The Russian Kurosawa

The Russian Kurosawa PDF Author: Olga V. Solovieva
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192866001
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The Russian Kurosawa offers a new historical perspective on the work of the renowned Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa. It uncovers Kurosawa's debt to the intellectual tradition of Japanese-Russian democratic dissent, reflected in the affinity for Kurosawa's worldview expressed by such Russian directors as Grigory Kozintsev and Andrei Tarkovsky. Through a detailed discussion of the Russian subtext of Kurosawa's cinema, most clearly manifested in the director's films based on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, and Arseniev, the book shows that Kurosawa used Russian intertexts to deal with the most politically sensitive topics of postwar Japan. Locating the director in the cultural tradition of Russian-inflected Japanese anarchism, the book challenges prevalent views of Akira Kurosawa as an apolitical art house director or a conformist studio filmmaker of muddled ideological alliances by offering a philosophically consistent picture of the director's participation in post-war debates on cultural and political reconstruction.

The Russian Kurosawa

The Russian Kurosawa PDF Author: Olga V. Solovieva
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192866001
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The Russian Kurosawa offers a new historical perspective on the work of the renowned Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa. It uncovers Kurosawa's debt to the intellectual tradition of Japanese-Russian democratic dissent, reflected in the affinity for Kurosawa's worldview expressed by such Russian directors as Grigory Kozintsev and Andrei Tarkovsky. Through a detailed discussion of the Russian subtext of Kurosawa's cinema, most clearly manifested in the director's films based on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, and Arseniev, the book shows that Kurosawa used Russian intertexts to deal with the most politically sensitive topics of postwar Japan. Locating the director in the cultural tradition of Russian-inflected Japanese anarchism, the book challenges prevalent views of Akira Kurosawa as an apolitical art house director or a conformist studio filmmaker of muddled ideological alliances by offering a philosophically consistent picture of the director's participation in post-war debates on cultural and political reconstruction.

Kurosawa's Rashomon: A Vanished City, a Lost Brother, and the Voice Inside His Iconic Films

Kurosawa's Rashomon: A Vanished City, a Lost Brother, and the Voice Inside His Iconic Films PDF Author: Paul Anderer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681772779
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A groundbreaking investigation into the early life of the iconic Akira Kurosawa in connection to his most famous film—taking us deeper into Kurosawa and his world. Although he is a filmmaker of international renown, Kurosawa and the story of his formative years remain as enigmatic as his own Rashomon. Paul Anderer looks back at Kurosawa before he became famous, taking us into the turbulent world that made him. We encounter Tokyo, Kurosawa’s birthplace, which would be destroyed twice before his eyes; explore early twentieth-century Japan amid sweeping cross-cultural changes; and confront profound family tragedy alongside the horror of war. From these multiple angles we see how Kurosawa’s life and work speak to the epic narrative of modern Japan’s rise and fall. With fresh insights and vivid prose, Anderer engages the Great Earthquake of 1923, the dynamic energy that surged through Tokyo in its wake, and its impact on Kurosawa as a youth. When the city is destroyed again, in the fire-bombings of 1945, Anderer reveals how Kurosawa grappled with the trauma of war and its aftermath, and forged his artistic vision. Finally, he resurrects the specter and the voice of a gifted and troubled older brother—himself a star in the silent film industry—who took Kurosawa to see his first films, and who led a rebellious life until his desperate end. Bringing these formative forces into focus, Anderer looks beyond the aura of Kurosawa’s fame and leads us deeper into the tragedies and the challenges of his past. Kurosawa’s Rashomon uncovers how a film like Rashomon came to be, and why it endures to illuminate the shadows and the challenges of our present.

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa PDF Author: Akira Kurosawa
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781578069972
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This work includes the collected interviews with the first Japanese film director to become widely known in the West when his film "Rashomon" won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951.

Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan

Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan PDF Author: David A. Conrad
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476646376
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
The samurai films of legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa are set in the past, but they tell us much about the present, as do his crime stories, romances, military films, medical dramas and art films. His movies are beloved for their timeless protagonists and haunting vistas of old Japan, but we haven't yet fully grasped everything they can teach us about modern Japan. Kurosawa's films evolved as Japan redefined and reinvented itself, from movies made for the wartime regime to those made amid the trials of American occupation. From the lavish epics of the economic miracle years to searching masterpieces made with international assistance in a globalizing world, Kurosawa's movies responded to changing times. This detailed study of all 30 of Kurosawa's films analyzes the links between the thrilling narratives onscreen and the equally remarkable events that occurred in Japan over his long, productive career. This book explores how Kurosawa's classics depict the political, economic, cultural, sexual and environmental upheavals of a nation at the center of a turbulent century, both directly and through period-piece mythmaking.

