Akira Kurosawa Quotes

With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can`t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

In a mad world only the mad are sane.

For me, film-making combines everything. That`s the reason I`ve made cinema my life`s work. In films painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.

To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun.

In all my films, there`s three or maybe four minutes of real cinema.

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

So long as my pictures are hits I can afford to be unreasonable. Of course, if they start losing money then I`ve made some enemies.

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.

Good Westerns are liked by everyone. Since humans are weak, they want to see good people and great heroes. Westerns have been done over and over again, and in the process a kind of grammar has evolved. I have learned much from this grammar of the Western.

I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself.

It is quite enough if a human being has but one field where he is strong. If a human being were strong in every field it wouldn`t be nice for other people, would it?

The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they`ve been given. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heros.

Being an artist means not having to avert one`s eyes.

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.