Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa – The Godfather of Cinema

Kurosawa was a visionary. His part in world cinema is prominent. His influence is spread all over the world. His works have been remade by Hollywood several times. The movies like “A Fistful of Dollars”, “Magnificent Seven” and “The Outrage” have been remade from his classic movies like “Yojimbo”, “Seven Samurai” and “Rashomon” respectively.

According to me, he was the first to provide a riveting and brilliant screenplay to the audience. He made this attempt through his movie “Rashomon”. This way of story telling still inspires many filmmakers. The screenplay is etched in a way that the same story is told in four different perceptions. No one in this world would have expected that a story can also be told in this way, that too in 1950. This movie won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West.

Kurosawa is a trained painter. He used to do story boards for his films. He was one of the few directors who followed the storyboard method. He used to define every single detail of the shot in his storyboard. His films always had an aesthetic flavor. He always wanted his films to be aesthetic than realistic. This is because of his talent of making storyboards. He was finally awarded the lifetime achievement academy award in the year 1990.

Several directors in the west worship Kurosawa. Directors like Francis Ford Coppola (directed “The Godfather series”) and George Lucas (directed “Star war series”) are greatest fans of Kurosawa. They even produced Kurosawa’s film Kagemusha (1980). Many other directors have been inspired by Akira Kurosawa. Sir Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg have been heavily inspired by Kurosawa. Ridley Scott even used red filters in his shots for the sake Kurosawa used in his films. This clearly shows the love they had for Kurosawa. In India he has been an inspiration for several directors. Mani Ratnam, Myshkin and Kamal Haasan are inspired by Kurosawa.

Almost all films in his career are influential. To be more specific, films like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Red beard, Yojimbo, Hidden Fortress, Ran, Dreams, High and low, Kagemusha, Dersu Uzala and Throne of blood. The maximum period he took for a film is five years. It’s for the movie Ran (1985). He worked on this film for five years designing sets and storyboards for each and every shot. This movie is Japanese version of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Kurosawa is a great fan of authors like Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Maxim Gorky. There is another movie Throne of blood which is based Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Although he received an Honorary Award in 1990 "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world," Akira Kurosawa was only nominated once for a Best Director Oscar for Ran (1985). Also, his only film to have ever received the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was for Dersu Uzala (1975)…his only film not done in Japanese (it was in Russian)

He is one of the few legends whom the world must never forget. He must be worshipped by every one who is in this field of artistic brilliance.

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick – The Godfather of cinema

I’d call Stanley Kubrick as father of modern cinema. Kubrick chose very diverse subjects for directing. He almost tried all genres in his career. Be it historical Spartacus, violent Clockwork Orange, humorous Strangelove, sensual Lolita, horrific Shining, Sci-Fi Space Odyssey, he has his trademark in all his films. He always wanted to try something new. He did not want to try something which has already been done. He has been in the field for about 48 years and has one only 16 films. He is the least prolific director in history.

Stanley never like his film “Fear and desire”. So he went out of his way to buy all the prints of it so no one else could see it. He always wanted to give the best to audience. Some of his genres are yet to be revisited. No one dared to make a film like “A Clockwork Orange” after he made it. This movie portrayed extreme violence and sex. He won the academy award for his Sci-Fi movie “2001-Space Odyssey” in Best Special Effects category. He did that film with maximum technology that was available at that time with lot of computer graphics. Seven of his last nine films were nominated for Oscars. He was nominated for Best Director four consecutive times, for his pictures starting with Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and ending with Barry Lyndon (1975).

According to Stanley his last film was his best made film. His last film was “Eyes wide shut” starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. This movie won Golden Globe award for best original score. This movie was directed after a long gap of 12 years. His fifteenth film was a war movie “Full Metal Jacket” This movie also portrayed darker side of human emotions. Stanley was a great fan of Beethoven. He used lot of Beethoven symphonies in his movie “A Clockwork Orange”. He was ranked 4 by Empire (UK) magazine’s “The Greatest directors ever!” in 2005.

One of my favorite films of Stanley is “Dr. Strangelove”. This movie according to be is the best dark comedy made ever in the history of world cinema. This movie stars the legendary Peter Sellers. Stanley never wanted any improvisations in dialogues by anyone. He never wanted to change a word once it is scripted. The only exception is Peter Sellers.

