Once, when I asked Akira Kurosawa about the meaning of one of his films he answered: "If I could have said it in words, I would have — then I wouldn't have needed to make the picture." Quite true, yet here is a number of words, all extracted from him by numerous interviewers, most of them bent on discovering the "meaning" of his work.
Kurosawa was not what is known in the trade as an "easy interview." Though always civil and sometimes affable, he consistently refused to be drawn into theoretical discussions, and the large generalizations that such talk encourages.
As Peter Grilli here notes: "When the conversation turns toward the abstract, a slight edge creeps into his voice." In addition, the director disliked discussing past works, though he was willing enough to talk about the current one or, particularly, the one next planned.
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