SOURCE: "The Films and Faces of Akira Kurosawa," in America, Vol. 113, No. 14, October 2, 1965, pp. 368-71.

[Father Benito Ortolani, an Italian Jesuit at the Sophia University in Tokyo, has made extensive study of Noh Theater and Japanese films. In the following essay, he examines the recurring spiritual themes in Kurosawa's films.]

By the novelty of its circumstances, it was the first of my meetings with Akira Kurosawa that imprinted on my mind the most vivid impression of the man and his work.

Kurosawa's motion picture crews were on location one beautifully cold December day on one of the vast back lots of the Toho Company in the outskirts of Tokyo. Most of the shooting of a prolonged and difficult schedule had already been accomplished over a period of months, but these sequences because of their difficulty had been postponed almost to the last.

The film in production, which will...