With an eye that saw beauty and disaster very early in life, Akira Kurosawa let it not remain there. Known for the unforgettable images he gave World Cinema, through Ran (1985), Dreams (1990), Kagemusha (1980) and many more, Kurosawa was a man of visuals. A failed stint as a painter drew Kurosawa’s interest in cinema. After working as an Assistant director, Kurosawa gave us Sanshiro Sugata, and what followed is history.

This Japanese filmmaker’s love for the landscapes that can repeatedly been noticed in his films, came from being inspired by Van Gogh, which can also be seen in one of the stories in Dreams. He saw his movies as a series of paintings, considering he actually painted his story boards and spent weeks in the editing room playing with the film, trying different combinations for the flow of the film. For him, motion picture was like giving life to a painting. Kurosawa’s work is a visual delight to his viewers because of his belief that Cinema is a visually allegorical medium and a story should talk visually. Often noticed, when covering an action sequence, the camera would capture only the action and the person delivering the dialogue would not be in the frame, such was his belief in the power of motion picture. He kept the dialogues to the minimum and used intense deep focus technique so as not to lose even the slightest of detail in the frame, each detail like a neat stroke of his brush.

The grand castle in Ran(1985), the kid standing in the midst of a meadow with the rainbow around it in Dreams(1990) or even the extreme close ups of the female protagonist in Rashomon(1950), are some of the many striking images from his movies.

Coming from a Samurai family, Kurosawa specialized in the war sequences, resulting in cinematic epics. Auteur Kurosawa mixed his real life experiences and his painting skills to the optimum to achieve the imagery, his filmmaking is famous for. From a movie on his real dreams to the smallest of Japanese traditions, Kurosawa captured it all with elegance and intelligence. He juxtaposed the need of the script with the six senses of the viewer.

He heightened the visual senses with the help of music and never let this part of film-making play the secondary role. He did all that he could to place his viewer in the scene and feel every inch of the space. Hence, he gave space to breathe. He always maintained quite a distance between the camera and the scene of action, using a wide angle, giving a larger than life picture.

Despite being hesitant to move to color film, from black and white, Kurosawa achieved what many could not, and that was the balance of colors.
He brought bright colors together and placed them perfectly in front of the camera. A must watch is the Japanese traditional wedding scene in the first story of Dreams (1990) or even the use of bright colors in Ran (1985) to give a dramatic look to the film. His visual power gave life to a dead frame and the added colors and motion made nature look more vivid. He mostly shot in the lap of nature, but you would never find the intense colors missing even in the indoor shots. His camera would remain still on his actor’s face till the audience got goose bumps, absorbing the emotion of the film.

His visual powers make you travel through the unknown and the unseen. The way his camera moves, it feels like walking through a gallery of paintings. Kurosawa’s influence and his visual impact on all filmmakers after him can be seen in world cinema. He was said to be influenced by the western cinema in terms of literature and his treatment (namely John Ford and Sergie Eisenstien), but the influence he has on other western filmmakers is much more immense. From George Lucas’ Star Wars to Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), derive deep influences from Kurosawa.

Kurosawa’s visual impact is hard to miss even today. Galleries in Paris had put up an exhibition of his paintings which had appeared as action shots in his films, last year. The images from his movies are still as alive as he probably wished them to be.

After all, he treated his camera like a canvas.