 " I have that officer who administered the Army physical to thank for sparing me. Or maybe I should say I have my father to thank. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

50 " Околности су криве што сам, и не приметивши недавно напунио седамдесет и једну годину. И док гледам уназад кроз све то време, шта ми друго преостаје да кажем него да се у њему много догађало и много догодило. Разни су ме људи наговарали да пишем аутобиографију, али сам се опирао тој идеји. Делимично зато што мислим да моје личне ствари нису довољно занимљиве да би, забележене, остале иза мене, а још више зато што сам био уверен у то да ћу, ако икада нешто и напишем, говорити само о филмовима. Другим речима, ако од „мене“ одузмете „филмове“ резултат ће бити „нула“. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

51 " There were some excellent painters in this group, but in general, rather than an artistic movement with its roots in the essentials of painting, it was a practice of putting unfulfilled political ideals directly onto the canvas—a “leftist tendency” movement, as not only paintings but films of this type came to be called. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

52 " Yama-san was the best kind of teacher. Yama-san, I promise you I’ll try a little harder, a little longer. This is the memorial speech I offer up to Yama-san. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

53 " For me to try to analyze and explain Japanese society from that point of view was therefore impossible. I simply felt the vague dissatisfactions and dislikes that Japanese society encouraged, and in order to contend with these feelings, I had joined the most radical movement I could find. Looking back on it now, my behavior seems terribly frivolous and reckless. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

54 " To put it more precisely, I used the fact that I could not contact them as an excuse to extricate myself from this painful illegal political movement. It was not a case of the leftist movement’s fever dying down; it was a case of my own leftist fever not having been a very serious one. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

55 " I had seen my brother’s name in the Cinema Palace newspaper advertisements. If I climbed back up the winding path on the hill I had just come down, I would be at his home. As I have been writing this, a poem by Nakamura Kusadato suddenly comes to mind: Coming down the winding trail,
The springtime voice of the crying calf. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

56 " Preparing for this second shot, the actress playing the daughter (Todoroki Yukiko) asked me, “Mr. Kurosawa, do I just pray for my father’s victory?” I replied, “Yes, that’s right, but while you’re at it, you might as well pray for the success of this picture, too. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

57 " There are sometimes such human beings among film critics—the things they say they see are so far off the beam that you would think they were possessed by some kind of demon. I suppose nothing can be done about critics, but we can’t have such people among film directors. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

58 " For a director, each work he completes is like a whole lifetime. I have lived many whole lifetimes with the films I have made, and I have experienced a different life-style with each one as well. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

59 " Within each film I have become one with many different kinds of people, and I have lived their lives. For this reason, in order to prepare for the making of a new film, it requires a tremendous effort to forget the people in the film that went before. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography

60 " But now, as I recall my past works in order to write about them, the people from the past whom I had at last forgotten come to life again in my head, clamoring for attention, each one asserting his own individuality. I am at a loss. Each one is to me like a child of my own that I gave birth to and raised. "

― Akira Kurosawa , Something Like an Autobiography