The directors/ Akira Kurosawa
I am every much enjoying SKY ARTS series on film directors.
It has the same line up of critics Ian Nathan and Neil Norman with the addition of Stephen Armstrong and Bonnie Greer as their series on film stars.
Ian Nathan rightly says that The Seven Samurai was the father of then Hollywood action movie, notably The Magnificent Seven.
Personally I do not take as much exception as some critics do to the adaptation of an outstanding world film.
Enter the Dragon was much the best of the Bruce Lee films, benefiting from Hollywood slickness.
Similarly the Seven Samurai in black and white and with melodramatic facial shots is not as sophisticated a production as The Magnificent Seven.
As with Ingmar Bergman and Max Von Sydow, Kurosawa developed a brilliant creative relationship with actor Toshira Nifune who appeared in many of his films.
No one is quite certain why they fell out, something to do with exaggerated Japanese notions of pride is one one theory.
He did direct Tora ! Tora Tora! – one of those war films that showed both sides of the conflict – in colour for Hollywood but is best known for his work in black and white for the Japanese cinema.
Aside from the erratic Sam Peckinpah who directed violent movies and those elegiac westerns that go on for ever, I thoroughly approve the list of directors in this series: Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Billy Wilder and Kurosawa . It tells you everything you need to know about the Oscars that Kurosawa never received one.