The Jedi. The Man With No Name. The Magnificent Seven (and A Bug's Life). Scorsese. Kubrick. Coppola. Bergman. Spielberg. All of these things are linked to the legacy of Akira Kurosawa. This afternoon class will explore the films, filmmakers, film narratives, and film movements that drew their inspiration from Kurosawa, his craft, and his talented legion of performers and artisans at Toho Studios. We will look at how Westerns during the 1960s drew up his work in order to take the genre in bold new directions. We will look at how a generation of film nerds, from all over the world and from all walks of life, found inspiration in Kurosawa's storytelling techniques. And, of course, we will look at the ways that Kurosawa's samurai epics are echoed in a galaxy far far away...