Biography for
Aki Kaurismäki More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

4 April 1957, Orimattila, Finland

Birth Name

Aki Olavi Kaurismäki

Mini Biography

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific film-makers, and together have been responsible for one-fifth of the total output of the Finnish film industry since the early 1980s, though Aki's work has found more favour abroad. His films are very short (he says a film should never run longer than 90 minutes, and many of his films are nearer 70), eccentric parodies of various genres (road movies, film noir, rock musicals), populated by lugubrious hard-drinking Finns and set to eclectic soundtracks, typically based around '50s rock'n'roll.

In the 1990s he has made films in Britain (I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)) and France (La vie de bohème (1992)).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael Brooke

Spouse

Paula Oinonen

(? - present)

Trade Mark

Frequently casts Matti Pellonpää.

Frequently casts Kari Väänänen.

Frequently casts Markku Peltola.

Frequently casts Kati Outinen.

Characters that speak very little.

Most of the Finnish dialog in his films is hypercorrect literary language, which is rarely spoken in real life.

Trivia

Brother of Mika Kaurismäki.

His last name, Kaurismäki, means 'deer hill' (hill of the deer) in Finnish.

His father was a salesman.

Was turned down from a film school.

Although Laitakaupungin valot (2006) was chosen to be Finland's nominee at the The 78th Annual Academy Awards (2006) (TV), he decided to boycott the ceremony again and refused the nomination as a protest against the US foreign policy.

Studied media studies at the University of Helsinki.

Moved to Portugal to live there with his wife Paula Oinonen, a painter.

Although being nominated for Mies vailla menneisyyttä (2002), he refused to attend the The 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003) (TV), noting he didn't feel like partying in a nation that is currently in a state of war (2003).

Has been influenced by directors such as Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson.

Studied journalism at the University of Tampere.

His film Rikos ja rangaistus (1983) is based on Dostoyevsky's famous novel. Kaurismäki decided to make the film after he had read a book about Alfred Hitchcock written by François Truffaut where Hitchcock said he would never touch that book to make a film of it because it was too difficult. Kaurismäki admitted it was too difficult, but still the film was well received and now remains as a classic Finnish motion picture.

Is famous for saying in interviews that he has directed half of his films while sober and half when drunk, and yet nobody can tell them apart.

Kaurismäki has said that he will retire after directing 20 feature films.

Personal Quotes

"When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I'm not young any more, so now I just sit in the bath."

"Cinema is dead. It died 1962, I think it was in October!"

"I like dogs, mankind I don't care for too much. You're supposed to like mankind because you're part of it, but I prefer dogs. They are honest and they don't lie."

"Maybe my films are not masterpieces, but they are documents of their time. That's enough for me. Masterpieces I can't do - even though I try."

"The problem is, I have seen all the other films. All the serious films ever made I have seen, more or less. They are so good... and I am so bad. Very early in my so-called career, I knew I would never make a masterpiece. So I decided to make lots of decent films."

"I have two methods. If I have a screenplay, I follow it. If I don't, I improvise. Nobody else improvises - not the cameraman or the actors. Just me."

"When I write, I am sober. I can direct drunk. I can't edit or write drunk."

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