AK

[Yeh Yueh Yu]

Re:  the death of Kurosawa.

	I too think it's strange that a list of 200+ subscribers doesn't have
more to say about Kurosawa.  But that's because I include myself in the
silent majority of people who really don't feel like saying anything.  A
few possibilities for why this could be:

	-The subject of Kurosawa is just too big.  As HC Li mentioned, there
are at least three Kurosawas--early, middle, and late--and attempts to
sum up his career are bound to diminish his stature.  Besides, why stop
at three?

	-Kurosawa scholarship has become something of a cottage industry, at
least in America.  College professors go for tenure by submitting
erudite books and articles about AK, and maybe there's a certain
reticence about pronouncing on a film artist who has generated such
voluminous  commentary (mea culpa).  But did he give us pleasure? That
is the real question.

	-Even though he is dead, the culture-vultures are still circling.  If I
were to swoop down and try to say something definitive about Kurosawa,
it would count, in my mind, as formal acknowledgement of his death. 
(Maybe you too would rather not be a vulture.)  Grief is not the issue
because I didn't know the man--though I did once shake his hand.  Yet
for the time being, the appropriate response (for me) is silence. 
Regarding AK, enough from me.  Some other time, perhaps . . . 

Darrell Davis
Hong Kong