Madrid hosts for the first time, in Museo ABC de Dibujo e Ilustración, the drawings made by the filmmaker Akira Kurosawa whose filmography is one of the most complex and fascinating in the history of cinema. In his extensive body of work, he established a delicate balance between the content and the expressive devices; his Japanese stories are inspired by his personal experiences and literature; and his films, which cover a diverse range of genres (adventure film, chambara, melodrama, jidai-geki, thriller, film noir and realist and social cinema), contain numerous references to other art forms (painting, literature and music) and to the work of other directors.
This exhibition takes us from the still images of his drawings to the moving images of his films. Based on the storyboards of Kagemusha, The Shadow Warrior, Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, Madadayo and The Sea is Watching, the display highlights the range of cultural referents that his cinematography drew on and the way that his films have themselves become a source of so many other references in numerous contemporary audiovisual works.
About Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was born into a family of samurais who could trace their origins back to the 11th century. His father, a military instructor, instilled in him a sense of discipline and ensured that he was educated in history and traditional Japanese culture. At the same time, however, he also passed on to his son his passion for Western cinema.
Kurosawa began his career in film at a complex time in history: Europe was caught up in the Second World War and militarist Japan was extolling the nationalist spirit while simultaneously attempting to modernise. For many years, Kurosawa’s films were regarded in Japan as Western, while in the West he was feted as the emperor of Japanese cinema. However, the view of this modern samurai was far more profound and contradictory, as his films cast doubt on Japanese people’s image of themselves and on the West’s image of Japan.
Kurosawa wanted to be a painter, yet he decided to “forget painting forever” when he discovered film. Even so, this early passion gave rise to cinematographic works created using the devices of the pictorial image: light, colour, contrast, texture, composition, perspective and atmospheres.
Venue.- Museo ABC. c/ Amaniel, 29-31. 28015 - Madrid. España.
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