Film Still

The Idiot

Akira Kurosawa

Japan

1951

166 minutes

Black and White

1.33:1

Japanese

Synopsis

After finishing what would become his international phenomenon Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa immediately turned to one of the most daring, and problem-plagued, productions of his career. The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society—updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness—was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference. Today, this “folly” looks ever more fascinating, a stylish, otherworldly evocation of one man’s wintry mindscape.

Cast

Taeko NasuSetsuko Hara
Kinji KamedaMasayuki Mori
Denkichi AkamaToshiro Mifune
Ayako UnoYoshiko Kuga
Ono, the fatherTakashi Shimura
Satoki OnoChieko Higashiyama
TohataEijiro Yanagi

Credits

DirectorAkira Kurosawa
ProducerTakashi Koide
Based on the novel byFyodor Dostoyevsky
ScreenplayEijirô Hisaita and Akira Kurosawa
CinematographyToshio Ubukata
EditingT. Saito
Art directorSo Matsuyama
MusicFumio Hayasaka

From the Current

Eclipse Series 7:
Postwar Kurosawa

by Michael Koresky Jan 14, 2008

As Japan was coming out of World War II, Akira Kurosawa was coming into his own as a filmmaker. And this was hardly a coincidence: though he had made a name for himself as a promising popular craftsman at Toho Studios during the war, Kurosawa later said he didn’t feel he could express himself as...

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