Search results
Ikiru (生きる, "To Live") is a 1952 Japanese tragedy film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura ) and his final quest for meaning.
Apr 4, 2009 · by Aryeh Kaufman Volume 13, Issue 4 / April 2009 29 minutes (7017 words) 1. Introduction to Ikiru. Ikiru, meaning “to live” or “living,” was directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1952 under Toho Productions. Kurosawa, with the help of Hashimoto and Oguni, wrote the screenplay for the black and white film at age 42. The film, widely recognized ...
- Background
- Approaches
- Reception
- Availability
Ikiru was in many ways a crucially important film for Kurosawa. After the commercial and critical success of his immediate post-war films, Kurosawa had experienced the first misfire of his career with his 1951 The Idiot. Based on the Dostoevsky novel, the film had been a passion project for Kurosawa but towards the end of the production, the produc...
In Ikiru, Kurosawa returns to a setup quite similar to one that he had explored a few years earlier in two back-to-back films, Drunken Angel (1948) and The Quiet Duel (1949). As in those films, the events of Ikiru are fuelled by the protagonist’s struggle with a life-threatening disease. But unlike in those earlier works, this time around the prota...
When released, Ikiru was an enormous critical and commercial success, winning among other things the Kinema Junpo Award for the best film of the year as well as a silver bear in Berlin. It remains one of Kurosawa’s best known and most highly praised works, and the simple question that the work poses the viewer — you may exist, but do you live? — co...
Ikiru should be widely available wherever you are. Check out iTunes, Google Play and/or Amazon Prime Video, which offer the film as a digital rental in many countries. If you have no luck there, or want to own a copy, you can take a look at the Blu-ray and DVDguides. Or check out your local libraries or rental shops. The floor is now open for the f...
Nov 9, 2022 · The movie Ikiru is based on these feelings of mine. ... —aimed to tell the story of a dying man who “realizes he hasn’t lived at all.” The result was a masterpiece of cinematic ...
Nov 18, 2022 · Off the Radar: ‘Ikiru’ is a profound and timeless masterpiece. Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” the 1952 Japanese film about a dying old man searching for the meaning of life, is currently available on Kanopy and NYU Stream. Watch “Ikiru,” an underrated cinematic masterpiece by Akira Kurosawa. (Illustration by Max Van Hosen and Aaliya ...
Jan 5, 2004 · “Sometimes I think of my death,” Kurosawa has written: “I think of ceasing to be . . . and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came.” The story of a man who knows he is going to die, the film is a search for affirmation. The affirmation is found in the moral message of the film, which, in turn, is contained in the title: Ikiru is the intransitive verb meaning “to live.” This is ...
People also ask
Was Ikiru based on a true story?
Who directed Ikiru?
Is Ikiru a good movie?
Is 'Ikiru' the funniest movie ever made by Kurosawa?
What is Ikiru about?
When did 'Ikiru' come out?
Jan 8, 2024 · Not long after I watched Akira Kurosawa’s great film “Ikiru” for the first time (around 20 years ago), I read a review written by one anonymous but prominent South Korean critic who argued that “Ikiru” is the funniest film ever made by Kurosawa. This argument felt truer to me as I revisited the movie around the beginning and then the end of last year.
