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Directors in Focus

Before Star Wars: Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress
The Hidden Fortress isn’t as similar to Star Wars as you may think.
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William J. Barker
Ashes or Dust: Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru
Kurosawa’s 1952 film is about a man who’s wasted his life and learns how to use it.
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William J. Barker
It Rains When the World Ends: Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa’s jidaigeki film is often conscripted by film critics and scholars to serve as bugler for their pet epistemological uncertainty.
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William J. Barker
Clouds of Every Shape and Hue: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai
Those who just want a sword fight will be disappointed.
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William J. Barker
Where's the Horizon?
The horizon was John Ford’s signature.
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William J. Barker
Burying the Western: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
A Western about the end of the West. You could call it a Twilight Western.
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William J. Barker
How Green Was My Valley
A John Ford film for those who don’t like Westerns.
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William J. Barker
The Quiet Man
Anyone who thinks John Ford could only make Westerns should see this film.
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William J. Barker
3 Godfathers
I’ve never seen Three Men and a Baby but I imagine it would be a lot like this minus the hats and pistols.
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William J. Barker
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is a Western without gun fights.
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William J. Barker
Stagecoach
It’s a film of immense and riveting contrasts.
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William J. Barker
2
First Man
Never before did I imagine how terrifying it must have been to be the first man to go to the moon.
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William J. Barker
© 2025 William J. Barker
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