Kurosawa'nın Raşomon'u

by Paul Anderer, Selçuk Işık (Translator)

Dünya çapında bir ikon statüsüne erişmiş olmasına karşın Kurosawa’nın hayat hikâyesi hâlâ bilinmezliğini korur. Bu açıdan bir tür Raşomon etkisiyle hayatın sanatı taklit ettiği söylenebilir. Bu kitap önce genç bir sosyalist ve bir ressam olarak Kurosawa portresini, ardından şiddetli çatışmalar yaşayan, sıra dışı bir duyarlığa sahip ağabeyi Heigo’nun hayatındaki rolünü, son olarak da köklü kültürel değişimlerin yaşandığı yirminci yüzyıl Japonya’sının yükseliş ve çöküş öyküsünü anlatıyor...

Zira Kurosawa’nın ikonik filmi Raşomon, dünya sinemasında bir dönüm noktasını imlemekle birlikte, çarpıcı bir aile dramını ve döneme has kültürel ve sosyal çatışmaları da yansıtmaktadır.

Kurosawa’nın gerçek yüzünü keşfetmek için Paul Anderer savaş sonrası yıkıntılar içindeki bir ülkeyi ve bir ailenin yaşadığı trajediyi gözler önüne seriyor. Bu yolla trajik ölümünden önce renkli ve isyankâr bir hayat süren ve sessiz film endüstrisinin yıldızlarından biri olan Kurosawa’nın ağabeyi Heigo’nun izini sürüyor. Böylece Kurosawa’nın gelişim dönemini gözler önüne seren Anderer, büyük yönetmenin etrafındaki sis perdesini aralıyor. Kurosawa’nın Raşomon’u, sinema sanatının başyapıtına, onun büyük yönetmenine ve etrafındaki ilgi çekici ve renkli dünyaya yepyeni bir bakış açısı getiriyor.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, History, Biography

312 pages, Paperback

Published August 11, 2020

About the author

Paul Anderer is the author of Other Worlds: Arishima Takeo and the Bounds of Modern Japanese Fiction, and Literature of the Lost Home: Kobayashi Hideo―Literary Criticism, 1924-1939. He has written widely on Tokyo and the culture of cities. He teaches courses on Japanese literature and film at Columbia, where he is the Mack Professor of Humanities.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was one essay worth of material in this book, so it was a chore to read because it was so repetitive. There was a lot of speculation and it was not always very plausible--hard to believe everything in Kurosawa's directorial choices could be traced to a few key life influences. There were also some strange omissions, for example: "The Hidden Fortress" wasn't mentioned when the author described Kurosawa's desire to portray strong women. (Fans of "The Hidden Fortress" will notice the movie wasn't mentioned once in this book, which instead constantly referred to "Drunken Angel" and "Ikiru".) I learned a few things, but again, only enough for one essay and not an entire book.

[Steven Kaminski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rashomon was one of the first movies I ever saw that got me interested in foreign films. I would go on to love all of Kurosawa's work that I have seen (with my favorite his last film 'Dreams'). This book though gets into the events and the times that shaped how Kurosawa made Rashomon and they are powerful...

- Kurosawa was born in 1910 & started getting involved in the film industry in the late 1920's. He actually was chosen to develop propaganda films for the Japanese government which going into the 1930's grew more militaristic.

- In that time the movies were silent movies. And in the theaters they hired narrators for films (they grew so powerful they had a guild) Kurosawa's older brother Hiego was one of the best of these narrators...who would ironically be put out of work after movies came out with sound which Kurosawa made.

- His older brother was a center of his life. He got him into watching movies by bringing him to the theater, he got him interested in foreign films (westerns which he modeled in the Seven Samurai) and also literature from around the world (in particular Russian literature which influenced him). But his brother was troubled. So troubled that he committed suicide in 1934 devastating his family. The influence of his brother would go on in all of Kurosawa's films after.

- Two other huge events impacted Kurosawa sandwiched in between the death of his brother: The Tokyo Earthquake of 1923 which killed over 120,000 people and also the Firebombing of Tokyo in 1945 which killed over 100,000 people and which cost Kurosawa his personal home at the time.

- Rashomon would go on to win awards all throughout the world and was a source of great pride for a country that was still rebuilding in fact a country that was under American control and censorship. It showed that a film industry could be validated there for its efforts.

I really didn't even know about Kurosawa's brother but his impact after reading about it is now obvious in his movies. Good book showcasing the times his movies were made in...

[Richard Wolff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent exegesis of Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon. The author intermingles his critical read of the film with Kurosawa's biography and Japanese history, insightfully showing how each impacts the other. The effect is poetic; those suggesting the book is repetitive fail to appreciate the interwoven web the author weaves. In so inventively showing connections among a film, a life and a country's history, the author interrelates strands of his tale in and out, back and forth, skillfully mentioning a previous story with a mention to show how it relates yet again to another part of the mosaic. His correlations are so perfect, symmetrical and regular that one senses they are somewhat more the product of the author's genius than necessarily reflections of reality. Still, their possible connectedness is what holds the reader's intrigue. The read on the film is impressive; even if you find parts of his all-too-perfectly-interrelated arguments about how Kurosawa's past and Japan's history impact the directors films, the interpretation of Rashomon itself makes this fascinating book worth a read.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much to enjoy about Anderer's examination of the influences of Kurosawa's Rashomon. Unfortunately, the narrative jumps back and forth in time and between movies at such a fast pace that it ends up being repetitive and hard to keep up with, despite the excellent insights. Although loosely organized, I think the book would have worked better with a chronological or topical structure leading up to a description of the making of Rashomon, and then how the themes carried through in the rest of Kuraswa's films. The book also relies heavily on Kurosawa's own memoir, which is an easy and insightful read in itself, and would have been better if it had focused more on insights from Japanese-language sources not accessible to the most readers.

This book is a quick, worthwhile read for fans already familiar with Kurosawa's movies and with some knowledge of Japanese history, culture, and literature, but is not necessarily accessible to somebody new to Japanese cinema.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual book about the influence of events in Kurosawa's personal life on his films - notably, his experience of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and his elder brother's suicide ten years later. As the title suggests, there's a particular emphasis on 'Rashomon' - other films are also discussed, but not all.

It's insightful, extremely well-written, and based on solid research, so I would definitely recommend it to the more-than-casual fan of Kurosawa, although I did find it a but drawn-out.

[Casey Lehman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly felt like a guided or annotated read-through of Kurosawa’s autobiography. Definitely some interesting nuggets but overall repetitive and focused too narrowly on biographical criticism, as if it’s the only point of entry into Kurosawa’s work.

[Cem]

60. Sayfada kitabı bıraktım. İleride okuyacağımı da sanmıyorum. Akılda kalıcı şeyler, bir kadınla birlikte genç yaşta intihar eden sanatçı abisi, şehrin yok oluşuna neden olan deprem ve savaş, simgesel olarak sıkça kullandığı yağmur ve balçık

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brother of the more famous Phil.

Rambling, repetitive, totally unconvincing central thesis.

Pamphlet blown up to book length god knows why.

Not redeemed by an irritating literary style forever deferring intellectual gratification.

The author thanks his sons who can all cook….yup

[James Hawes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The insights into Kurosawa’s films were interesting, but the biographical information has been presented better elsewhere.

[Alessio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Não

[Thomas Burchfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting on the influences behind Kurosawa's most famous film but scattered, disorganized, and repetitious.

[Andy Connell · Rating 2 out of 5]

could have been half as long if the author didn't repeat himself over and over again. Read like my college essays