Akira Kurosawa

Akira can take a very simple situation or a very complicated situation and show them with full understanding through the same shot. This is how intricate his shot can get. Sometimes he will go a great distance to get an amazing unique shot which can help clear out and explain the story with only a few seconds.



The most obvious times we saw him go great distances to do this was in Ran where he would build and entire castle set then destroy it just for 1 shot. Its these great distances he goes to take his films to the next level and really impress the viewer. I liked all of his films we viewed in class because I always was impressed with the next level of camera work I saw in each film. In Stray Dog we see him take very long shots of the detective walking through the back alleys, and in Yojimbo we see these shots above the bell tower looking down on the two gangs from a unique angle, and in Ran we see the final shot of Tsurumaru standing on the ruins of his father's castle from extremely far away(shown below). All of these shots were extremely impressive and really took the movies to a different level above that of other directors I have seen.