Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa

Ishiro Honda was a Japanese director who made successful science fiction films, including Godzilla and Mothra. His films reflected postwar Japan's anxieties and incorporated fantastical special effects, creating a popular culture phenomenon that spans generations. Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski's book Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film explores Honda's work and the experiences that shaped it, including his days as a reluctant Japanese soldier, witnessing the aftermath of Hiroshima, and his lifelong friendship with Akira Kurosawa. The book features close analysis of Honda's films and draws on previously untapped documents and interviews to explore how creative, economic, and industrial factors impacted his career. Fans of Honda, Godzilla, and tokusatsu film will welcome this in-depth study of a highly influential director.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 28 January 2023
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Ishiro Honda, the visionary director behind iconic Japanese sci-fi classics like Godzilla and Mothra, is the subject of the first comprehensive biography of his life and career. Honda's films, which ranged from the atomic allegory of Godzilla to the beguiling charms of Mothra, reflected postwar Japan's real-life anxieties and incorporated fantastical special effects, creating a popular culture phenomenon that spans generations. In Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski shed new light on Honda's work and the experiences that shaped it, including his days as a reluctant Japanese soldier, witnessing the aftermath of Hiroshima, and his lifelong friendship with Akira Kurosawa. The book features close analysis of Honda's films, including his rarely seen dramas, comedies, and war films, and draws on previously untapped documents and interviews to explore how creative, economic, and industrial factors impacted his career. Fans of Honda, Godzilla, and tokusatsu (special effects) film, and of Japanese film in general, will welcome this in-depth study of a highly influential director who occupies a uniquely important position in science fiction and fantasy cinema, as well as in world cinema. Together, the authors have provided audio commentary tracks and produced supplemental material for numerous home video releases, including Ishiro Honda's Godzilla for the British Film Institute.

Dimension: 254 x 178 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780819500410