See What Happens...

I've been watching a lot of films lately. This is the first time in a couple of years that I've really committed myself to watching movies on a schedule. I'm watching a lot of films for the first time and also going back and revisiting some amazing movies that are collecting dust in my library.

This intense cinematic spree, coupled with a pair of wonderful podcasts by Joe and Melissa Johnson, has reinvigorated my love for film and my continuing appreciation of it. I would highly recommend the podcasts Watching The Directors and Watching Theology for anyone with an interest in the art of film and the themes that exist within them.

For the past two or three weeks now, I've delved into the films of Akira Kurosawa. In college I attended a Kurosawa film festival and watched a couple of his works for a film class but this is my first time exploring his entire body of work. I would highly recommend watching the following:

• Seven Samurai (1954)
  
• Throne of Blood (1957)
  
• The Hidden Fortress (1958)
  
• Yojimbo (1961)
  
• Sanjuro (1962)
  
• Rashomon (1950)
  

Kurosawa's films are simply beautiful. The composition of every frame is flawless. Kurosawa started out as a painter (and storyboarded his films using full-scale paintings) and even to the untrained eye, one can admire the dream-like quality of his films.

Tonight I'll be watching Kurosawa's 1980 film, Kagemusha. When Toho Studios couldn't fulfill the budget demands of the film, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped Akira Kurosawa by convincing 20th Century-Fox (still riding high after the success of Lucas' Star Wars) to fund the remaining portion of the budget in exchange for international distribution rights. Pretty cool, huh?

Even if you've never seen a Kurosawa film, you've felt his influence in numerous films. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is one of the four films Spielberg watches before he goes out to direct his next picture. Seven Samurai was also remade as The Magnificent Seven, a American Western adaptation directed by John Sturges. His film Yojimbo was also remade as A Fistful of Dollars, dircted by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood.

In fact, the film's US release was delayed when "Yojimbo" screenwriters Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright. Kurosawa and Kikushima won, and as a result received 15% of the film's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Kurosawa said later he made more money off of this project than he did on Yojimbo. -- IMDB