Akira Kurosawa Essays (Examples)

The friendship is established early in the film as it is between Macbeth and Banquo but the sense of betrayal is particularly poignant in Throne of Blood. At the start of the film, Washizu and Miki seem like ordinary samurai: jock-like and summarily aggressive. They are not necessarily good people, and they are certainly not saints, but neither were they corrupt. Indeed, Miki's conscience remains unsullied, whereas his former best friend falls into the trap laid by Asaji. More conniving than any other character in the movie, Asaji is the sole driving force behind the plot as well. The witch did influence Washizu but not nearly to the extent that Asaji did. The witch merely pried into Washizu's soul, reading there is hidden desire for greatness. Asaji tore into her husband's heart, rendering asunder any modicum of reason or humanity within him. The audience can see the slow breakdown…

Blood serves as a corresponding symbol of death. The bloodstained walls in the room are a visual reminder of treachery. Similarly, Washizu's title is built on a "throne of blood," earned not by his valor but by his treachery. Blood symbolizes the spilling of the life force, and it is significant that Washizu sleeps in the same room as his predecessor traitor. Equally as significant is the "out damned spot" scene, in which Asaji compulsively washes her hands in the basin to remove the marker of murder that stains her soul. This scene also humanizes her, which allows Kurosawa to explore the three-dimensionality of the Lady Macbeth character. If she was just evil, Asaji would not have had a conscience at all. Her stillborn child is also a concrete symbol of death. A stillborn baby represents a dead womb: the lifelessness at the heart of Asaji's character and the…

One can almost consider that American filmmaking contains fixed ideas where Japanese motion pictures produced by Kurosawa are the result of complex concepts coming from a series of cultures being brought together. In spite of the fact that Kurosawa's film goes against some of the most respected Japanese values during the 1950s, it is nonetheless related to the general context involving Japan. It follows Japanese film-making rules in an attempt to captivate an Asian public through having viewers identify with the characters from time to time. While the fact that the ronins in the film are shown as being glorious and as generally being responsible for the fact that the situation is saved, this type of people was considered to be predisposed to performing immoral acts at the time when the motion picture was released. The Japanese had just survived an international conflict that claimed the lives of many and…

This film is distinguished from the average samurai film by the director's "masterful handling of cinematic technique," in which he captures the essence of a scene in a mere few moments with a series of glances rather than dialogue and special effects.
Moreover, Kurosawa creates a moral complexity of good and evil, creating sympathy for both the samurai and the farmers, and although the samurai are portrayed as heroic while the farmers are weak, he "also points out that heroic deeds are not always performed for noble reasons, and that there are different kinds of heroism." Kurosawa creates a "delicate juxtaposition between the samurais' graceful art of combat and the barbaric reality of war."

At the end, Kambei, the leader of this small group of samurai, realizes that the farmers, although weak, are the lucky ones, for they are at one with nature, "participating in the timeless ritual of life, death,…

hen Benjamin has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, an older, married woman, the film shows a montage of activities of the two of them together, rather than a linear sequence of events. The fact that the sexual relationship is occurring is what is significant to the narrative, more so than what the two characters do together. This is in contrast to "Rashomon" where what occurred, and in what order, is significant, as it gives clues as to what the character's motivation and participation in the events recounted may have been.
The Graduate" makes particularly innovative use of temporal duration in the famous final sequence, where Benjamin interrupts Katherine's wedding. In terms of scenic pacing, although both actions occur at the same time, the wedding seems to be evolving in a slow and stately fashion, quietly taking place, while Benjamin runs down the street, frantically trying to prevent the love of…

He instructs people that everything is possible through belief, and, that their life is nothing as they had previously perceived it. The claim that "the universe is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere" (Bernard, I Heart Huckabees) is a clear reference to Buddhism, with the religion's followers believing that nothing is as society sees it, and, that everything has shape and color because people want it to. Also, they believe that everything in the universe is connected, even with the fact that people are accustomed to differentiating.
Bernard continues to promote Buddhist theories by describing how every person is the same and differences in language, skin color, and backgrounds are not to be considered actual dissimilarities, as they are just the outer shell of the spirit. People are generally limited by themselves, with them being unable to attain a higher state of mind because…

In 21 Grams, the narrative darkens and is localized. Inarritu deepens his exploration of class differences, but this time on the U.S. side of the New orld Order that has been brought about by the North American Free Trade Agreement. According to Ohchi, 21 Grams consists of three narratives whose protagonists differ from each other, but are interconnected (ibid. 3-4)

