Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese CinemaThe films of Akira Kurosawa have had an immense effect on the way the Japanese have viewed themselves as a nation and on the way the West has viewed Japan. In this comprehensive and theoretically informed study of the influential director's cinema, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto definitively analyzes Kurosawa's entire body of work, from 1943's Sanshiro Sugata to 1993's Madadayo. In scrutinizing this oeuvre, Yoshimoto shifts the ground upon which the scholarship on Japanese cinema has been built and questions its dominant interpretive frameworks and critical assumptions. Arguing that Kurosawa's films arouse anxiety in Japanese and Western critics because the films problematize Japan's self-image and the West's image of Japan, Yoshimoto challenges widely circulating clichés about the films and shows how these works constitute narrative answers to sociocultural contradictions and institutional dilemmas. While fully acknowledging the achievement of Kurosawa as a filmmaker, Yoshimoto uses the director's work to reflect on and rethink a variety of larger issues, from Japanese film history, modern Japanese history, and cultural production to national identity and the global circulation of cultural capital. He examines how Japanese cinema has been "invented" in the discipline of film studies for specific ideological purposes and analyzes Kurosawa's role in that process of invention. Demonstrating the richness of both this director's work and Japanese cinema in general, Yoshimoto's nuanced study illuminates an array of thematic and stylistic aspects of the films in addition to their social and historical contexts. Beyond aficionados of Kurosawa and Japanese film, this book will interest those engaged with cultural studies, postcolonial studies, cultural globalization, film studies, Asian studies, and the formation of academic disciplines. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
JAPANESE CINEMA IN SEARch of a discIPLINE | 7 |
THE FILMS OF KUROSAWA AKIRA | 51 |
Kurosawa Criticism and the Name of the Author | 53 |
Sanshiro Sugata | 69 |
The Most Beautiful | 81 |
Sanshiro Sugata Part 2 | 89 |
The Men Who Tread on the Tigers Tail | 93 |
Seven Samurai | 205 |
Record of a Living Being | 246 |
Throne of Blood | 250 |
The Lower Depths | 270 |
The Hidden Fortress | 272 |
The Bad Sleep Well | 274 |
Yojimbo | 289 |
High and Low | 303 |
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actors adaptation Akira Kurosawa American argues Art direction auteurism Burch camera chanbara characters comparative literature create Dersu Desser diegetic director eiga film criticism film studies film's filmmakers Films of Akira Fujisaki gendaigeki genre Gondo Hanbei Hashimoto hero human Ikiru Itami Iwabuchi Japa Japan Japanese cinema Japanese cinema studies Japanese culture Japanese film Japanese studies jidaigeki jidaigeki films Kabuki Kagemusha Kanjincho Kinema junpo Kuro Kurosawa Akira Kurosawa's films Mifune Toshiro motifs Murakami narration narrative nese Nihon Nishi Occupation Ozu's play popular postwar problematic production question Quiet Duel Rashomon Rhapsody in August Richie role samurai film Sanjuro Sanshiro Sugata Sato scene screen script sense sequence Seven Samurai Shimura Takashi shot shows social sound space specific story Stray Dog taishu Takeuchi textual theater thematic Throne of Blood Tiger's Tail tion Toho Tokyo traditional tries University Press visual Watanabe Watanabe's Western Yojimbo Yukie Yusa Zenshu