A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies (2000)
A Documentary in 10 parts covering the film making of Kurosawa around the theme of making the perfect movie or as he says: A Beautiful Movie.
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Akira Kurosawa understood wonderfully well one of the crucial aspects of art: art is not the expression of (the artist's) personal emotions, but the engendering of emotions in the heart of the spectator (listener, reader); in other words, the spectator should really share the joys and pains of the characters on the screen. In order to 'arouse' emotions in the viewer, the movie story has to reflect 'real' life. Movies have to be 'humanistic'. Therefore also, the directing must be focused on 'natural' acting, on doing things 'naturally'. With his whole heart, a director has to mold the different elements of a movie into a 'beautiful' (worthy of viewing) final product of art.In this documentary, Akira Kurosawa comments on all aspects of the movie making process, from the seeds of a story (a novel or a dialog heard in a train station), over the shooting itself (using sometimes simultaneously up to 8 different cameras), to the confection of the soundtrack (music should not be a distraction, but can be used as a counterpoint of the action or the editing). His shooting contains some very characteristic camera movements, like the panning with a telephoto lens which gives the impression of a moving camera, or the combination of panning and focusing. Akira Kurosawa relied also on key members in his crews, like Sano Takeji for light and colors, Takeo Sato for camera work or Fumio Hayasaka for music. His movies have the highest remake rate in the movie history.This documentary is a must see for all movie buffs, and certainly for all Akira Kurosawa fans.