SOURCE: "Making Films for All the People," in Cineaste, Vol. XIV, No. 4, 1986, pp. 23-25.

[In the following interview, Kurosawa discusses Ran, his role as a filmmaker, and critics.]

His nomination this year for an Academy Award as Best Director seemed an official, if belated, recognition of the fact that Akira Kurosawa, Japan's greatest living film director, is also one of the world's greatest directors. Ran, Kurosawa's long-dreamed-of adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, is his 27th film and the culmination of a remarkable career. During Kurosawa's visit to New York last fall in conjunction with the screening of Ran at the New York Film Festival, he was interviewed for Cineaste by Kyoko Hirano who also translated their discussion from Japanese.

[Hirano:] You mentioned in an interview in a Japanese magazine that in Ran you wanted to depict man's karma from a "heavenly" viewpoint. Will you elaborate?

[Kurosawa:] I did...