Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches | Margaret Herrick Library | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences

Home : Research & Preservation : Resources & Databases : Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches

Search Results

| | |

Watch the video

Year: 1989 (62nd) Academy Awards

Category: Honorary Award

Winner: To Akira Kurosawa for accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world. (with Japanese translator Audie Bock)

Presenter: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg (including a taped segment from Japan)

Date & Venue: March 26, 1990; Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

AKIRA KUROSAWA [via translator]:
I am very deeply honored to receive such a wonderful prize, but I have to ask whether I really deserve it. I'm a little worried, because I don't feel that I understand cinema yet. I really don't feel that I have yet grasped the essence of cinema. Cinema is a marvelous thing, but to grasp its true essence is very, very difficult. But what I promise you is that from now on I will work as hard as I can at making movies and maybe by following this path I will achieve an understanding of the true essence of cinema and earn this award. George [Lucas], Steven [Spielberg]. Thank you.

© Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
[Note: All winners are present except where noted; NOT all winners may have spoken.]

Feedback/More information