Yesterday I was talking about the relevance of screenplays in film-making,

there was a query from one of my students about the approach of Akira
Kurosawa to screenplays in his films. I think the best way to look at
Kurosawas outlook towards screenplays in film making is to go through his
Something Like an Autobiography.
Im enclosing a few lines from the book for you to get enlightened, like I did
when I went through them.
With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a
mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good
director cant possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera
and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a
real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.
In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the
world. You must consider why they are great. Where does the emotion come from
that you feel as you read them? What degree of passion did the author have to have,
what level of meticulousness did he have to command, in order to portray the
characters and events as he did? You must read thoroughly, to the point where you can
grasp all these things. You must also see the great films. You must read the great
screenplays and study the film theories of the great directors. If your goal is to
become a film director, you must master screenwriting.
A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three or four
movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Noh play with its three-part
structure: jo (introduction), ha (destruction) and kyu (haste). If you devote yourself
fully to Noh and gain something good from this, it will emerge naturally in your films.
The Noh is a truly unique art form that exists nowhere else in the world. I think the
Kabuki, which imitates it, is a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I think the
symphonic structure is the easiest for the people of today to understand.
Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts
have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of
a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into. Its easy to explain the
psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but its very difficult to
describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not
impossible. A great deal about this can be learned from the study of the great plays,
and I believe the hard-boiled detective novels can also be very instructive.
I began writing scripts with two other people around 1940. Up until then I wrote
alone, and found that I had no difficulties. But in writing alone there is a danger that
your interpretation of another human being will suffer from one-sidedness. If you
write with two other people about that human being, you get at least three different
viewpoints on him, and you can discuss the points on which you disagree. Also, the

director has a natural tendency to nudge the hero and the plot along into a pattern
that is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing with about two other people, you
can avoid this danger also.
Ive forgotten who it was that said creation is memory. My own experiences and the
various things I have read remain in my memory and become the basis upon which I
create something new. I couldnt do it out of nothing. For this reason, since the time I
was a young man I have always kept a notebook handy when I read a book. I write
down my reactions and what particularly moves me. I have stacks and stacks of these
college notebooks, and when I go off to write a script, these are what I read.
Somewhere they always provide me with a point of breakthrough. Even for single lines
of dialogue I have taken hints from these notebooks. So what I want to say is, dont
read books while lying down in bed.

A novel and a screenplay are entirely different things. The freedom for psychological
description one has in writing a novel is particularly difficult to adapt to a screenplay
without using narration.
Characters in a film have their own existence. The filmmaker has no freedom. If he
insists on his authority and is allowed to manipulate his characters like puppets, the
film loses its vitality.
At some point in the writing of every script I feel like giving the whole thing up. From
my many experiences of writing screenplays, however, I have learned something: If I
hold fast in the face of this blankness and despair, adopting the tactic of
Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen sect, who glared at the wall that stood in his
way until his legs became useless, a path will open up.
Those who say an assistant directors job doesnt allow him any free time for writing
are just cowards. Perhaps you can write only one page a day, but if you do it every
day, at the end of the year youll have 365 pages of script. I began in this spirit, with
a target of one page a day. There was nothing I could do about the nights I had to
work till dawn, but when I had time to sleep, even after crawling into bed I would
turn out two or three pages. Oddly enough, when I put my mind to writing, it came
more easily than I had thought it would, and I wrote quite a few scripts.

Patrick Garson wrote, Analysing any film by Akira Kurosawa is a joy. The sense of care,
placement and thought lying behind every shot is an unspoken guarantee that nothing on screen
is accidental. I couldnt agree more, as I had once analyzed Ikiru, which broke my heart.
We are also reminded by Dan Harper that, Despite his unarguable success, Kurosawa was, in
fact, one of the greatest risk-taking filmmakers in the history of international film (many of those
risks, I might add, didnt pay off). Every one of his world-renowned films was either preceded or
followed by a film more experimental in form or more difficult. You can even argue that some of
his greatest successes (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai) were enormous risks for Kurosawas
career the ones that did pay off
Kurosawa was, in fact, one of the greatest risk-taking filmmakers in the history of international
film.
Of course, Kurosawa was heavily involved in the screenwriting of his films with a handful of
writers he used throughout his career. So this begs the question: what did the renowned risktaker, ground-breaker, and masterpiece-maker, have to say about screenwriting?

