Which director plays Vincent van Gogh in Kurosawa's Dreams?

The director who plays Vincent van Gogh in Kurosawa’s Dreams is Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese appears in the segment “Crows,” portraying van Gogh as the painter works in a wheat field. The encounter becomes a surreal conversation about art, perception, and the creative life before the protagonist enters a dreamlike version of van Gogh’s paintings. Scorsese’s appearance is brief but memorable because he was better known as the director of films such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull than as an actor.

Kurosawa specifically wanted Scorsese for the part. The two filmmakers had met previously, and Kurosawa regarded Scorsese’s passion for cinema as resembling the intensity he associated with van Gogh. Scorsese filmed his scenes in a single day and reportedly prepared carefully for Kurosawa’s detailed direction.

Dreams is a 1990 anthology of eight loosely connected vignettes inspired by recurring dreams Kurosawa said he had experienced. Its other episodes address childhood, nuclear disaster, death, nature, and spiritual renewal. Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg were associated with helping Kurosawa’s later international projects, but none of them plays van Gogh in this film.