Professor David Peimer
Kurosawa’s Masterpiece: The Seven Samurai (and The Magnificent Seven)
Summary
Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Everyone knows his renowned movie Rashomon (1950). The Seven Samurai (1954) is an epic adventure classic and regarded as one of the most influential films ever made for its insights into human nature. In this lecture we examine what makes the film so great. What is the interplay between fear and courage? Deep down, do we appease rather than rise and take on those who dominate us?
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.