The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, or the Art of Speaking Differently

Offers a new historical and thematic perspective on the work of the renowned Japanese director Akira Kurosawa through a detailed discussion of the four films he made based on Russian sources.

Format: Hardback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 03 May 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

The Russian Kurosawa provides a fresh historical lens through which to examine the remarkable body of work of the esteemed Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa. It delves into Kurosawa's profound connection to the intellectual legacy of Japanese-Russian democratic dissent, evident in the admiration for his worldview shared by notable Russian directors such as Grigory Kozintsev and Andrei Tarkovsky. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of the Russian subtext woven into Kurosawa's cinema, particularly evident in his films based on the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, and Arseniev, the book reveals that Kurosawa employed Russian intertexts to address the most politically charged subjects of postwar Japan. Positioning the director within the cultural tradition of Russian-inflected Japanese anarchism, the book challenges prevailing perceptions of Akira Kurosawa as an apolitical art house director or a conformist studio filmmaker with muddled ideological alliances. Instead, it presents a philosophically coherent portrayal of the director's involvement in postwar discussions on cultural and political reconstruction, shedding light on his profound contributions to the world of cinema.

Weight: 776g
Dimension: 26 x 164 x 241 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192866004