These quotes come to us from Akira Kurosawas book, Something Like an Autobiography. Hope
you enjoy them.
With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre
director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director cant possibly make
a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross
both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the
power to do this.
With a bad script even a good director
cant possibly make a good film.
In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the world. You must
consider why they are great. Where does the emotion come from that you feel as you read them?
What degree of passion did the author have to have, what level of meticulousness did he have to
command, in order to portray the characters and events as he did? You must read thoroughly, to
the point where you can grasp all these things.
You must also see the great films. You must read the great screenplays and study the film
theories of the great directors. If your goal is to become a film director, you must master
screenwriting.

A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three or four movements and
differing tempos. Or one can use the Noh play with its three-part structure: jo (introduction), ha
(destruction) and kyu (haste). If you devote yourself fully to Noh and gain something good from
this, it will emerge naturally in your films.
A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony,
with its three or four movements and differing tempos.
The Noh is a truly unique art form that exists nowhere else in the world. I think the Kabuki,
which imitates it, is a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I think the symphonic structure is the
easiest for the people of today to understand.

Something that you should take particular

notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation
to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into.
Its easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but its very
difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not
impossible. A great deal about this can be learned from the study of the great plays, and I believe
the hard-boiled detective novels can also be very instructive.
I began writing scripts with two other people around 1940. Up until then I wrote alone, and
found that I had no difficulties. But in writing alone there is a danger that your interpretation of
another human being will suffer from one-sidedness. If you write with two other people about
that human being, you get at least three different viewpoints on him, and you can discuss the
points on which you disagree. Also, the director has a natural tendency to nudge the hero and the
plot along into a pattern that is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing with about two other
people, you can avoid this danger also.
In writing alone there is a danger that
your interpretation of another human being
will suffer from one-sidedness.

Ive forgotten who it was that said creation is memory. My own experiences and the various
things I have read remain in my memory and become the basis upon which I create something
new. I couldnt do it out of nothing. For this reason, since the time I was a young man I have
always kept a notebook handy when I read a book.
I write down my reactions and what particularly moves me. I have stacks and stacks of these
college notebooks, and when I go off to write a script, these are what I read. Somewhere they
always provide me with a point of breakthourgh. Even for single lines of dialogue I have taken
hints from these notebooks. So what I want to say is, dont read books while lying down in bed.

A novel and a screenplay are entirely different

things. The freedom for psychological description one has in writing a novel is particularly
difficult to adapt to a screenplay without using narration.
Characters in a film have their own existence. The filmmaker has no freedom. If he insists on
his authority and is allowed to manipulate his characters like puppets, the film loses its vitality.
At some point in the writing of every script I feel like giving the whole thing up. From my many
experiences of writing screenplays, however, I have learned something: If I hold fast in the face
of this blankness and despair, adopting the tactic of Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen sect,
who glared at the wall that stood in his way until his legs became useless, a path will open up.
Those who say an assistant directors job doesnt allow him any free time for writing are just
cowards. Perhaps you can write only one page a day, but if you do it every day, at the end of the
year youll have 365 pages of script. I began in this spirit, with a target of one page a day.
Perhaps you can write only one page a day,
but if you do it every day, at the end of the year
youll have 365 pages of script.
There was nothing I could do about the nights I had to work till dawn, but when I had time to
sleep, even after crawling into bed I would turn out two or three pages. Oddly enough, when I
put my mind to writing, it came more easily than I had thought it would, and I wrote quite a few
scripts.
- Mystery Man

Im famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. Im a homebody
who jetsets around the world. Im brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.
I also write for Script Magazine.