Writing National Potraits

Akira Kurosawa

           Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He was regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, he directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. He won a prize at the big three international film festivals.


         In post-WWII, at a time when Japan was being occupied by the United States, Kurosawa chose to look toward and embrace certain Western ideologies of filmmaking. He used Shakespeare and American pulp novels as source material, and embraced Hollywood narrative styles and filmmaking techniques. Combining these elements with his own training in the Japanese studio system, Kurosawa was one of the early purveyors of a truly international style, a refined alchemy of filmmaking. It was embraced by both West and East. contemporary Japanese filmmakers such as Ozu and Mizoguchi tended to focus on strictly Japanese elements with a nuanced, patient style that did not find Western audiences for many years. However, Kurosawa’s body of work was easily relatable across many cultures. Beginning with Rashomon, Kurosawa’s work introduced audiences worldwide to Japanese filmmakers and contemporary Japanese culture.

In this way Akira Kurosawa was one of those who had a great influence on the world.

Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer. He was the first Japanese person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

In awarding the prize "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind", the Nobel Committee cited three of his novels, Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Old Capital."Snow Country" and "Izu no Odoriko" often appear in Japanese textbooks and they are very famous.

His style combined elements of classic Japanese prose with modern psychological narrative and exploration of human sexuality. Deeply influenced by the culture of his homeland, his writings capture the vivid and melancholy beauty and spirituality of Japan, while his own experiences and studies contributed to his assay into emotion.

He wrote a literature that both Japanese and foreigners can know the good old Japan.

In this way Yasunari Kawabata was one of those who affected the world.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre. He was one of the first authors to use current prose in his writing.  Before Shakespeare, the English language was not very formal, but he helped standardize the language we use today.  In fact, about ten percent of the words he used in his work were of his own creation.  

In this way William Shakespeare was one of those who influenced the world.

Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer,  theologianand physicistwho is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. In 1687, he published his most acclaimed work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , which has been called the single most influential book on physics. 

In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the phenomena of colours into the science of light and laid the foundation for modern physical optics. In mechanics, his three laws of motion, the basic principles of modern physics, resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the original discoverer of the infinitesimal calculus. 

In this way Sir Isaac Newton was one of those who made a big impact on the world.