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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did Akira apply to PCL at 26?

2. Which Japanese director is not mentioned in Good People?

3. Which famed director observed the filming of The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail while the US was occupying Japan?

4. How did film-goers know that a particular night shot in Sugata Sanshiro was shot during the day?

5. What happened to Akira and his wife's first house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the talent like at the PCL?

2. How did Kurosawa meet a famous American director without knowing it?

3. Why was the final fight of Sugata Sanshiro a challenge for Kurosawa?

4. What was Kurosawa trying to evoke, visually, with Rashomon?

5. How did Kurosawa end up directing Sugata Sanshiro?

6. How did Mifune Toshiro and Kurosawa begin work together?

7. How did Rashomon catapult Kurosawa to a new level of international recognition?

8. What demands did Kurosawa make of his actresses in The Most Beautiful?

9. Why does Kurosawa think Sugata Sanshiro, Part II, was a failure?

10. How did Yanamoto help Akira grow as a director?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about Akira Kurosawa's sense of national identity. What does he state to the reader directly about being a child of the world? What issues did Kurosawa have with Japan during the War, and how did he subtly deny his homeland? Discuss the shift that happens in Kurosawa's attitude when Japan loses the War. What new outlook regarding his home country develops? How does this manifest itself in his interests in art and culture?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about Akira Kurosawa as an outsider in his own life. Begin by discussing his earliest memories, how he has transformed them into mini-films. What other situations from his early childhood have become fodder for his films? Discuss how his early life is marked by an analytical appraisal. Why is he able to so easily dissect his though process in deeply emotional moments from this period?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the dynamic that existed in Kurosawa's parent's household. What appearance do both his mother try to create, and how does this outward appearance conform to societal expectations? What is the reality behind Kurosawa's father's stoicism? What tenderness and passion exists there, and how does the father pass it onto his son? What does his mother's calm conceal? Is she really as subservient as she appears?

(see the answer keys)

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