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Despite the extraordinary acclaim that Akira Kurosawa's work has received both in Japan and abroad, his films, as well as Kurosawa as an individual, have also been subject to considerable criticism, much of it harsh. The majority of these negative judgments fall into one or more of the categories shown below. ==Mizoguchi versus Kurosawa dispute== In the early to mid-1950s, while Kurosawa's films were being widely viewed in Europe and North America, the final films of a Japanese film master of the older generation, Kenji Mizoguchi, also began to be shown internationally and receive film festival prizes.〔''The Life of Oharu'' won an International Award at the 1952 Venice Film Festival and both ''Ugetsu'' and ''Sansho the Bailiff'' won the Venice Festival Silver Lion (in 1953 and 1954, respectively).〕 This simultaneous exposure led to frequent critical comparisons between the two directors. A number of critics belonging to the French New Wave, such as Jean-Luc Godard, championed Mizoguchi's films at the expense of Kurosawa's work: Since Japanese films appeared on our screens after the war, an aesthetic dispute has ranged the admirers of Kurosawa (''Rashomon'', ''The Seven Samurai'', ''The Idiot'') against those of Mizoguchi. A dispute made even more furious by the fact that both directors have been frequent prizewinners at festivals. Our thanks are due to Jean-José Richer for having cut authoritatively across the debate: "This double distinction awarded in strict equality (to ''The Seven Samurai'' and ''Sansho Dayu'' (the Bailiff'' ), Venice (Festival ) 1954) is unwarranted… There can be no doubt that any comparison between Mizoguchi and Kurosawa turns irrefutably to the advantage of the former. Alone among the Japanese film-makers known to us, he goes beyond the seductive but minor stage of exoticism to a deeper level where one need no longer worry about false prestige" (Cahiers du Cinéma 40). In the same article, Godard refers to Kurosawa as "merely a more elegant Ralph Habib",〔 referring to a very obscure contemporary French director who (apparently) specialized in adventure films. Godard’s fellow New Wave critic-filmmaker, Jacques Rivette, writes: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself... He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual." According to these French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa: "There were even suggestions by the influential (film critic ) André Bazin that Mizoguchi represented a more authentic Japaneseness, while Kurosawa was quite obviously influenced by the west, ''as was Mizoguchi'' (added )." It should be noted that Kurosawa himself deeply admired the older master, particularly his indefatigable perfectionism. In his eulogy at Mizoguchi's funeral, Kurosawa said, "Mizoguchi’s greatness was that he would do anything to heighten the reality of every scene. He never made compromises… Of all Japanese directors, I have the greatest respect for him... With the death of Mizoguchi, Japanese film has lost its truest creator." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Criticism of Akira Kurosawa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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