Babel is just really Amores Perros and 21 Grams written on an international canvas and echoes much of the social commentary in Inarritu's 2000 maiden film. According to Soelistyo and Setiawan, another term for this type of film is hyperlink cinema. hile in many films, this methodology can result in a film where the interlocking stories spin out of control, in Babel Inarritu is fully in command and retains full control of the stories and plot lines (Soelistyo and Setiawan 176). As the name implies, seemingly disparate story lines are worked…

Exasperated by their inability to defend themselves and the inevitable raid on their village, the peasants decide that they must look to outside and trained men that have the capacity to protect them.
The samurai, in the film and historically, were of the upper and middle echelons of the warrior class. They were often the official military men of the nobility and were used to protect the law and order of the society. Because the peasants have no military training that they can employ to protect themselves, they look to the most experienced people they know, the samurai. The peasants' need to look for "foreign" protection is similar to America's involvement in the current Middle Eastern conflict. The Armed Forced present in places such as Afghanistan are not there to create conflict or start wars, but rather to quell uprisings in the area. The samurai in the film have a…

Like most other animals, the artic fox's cot changes to reflect the summer arctic habitat, becoming a brown or gray color that matches the summer environment (National Geographic, 2008). The photograph by Norbert Rosing (National Geographic, 2004), demonstrates the usefulness of the animal's camouflage: (Norbert Rosing, National Geographic, October, 2004, online at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/finaledit/0410/,2008).
The artic fox contributes to the balance of nature because its diet includes rodents, which have a tendency to multiply rapidly in any conditions; birds, and fish (National Geographic, 2008). However, rodents are more plentiful during the summer months in the artic. During the winter months, when its food sources are scarcer, the fox will be follow the trail of the polar bears, acting as a scavenger to the remains of the larger animal's kills (National Geographic, 2008). The arctic fox also eats some amounts of vegetation, usually vegetables (National Geographic, 2008).

The arctic fox is a beautiful…

While women in Japan share the same legal rights as men, they're still largely subdued by a patriarchal society, not unlike the United tates. In conclusion, no singular analysis will provide the understanding and knowledge gained from a multi-faceted approach. Just as a human being is shaped and molded by the world around them, so too is a nation and a culture changed by known and unknown forces. The selected bibliography seeks to provide the reader with as wide an approach as possible.
Amagi, Yumiko. "Women and Political Institutions in Japan." JTOR. June 2001. Web. 7 Dec. 2010. .

Beasley, W.G. The Rise of Modern Japan. New York: t. Martin's, 2000. Print.

Buckley, andra. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

"CIA - the World Factbook." Welcome to the CIA Web ite -- Central Intelligence Agency. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .

Huffman, James L. Modern Japan: an Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and…

) Some even thought (rightly) that it was being spared for something big. However, no one in their wildest imagination was anticipating an atomic bomb attack. Hence, on the morning of the fateful day, the residents of Hiroshima were completely unprepared for an atomic bomb explosion.
Painting of Hell":

Many survivors of the atomic explosion on Hiroshima have likened the experience of the blast and its immediate aftermath to mankind's common perception of hell. A young Japanese sociologist, for example, described the scene of a nearby park after the explosion: "The most impressive thing I saw was some girls, very young girls, not only with their clothes torn off but with their skin peeled off as well...my immediate thought was that this was like the hell I had always read about." (Selden and Selden, xix) Another eye-witness, twenty-year-old Shibayama Hiroshi, recalled entering Hiroshima on foot from his suburban workplace within hours of…

The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time... many years... before you can come back and find your people. The land where you were born. But now, no. It's not possible. Right now you're blinder than I am Life isn't like it is in the movies. Life is much harder." Then he commands Salvatore: "Get out of here. Go back to Rome. You're young. The world is yours. And I'm old. I don't want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talk about you."
This dialogue couples with a shot of Salvatore actually going on his way. Here, the camera captures several images of Salvatore's hands embracing his mother and his sister. He then leans over and says "goodbye" to Alfred, who grabs him and whispers: "Don't come back. Don't think…

The film is about rather ordinary events taking place in an environment that experiences a forceful change. Adults practically contrast children through their thinking and the way that they behave, considering that in spite of the fact that they talk while the children are on a silent strike, they fail to put across thorough thought and only manage to fuel each-other's prejudiced nature. Isamu and Minoru are intriguing through the fact that they manage to display clever and sincere acting, demonstrating that they had a special relationship with the director and that they collaborated in making it possible for the film to express authentic feelings. The fact that their actual role in the film regards their interest in criticizing their parents over their reluctance to say what they think when they think it adds to the thought that the children take on a more rational character. This makes their…