The Warrior's Camera : The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa - Revised and Expanded Edition

With a career stretching from the chaos of war-torn Japan to the current power and prosperity of his country, the great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa has been internationally acclaimed as a giant of world cinema. Rashomon helped ignite Western interest in the Japanese cinema, and Seven Samurai and Yojimbo remain enormously popular both in Japan and abroad. 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. 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. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Illustrations......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 1 - Viewing Kurosawa......Page 22 2 - The Dialectics of Style......Page 52 3 - Willpower Can Cure All Human Ailments......Page 87 4 - Experiments and Adaptations......Page 134 5 - Form and the Modern World......Page 174 6 - History and the Period Film......Page 220 7 - The Late Films......Page 270 Notes......Page 313 Films Directed by Akira Kurosawa......Page 347 Bibliography......Page 348 Index......Page 358 Back Cover......Page 366 "Stephen Prince provides two new chapters in which he examines Kurosawa's remaining work, 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."--BOOK JACKET. Stephen Prince. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [329]-338) And Index. Films Directed By Akira Kurosawa: P. [327]. In the late 1960s, following a spectacularly successful career, Kurosawa faced the threat of its imminent disintegration.