Stanley, after completing “Full Metal Jacket” started working on a movie called “Artificial Intelligence”. Stanley didn’t want to start AI. He wanted the technology to improve to his imagination. In the meanwhile he started working on a film of Napoleon. He almost read hundred odd books on the French emperor. He finally drafted a script. But the film did not take off due to financial problems. He also worked on a film called “Wartime Lies”. But after Steven Spielberg started working on Schindler’s list, Stanley dropped his project because it covered much of the same material. At last Stanley made “Eyes Wide Shut”. Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on Artificial Intelligence, but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999. After his death Steven Spielberg took over his dream project and completed, dedicating to the memory of “Stanley Kubrick”.

Stanley has been an inspiration for all young directors. He always had an urge to try something new every time. It’s bad that even academy awards did not recognize him properly. For all those who want to try something new Stanley is a major source of inspiration.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock – The Godfather of Cinema

Man of mystery, King of Suspense, Master in the genre of thriller, Man of visual intelligence…All these titles goes to only one man. He is none other than the technically brilliant Alfred Hitchcock. He has never tried any other genres in his lifetime other than thrillers. He has almost tried all subgenres in thriller like Psychological thrillers, Detective thrillers and so on…

Hitchcock always tried some new technically. All his shots were technically brilliant. The helicopter scene in his movie “North by Northwest” is the inspiration for a scene in James Bond movie “From Russia with Love”. Another example of his technical brilliance is his mastery in car chase scene. They would typically alternate between the character’s point of view while driving and a close-up shot of those inside car from opposite direction. This technique kept the viewer ‘inside’ the car and made any danger encountered more richly felt.

All his life he never tried his hand in screenwriting or story. He just concentrated on selection of story and screenplay. All he wanted is a good script. If he gets it nothing can stop him. He never experimented onscreen. He always experimented on the script. He also wanted the students to learn how to visualize the script. “To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.”- Alfred Hitchcock.

There are several movies where he showed his brilliance of directing a hardcore thriller. Some of my favorite movies are “Rear Window”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Notorious”, “Vertigo”, “Rope”, “Psycho”, “North by Northwest” and “Rebecca”. One very good example of his technical brilliance is the movie “Rear Window”. This movie you see is what the lead character sees. You cannot see anything other what the lead character sees. The lead character sits in his rear window with his leg broken. The story spreads through the rear window and ends within the frame. Doesn’t it sound interesting?

There is another movie called “Rope”. Normally in a thriller, audiences as well as the characters in the movie don’t know the suspense and the story will be gripping till the end. But in the movie “Rope” it is quite interesting. The audiences know the culprit of the story. But the lead characters don’t. Normally this will make audiences lose interest in the movie. But this movie didn’t do that. I bet you this movie will be more gripping than any other suspense thriller. Even though he made movie which frightened people, he was afraid of eggs (Ovophobia). He never had an egg in his lifetime

His movie “Notorious” cheated the censor board. In those days there must not be a lip lock scene for more 3 or 4 seconds continuously. But the movie “Notorious” needed a longer lip lock scene to show the love they had for each other. Hitchcock followed the rules of the censor board and also made the scene longer to about one minute. He made the lead characters kiss each other for about 3-4 seconds and gave them sensual or comical phrases for every 3-4 seconds. The censor board was not able to do anything. That’s the brilliance of Hitchcock.

Like Kurosawa, Hitchcock also made story boards for his movies. The visualization of Hitchcock was so aesthetic and brilliant that the cinematographers have to work very hard to bring the visuals live. One such movie is “North by Northwest”.

Though he was Oscar-nominated 5 times as Best Director, DGA-nominated 6 times as Best Director, and received 3 nominations from Cannes, he has never won in any of these competitive categories, a fact that surprises fans and film critics to this day. He delivered the shortest acceptance speech in Oscar history while accepting the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award at the 1967 Oscars, he simply said “Thank you”. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

Guys, if you want to feel the adrenaline rush in your stomach, go for Hitchcock movies. You will definitely feel the same which I already felt.