The Films of Akira Kurosawa

The Films of Akira Kurosawa PDF Author: Donald Richie
Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description


Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa PDF Author: Peter Wild
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780233809
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
“Most directors have one film for which they are known or possibly two,” said Francis Ford Coppola. “Akira Kurosawa has eight or nine.” Through masterpieces such as Kagemusha, Seven Samurai, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa (1910–98) influenced directors from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to Martin Scorsese, and his groundbreaking innovations in cinematography and editing, combined with his storytelling, made him a cinematic icon. In this succinct biography, Peter Wild evaluates Kurosawa’s films while offering a view of the man behind the camera, from his family life to his global audience. After discussing Kurosawa’s childhood in Japan, Wild explores his years as an assistant director at a new film studio and his early films during and after World War II before he won international acclaim with Rashomon. While surveying Kurosawa’s impressive career, Wild also examines the myriad criticisms the director faced both within his own country and abroad—he was too influenced by Western cinema; not authentically Japanese; and he was too sentimental, naïve, arrogant, or out of touch. By placing Kurosawa and his films in the context of his times, Wild helps us to understand the director and the reproaches against him. Cogent and concise, Akira Kurosawa will be essential reading for anyone interested in the work of this masterful filmmaker.

Proceedings of the ... Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association

Proceedings of the ... Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association PDF Author: International Comparative Literature Association. Congress
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comparative literature
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description


Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa PDF Author: Eric San Juan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538110903
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
The career of acclaimed filmmaker Akira Kurosawa spanned more than five decades, during which he directed more than thirty movies, many of them indisputable classics: Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo, among others. During the height of his creative output, Kurosawa became one of the most influential and well-known directors in the world, inspiring filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and movies such as The Magnificent Seven; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; and Star Wars. In Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, Eric San Juan provides a comprehensive yet accessible examination of the artist’s entire cinematic endeavors. From early films of the 1940s such as Sanshiro Sugata and No Regrets for Our Youth to Oscar winner Dersu Uzala—the author helps readers understand what makes Kurosawa’s work so powerful. Each discussion includes a brief synopsis of the film, an engaging analysis, and thoughtful insights into the film’s significance. All of Kurosawa’s works, from 1943 to 1993, are analyzed here, including the overlooked television documentary Song of the Horse, produced in 1970. In addition to more than twenty photos, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide provides rich discussions that will appeal to students of cinema as well as anyone who wants to learn more about Japan’s greatest director.

Dersu Uzala

Dersu Uzala PDF Author: V. K. Arsen'ev
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description


The Warrior's Camera

The Warrior's Camera PDF Author: Stephen Prince
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691010465
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, who died at the age of 88, has been internationally acclaimed as a giant of world cinema. Rashomon, which won both the Venice Film Festival's grand prize and an Academy Award for best foreign-language film, helped ignite Western interest in the Japanese cinema. Seven Samurai and Yojimbo remain enormously popular both in Japan and abroad. In this newly revised and expanded edition of his study of Kurosawa's films, Stephen Prince provides two new chapters that examine Kurosawa's remaining films, placing him in the context of cinema history. Prince also discusses how Kurosawa furnished a template for some well-known Hollywood directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Providing a new and comprehensive look at this master filmmaker, The Warrior's Camera probes the complex visual structure of Kurosawa's work. The book shows how Kurosawa attempted to symbolize on film a course of national development for post-war Japan, and it traces the ways that he tied his social visions to a dynamic system of visual and narrative forms. The author analyzes Kurosawa's entire career and places the films in context by drawing on the director's autobiography--a fascinating work that presents Kurosawa as a Kurosawa character and the story of his life as the kind of spiritual odyssey witnessed so often in his films. After examining the development of Kurosawa's visual style in his early work, The Warrior's Camera explains how he used this style in subsequent films to forge a politically committed model of filmmaking. It then demonstrates how the collapse of Kurosawa's efforts to participate as a filmmaker in the tasks of social reconstruction led to the very different cinematic style evident in his most recent films, works of pessimism that view the world as resistant to change.