Short Stories About the Sparks at OUBEY MINDSPACE – Episode 11: Akira Kurosawa

“Kurosawa was a poet. His films are profound reflections on life and human nature.” – Francis Ford Coppola

A Masterpiece

When I was young, someone told me about a Japanese film that brought the twilight of chivalry to life in a more powerful and gripping way than anything else he had ever read or seen on the subject. The film was called “Seven Samurai“, directed by Akira Kurosawa. 

When I finally saw the film for the first time, I was impressed by the story and the way it was told on screen: thrilling, dynamic, dramatic—and at the same time full of humanity. The film highlights the divide between social classes, the inner conflicts of the characters, their weaknesses, and their courage in the struggle for survival.

At that time, I had already delved a bit into German cinema during the silent film era, as well as into directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders and their films, which for me represented something like the resurrection of cinematic art in Germany after 1933. Akira Kurosawa, however, had been a complete unknown to me until then.

Soon after, I met OUBEY. Already during one of our first long day-and-night conversations, we started talking about cinema. He raved about Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Barry Lyndon,” Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” and Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” I hadn’t seen  any of these films at the time.

I told him about Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” Fassbinder’s thirteen-part “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” Wenders’ “The State of Things,” and also Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”—films that he, in turn, hadn’t seen until then.

From then on, we spent a considerable part of our lives together watching movies—at the cinema whenever possible, otherwise on VHS or later on DVD at home.

When we watched *The Seven Samurai* together for the first time, we began by discussing the historical and human dimensions of the story. Then OUBEY explained to me how masterfully Kurosawa had woven direction, cinematography, acting, editing, sound, music, and visual rhythm into a single organic whole of outstanding quality.

For my part, I was struck above all by the film’s immediate impact. OUBEY, moreover, understood how this impact was achieved thanks to Kurosawa’s masterful direction. Anyone who would like to learn more about Kurosawa’s filmmaking craftsmanship can watch the video “The Directing Genius of Akira Kurosawa Explained”, which uses concrete examples to demonstrate what OUBEY explained to me back then.

OUBEY’s extraordinary ability to develop analyses of even the most complex matters on the spot with almost surgical precision has amazed and impressed me time and time again.

One of OUBEY’s paintings is titled “Samurai.” The title not only evokes the culture of Japan’s noble martial artists but is, above all, a reference to Akira Kurosawa and his film “Seven Samurai”. That´s why you find a reference in the Spark about the art of film making in the Matrix Room of the OUBEY MINDSPACE, too.

To this day, Kurosawa is regarded by many directors as a towering master. The list of filmmakers who refere him as a “Maestro” ranges from George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg: “Where to start with Kurosawa“.

When Kurosawa struggled to find producers for his films in his later years, Lucas, Coppola, and Spielberg helped him with their contacts at Hollywood studios and also invested in his film projects themselves as producers.

Such solidarity did not merely move OUBEY. It also reinforced his conviction that there is a spiritual bond between people through art. That friendship can arise from a shared passion. And sometimes even a community of masters who defend the freedom of art against the constraints of profit-driven commercial thinking.

A Master

In the spring of 1990, OUBEY and I traveled together for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall through Berlin and what was then the GDR. It was a time when past, present, and future coexisted here in an indescribable way.

Back then, OUBEY purchased a copy of the book’s “licensed edition for the German Democratic Republic,” which had just been published in East Berlin: Akira Kurosawa – Something Like an Autobiography. Today, this edition of the book is a rarity.

A few years ago, I rediscovered it while moving and only recently read it myself. I can’t recall ever having read an autobiography written with such un , clear, and simple prose, yet one that tells the story of the author’s experiences in such a compelling and moving way. Kurosawa, who once earned his first money as a screenwriter and wrote the screenplays for all his films himself, has mastered the art of storytelling. His book thrives on the same uncompromising clarity that, paired with deep humanity, is also found in his films.

He recounts his family life and school years during his childhood and youth in the authoritarian Japan of the 1910s to 1930s—as the son of a strict father and a descendant of the samurai. This conservative father believed in the educational power of film and encouraged his sons to go to the movies regularly. German, French, and American films, in particular, shaped the young Kurosawa.

In an extensive footnote, he lists nearly a hundred films he saw between the ages of nine and nineteen (1919–1929) that made a particular impression on him—including Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” (1921), Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1926), and Luis Buñuel’s “An Andalusian Dog” (1929). Today, these works are classics. Back then, they were avant-garde.

He saw these films as a very young man, just as they were first released in theaters. I know from my own experience what an impact that can have, for my first cinematic experiences at the ages of seven and eight remain in my memory to this day. For Kurosawa, the early history of film was intertwined with his own history as a director.

The last sentence of his autobiography reads: “Nothing says as much about a creative person as his work.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. That is why, for over twenty years, I have primarily let OUBEY’s artistic work speak for itself. And yet, with his autobiography, Kurosawa demonstrates that there is a story of the creative individual that is absolutely worth telling—one that is inextricably linked to their work.

This book is far more than a memoir. It is a work in its own right. In it, you learn a great deal about Japan in the 1920s through the 1940s. About school, education, and the military. About filmmaking under the most difficult circumstances and the importance of truly good friends and teachers. Above all, however, you get to know Akira Kurosawa as a person.

It’s a good thing OUBEY bought this book back then. It’s a good thing I rediscovered it years later and have now read it. When I decided to honor Kurosawa and “The Seven Samurai” in the OUBEY MINDSPACE series on film art, I hadn’t read it yet. Today, I am grateful to Akira Kurosawa not only for his films, but also for leaving us this story of his life—masterfully told by himself.

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There are six rooms in OUBEY MINDSPACE. Each of them contains five different Mind Sparks, which in turn contain various impulses. Behind every Spark and every impulse lies a story about OUBEY and what interested and inspired him. I’ll be telling these stories here.

At this point, I would like to thank the team at Kubikfoto³ for the outstanding design of OUBEY MINDSPACE, which has already been honored with three prestigious international design awards—including, most recently, the 2025 Red