A.K.

Jul 31, 2012 — Aki Kaurismäki’s latest working-class fable is his warmest, and his most political.

Oct 19, 2010 — The themes, symbolism, and aesthetic forms of Akira Kurosawa’s films owe their origins to the ideas and sensibilities that captured his imagination as a young man.

Oct 19, 2010 — With Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa set out to debunk some of the more inflated myths that had attached themselves to the samurai.

Surreal, structural, et cetera: A handful of visionary, largely nonnarrative works belong to the collection, from some of the most important experimental film artists around the world—Jean Painlevé, Kenneth Macpherson, Stan Brakhage, and Chantal Akerman among them.

Dec 11, 2009 — This expansive tribute to the iconic Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai was first published on the Criterion Collection’s website in fall 2005, around the time of the Criterion releases of two films starring Nakadai: Kurosawa’s Ran and the less well-known samurai...

Apr 6, 2009 — Paris is turning into Tativille starting tomorrow, April 8, until August 2, with the Cinémathèque française’s appropriately large-scale retrospective of the famously ambitious French filmmaking legend’s work, “Jacques Tati, deux temps, trois movements.” Curated by Stéphane Goudet and Macha Makeïeff,...

Mar 18, 2009 — Writer, critic, and film lecturer Teruyo Nogami also served as one of Akira Kurosawa’s principal assistants. Hired as script supervisor on 1950’s Rashomon, Nogami went on to work on all of Kurosawa’s subsequent films, later chronicling their unique relationship in...

Mar 10, 2009 — Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments of the World War...

Jul 21, 2008 — Akira Kurosawa’s modern adaptation of an American thriller represents a departure from his usual themes and stylistic choices.

Jan 14, 2008 — As Japan was coming out of World War II, Akira Kurosawa was coming into his own as a filmmaker.