A.K. (Portrait of Akira Kurosawa) 1985
 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088658/

Narrated in English.
English and Spanish soft subs included.
ripped from the 2nd disc for the RAN criterion release.


Director Chris Marker, long known as an originator of the essay film format
and for his singular works La jetee (1962) and Sans soleil (1983), was
given unprecedented access to Akira Kurosawa on the slopes of Mount Fuji.
The result is an insightful portrait of a master filmaker at work.

Screens: 
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc282/deadmeadow33/AKchrismarker1985_preview.jpg

Production : Serge Silberman / Greenwich Film Productions, Herald Ace, Herald Nippon
Direction : Chris Marker
Photography : Frans-Yves Marescot
Assistant DOP : Tsutomu Ishizuka, Hiroshi Ishida
Narration : Francois Maspero (french) / Hanns Zischler (german)
Sound : Jun'ichi Shima
Sound editor : Catherine Adda
Music : Toru Takemitsu
Special Effects : Patrick Duroux

A.K. focuses on Akira Kurosawa during the shooting of Ran. A.K. details
Kurosawa's meticulous directorial role. The film is filmed exclusively in the
foothills of Mount Fuji, the setting for Ran. Marker film opens with Kurosawa's
proclamation: "I always say to my crew, to create is to remember. Memory
is the basis of everything." Marker evokes the fist of this phrase almost a
decade later when in an epigraph to The Last Bolshevik he quotes George
Steiner: " It is not the the literal past tat rules us. It is images of the past."
A.K. details the production of visual spectacle based on memory, exploring
how images of history are artfully created and crafted. For instance, the
film reveals that Kurosawa always set up three cameras to record three
different angles that could later be edited together. Marker's documentary
footage establishes one more perspective. Furthermore, his images, shot
in 35mm, rival those of Kurosawa. But, whereas Ran plunges us into a
medieval world of shoguns, samurai and beautiful horses, A.K. portrais the
workers of the film industry and depicts a very contemporary scenery of
cars, trailers and scaffolding. It also captures the lenghty preparations, the
boredom of waiting for optimal weather conditions, and the tedious process
of waiting for the actors and the crew to get into position. In short, Marker's
film focuses specifically on the extensive labor that goes into making the
magic of a film. As such, A.K. is essentially an essayistic homage to a style
of filmmaking that is radically different from Marker's own and yet one that
he evidently respects and admires.

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