What do you think?
Rate this book
Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema
The 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.
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.
496 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2000
19 people are currently reading
240 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 15, 2007
The work of Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto is a breath of fresh air in a field dominated by traditional schools of criticism. This is not only the best book on Kurosawa; it is the most thought-provoking assessment of the discursive field known as "Japanese Film Studies." In fact, he not only critiques the very notion of such a field; he performs a devastating analysis of the genealogy of criticism that has claimed authority of such a subject since the 1950s. As a Westerner intersted in the subject, this book challenged every assumption I had.
Although the book covers every film of Kurosawa's career, this is not a work of 'auteur' criticism. In fact, Yoshimoto addresses the very shortcomings of such an approach in the introduction of his text. As suggested by the book's secondary title, the work tackles something much more broad in scope and does so more critically than any other work related to the films of Kurosawa.
First and foremost, what sets this work apart from most studies of either Kurosawa or more generally Japanese cinema (that are published in English) is Yoshimoto's close and careful attention to history. Not only does he 'historicize' both Kurosawa-as-author and his catalogue of films but he also does the same to the recent tradition of criticism on Japanese cinema that has become so popular in Western academia. He convincingly critiques the previous work of Donald Richie, Noel Burch, Stephen Prince (and more briefly David Desser and James Goodwin), and his analysis of Western criticism on Japan as falling into 3 phases (humanist - formalist/marxist - 'cross-cultural') is most helpful.
When I suggest that he 'historicizes' these three methods of critique, I mean he demonstrates how these approaches perhaps worked not to better illuminate the objects 'Kurosawa' and 'Japanese cinema' but to 'naturalize' or legitimate other historical developments 'outside' the intended object of scrutiny. For instance, Yoshimoto argues that humanist and auteur forms of criticism (that were popular in the 1960s) when applied to Kurosawa's films did less to interpret the films-themselves and instead worked to legitimate the contemporaneous formation of 'film studies' as a proper field of scholarship. He goes on to critique the other phases of critical approach in a similar fashion.
Yoshimoto also performs historical critiques of other interpretive frameworks that are often assumed to make sense of Japanese film production. He puts into question the category 'samurai film' as assumed by critics like David Desser by demonstrating its 'orientalist' function in recent 'cross-cultural' discourse. He challenges careless appeals to 'zen' that do less to make sense of films and more to 'essentialize' certain contingent aspects of Japanese culture. Also, he reads the typical grouping of Japanese film into two genres, 'jidaigeki' and 'gendaigeki', in the context of current historical struggles by showing this division to function as a kind of effacement of certain contradictions and invasions that took place in recent global events. These are only some of the enlightening points made throughout this book - mainly the ones that really stuck with me.
As stated before, this book is more than an investigation of Kurosawa - this is a convincing challenge to the practice of 'Japanese film studies' as a discipline. However, in relation to Kurosawa, the highlites (in my opinion) are his readings of 'Stray Dog', 'Seven Samurai', 'Throne of Blood', and 'High and Low'. Personally, I wish there was more on both 'Rashomon' and 'Yojimbo' - but that, in no way, alters my high opinion of this work. By far, this is the best work on Japanese film I have ever read. His writing is clear - his arguments are convincing, and his ideas are original. This is a 5 star work of scholarship.
Also, I recommend reading his article "The Difficulty of Being Radical: The Discipline of Film Studies and the Postcolonial World Order" in 'boundary 2' (Autumn 1991).
Although the book covers every film of Kurosawa's career, this is not a work of 'auteur' criticism. In fact, Yoshimoto addresses the very shortcomings of such an approach in the introduction of his text. As suggested by the book's secondary title, the work tackles something much more broad in scope and does so more critically than any other work related to the films of Kurosawa.
First and foremost, what sets this work apart from most studies of either Kurosawa or more generally Japanese cinema (that are published in English) is Yoshimoto's close and careful attention to history. Not only does he 'historicize' both Kurosawa-as-author and his catalogue of films but he also does the same to the recent tradition of criticism on Japanese cinema that has become so popular in Western academia. He convincingly critiques the previous work of Donald Richie, Noel Burch, Stephen Prince (and more briefly David Desser and James Goodwin), and his analysis of Western criticism on Japan as falling into 3 phases (humanist - formalist/marxist - 'cross-cultural') is most helpful.
When I suggest that he 'historicizes' these three methods of critique, I mean he demonstrates how these approaches perhaps worked not to better illuminate the objects 'Kurosawa' and 'Japanese cinema' but to 'naturalize' or legitimate other historical developments 'outside' the intended object of scrutiny. For instance, Yoshimoto argues that humanist and auteur forms of criticism (that were popular in the 1960s) when applied to Kurosawa's films did less to interpret the films-themselves and instead worked to legitimate the contemporaneous formation of 'film studies' as a proper field of scholarship. He goes on to critique the other phases of critical approach in a similar fashion.
Yoshimoto also performs historical critiques of other interpretive frameworks that are often assumed to make sense of Japanese film production. He puts into question the category 'samurai film' as assumed by critics like David Desser by demonstrating its 'orientalist' function in recent 'cross-cultural' discourse. He challenges careless appeals to 'zen' that do less to make sense of films and more to 'essentialize' certain contingent aspects of Japanese culture. Also, he reads the typical grouping of Japanese film into two genres, 'jidaigeki' and 'gendaigeki', in the context of current historical struggles by showing this division to function as a kind of effacement of certain contradictions and invasions that took place in recent global events. These are only some of the enlightening points made throughout this book - mainly the ones that really stuck with me.
As stated before, this book is more than an investigation of Kurosawa - this is a convincing challenge to the practice of 'Japanese film studies' as a discipline. However, in relation to Kurosawa, the highlites (in my opinion) are his readings of 'Stray Dog', 'Seven Samurai', 'Throne of Blood', and 'High and Low'. Personally, I wish there was more on both 'Rashomon' and 'Yojimbo' - but that, in no way, alters my high opinion of this work. By far, this is the best work on Japanese film I have ever read. His writing is clear - his arguments are convincing, and his ideas are original. This is a 5 star work of scholarship.
Also, I recommend reading his article "The Difficulty of Being Radical: The Discipline of Film Studies and the Postcolonial World Order" in 'boundary 2' (Autumn 1991).
May 23, 2011
Yoshimoto has strong analysis of the bulk of Kurosawa's films. Includes some personal anecdotes about cast and crew that help keep you intersted. Good to own if you are a Kurosawa fan and just saw one of his films that you did not understand.
September 14, 2010
Fantastic analysis of interdisciplinary studies and how fragmented the discourse of Japan, film, and Japanese film is disguised as a critical study of Kurosawa's work.
February 25, 2016
Not only the best book on famous director Kurosawa Akira, but also a fresh breeze in the field of Japanese film studies. Indispensable.
June 21, 2024
read for an analysis on Rashomon
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews