Review by Choice Review
Since Akira Kurosawa is at once the most Westernized and the most Japanese filmmaker, he is an appropriate center for this epic attempt to reconcile auteurism and cultural study. Yoshimoto's purpose is radical: in the postdisciplinary age Japanese film studies "must be political," transcending specificity to intervene "in the structures and practices of the established disciplines." Yoshimoto (Univ. of Iowa) first surveys the importance of Japanese film in the development of film, cultural, and cross-cultural studies, then adapts auteurist theory to admit "various kinds of context and history that are excluded" from autobiography. The author analyzes each of Kurosawa's 30 features--from Sanshiro Sugata (1943) to Madadayo (1993), in chapters ranging from two to 41 pages--shedding remarkable new light and often going against the critical current. Full of extraordinary knowledge, this book complements No"el Burch's To the Distant Observer (CH, Oct'79); David Desser's The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa (CH, May'84) and his anthology, coedited with Arthur Nolletti, Reframing Japanese Cinema (CH, Apr'93); David Bordwell's Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (CH, Jun'89); Stephen Prince's The Warrior's Camera (CH, Sep'91); James Goodwin's Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema (CH, Jun'94); and Donald Richie's pioneering The Films of Akira Kurosawa (CH, Apr'66; 3rd ed., 1998). Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. M. Yacowar; University of Calgary
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
