Something Like an Autobiography
“Top three director for me.”
Why it is worth your time
Something Like an Autobiography is Akira Kurosawa's memoir, published in English in 1982 in Audie Bock's translation. It covers his childhood in Tokyo, the 1923 earthquake, his older brother's suicide, his start as an assistant director at the PCL studio in 1936, his first film in 1943, and the postwar years up to Rashomon in 1950, the film that brought him a Western audience. Jason listed it on his January 2019 post of 10 biographies that outsiders should read and called Kurosawa a top 3 director for him. He grew up on movies and still talks about them on the podcast, and film is a minor theme in his list alongside Tarantino and Brian Cox. It suits film students and readers interested in craft. The caveat is that it ends with Rashomon's Golden Lion in 1951, before Ikiru and Seven Samurai, so the career most readers know is not covered.
