Akira Kurosawa (黒澤 明 or 黒沢 明, Kurosawa Akira?, 23 March 1910 – 6 September 1998) was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. In a career that spanned 50 years, Kurosawa directed 30 films. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in film history. In 1989, he was awarded the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement "for cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world."
Akira Kurosawa was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on 23 March 1910. He was the youngest of eight children born to the Kurosawas in a suburb of Tokyo. Shima Kurosawa was 40 years old at the time of Akira's birth and his father Isamu was 45. Akira Kurosawa grew up in a household with three older brothers and four older sisters. Of his three older brothers, one died before Akira was born and one was already grown and out of the household. One of his four older sisters had also left the home to begin her own family before Kurosawa was born. Kurosawa's next-oldest sibling, a sister he called "Little Big Sister," also died suddenly after a short illness when he was 10 years old.
In primary school, Kurosawa was encouraged to draw by Tachikawa, a teacher who took an interest in mentoring his talents. Both Tachikawa and his brother Heigo had a profound impact on him. Heigo was very intelligent and won several academic competitions but also had what was later called a cynical or dark side. In 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed Tokyo and left 100,000 people dead. In the wake of this event, Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13, made a walking tour of the devastation. Corpses of humans and animals were piled everywhere. When Akira would attempt to turn his head away, Heigo urged him not to. According to Akira, this experience would later instruct him that to look at a frightening thing head-on is to defeat its ability to cause fear.
When Akira Kurosawa was in his early 20s, his older brother Heigo committed suicide. Four months later, the oldest of Kurosawa's brothers also died, leaving Akira, at age 23, as the only surviving son of an original four.
Kurosawa's wife was actress Yoko Yaguchi. He had two children with her: a son named Hisao (who became a producer and worked with his father on the films Ran, Dreams, Rhapsody in August, and Madadayo) and a daughter named Kazuko.
In 1936, Kurosawa learned of an apprenticeship program for directors through a major film studio, PCL (later Toho). He was hired and worked as an assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto. After his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943), his next few films were made under the watchful eye of the wartime Japanese government and sometimes contained nationalistic themes. For instance, The Most Beautiful (1944) is a propaganda film about Japanese women working in a military optics factory. Judo Saga 2 (1945) portrays Japanese judo as superior to western (American) boxing.
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