One Wonderful Sunday

#25 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa’s filmography. In terms of production, recalling Roberto Rossellini's war trilogy immediately after the end of the Second World War in Italy, Akira Kurosawa told a sweetly sad little tale of people who have nothing. Set in the final days of the Japanese involvement in the war (presumably because the…

Andrei Tarkovsky – A Retrospective

Andrei Tarkovsky on Both Sides of the Iron CurtainLike most tyrannical regimes, the Soviet Union spent a lot of money on art. Artists tend to fall into two camps when it comes to working under a patronage system through the government. The first are party hacks who gleefully celebrate the system they're in. The other…

John Ford – A Retrospective

"John Ford is really great...When I'm old, that's the kind of director I want to be."-Akira Kurosawa "Ford - I esteem him, I admire him and I love him."-Federico Fellini "He is the essence of classical American cinema. Any serious person making films today, whether they know it or not, is affected by Ford."-Martin Scorsese "I…

No Regrets for Our Youth

#23 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa’s filmography. Akira Kurosawa saw the replacement of one censorship regime with another at the end of the Second World War. The Imperial needs for feudal spirit and loyalty to lords was replaced by the American need for antipathy towards the militarism that had defined Japanese governmental policy for more…

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail

#17 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa’s filmography. This is one of those films that has a really interesting historical footnote. It was in the middle of filming that Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Imperial Japan to the US Forces in the Pacific, also meaning that this was being filmed when two atomic bombs were…