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Overview
In Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema, James Goodwin draws on contemporary theoretical and critical approaches to explore the Japanese director's use of a variety of texts to create films that are uniquely intertextual and intercultural. Surveying all of Kurosawa's films and examining six films in depth— The Idiot, The Lower Depths, Rashomon, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, and Ran—Goodwin finds in Kurosawa's themes and techniques the capacity to restructure perceptions of Western and Japanese cultures and to establish new meanings in each.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Synopsis
In Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema, James Goodwin draws on contemporary theoretical and critical approaches to explore the Japanese director's use of a variety of texts to create films that are uniquely intertextual and intercultural. Surveying all of Kurosawa's films and examining six films in depth — The Idiot, The Lower Depths, Rashomon, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, and Ran — Goodwin finds in Kurosawa's themes and techniques the capacity to restructure perceptions of Western and Japanese cultures and to establish new meanings in each.
Booknews
An inquiry into the form and meaning of Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa's work, bypassing previous criticism to comment directly on the signs and codes in the films and their interaction at and across various levels of understanding. Explores biographical influences, Russian themes, modernist narrative, and tragedy without heroes. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Editorials
Journal of Asian Studies
Goodwin's analysis is most interesting in this account of how many Kurosawa plots (like Rashomon and Ikiru) feature a modernist competition between texts to argue a version of what 'really' happened.
Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
A dense, theoretically sophisticated account of the intertextual nature of film as a medium. Goodwin discusses here, among other things, interculturality, the problematic notion of the auteur, and the dialogic production processes employed by Kurosawa. Above all, Kurosawa is described as a film-maker for whom life and art are always in the process of becoming, never static or singular.
Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
A dense, theoretically sophisticated account of the intertextual nature of film as a medium. Goodwin discusses here, among other things, interculturality, the problematic notion of the auteur, and the dialogic production processes employed by Kurosawa. Above all, Kurosawa is described as a film-maker for whom life and art are always in the process of becoming, never static or singular.
Journal of Asian Studies
Goodwin's analysis is most interesting in this account of how many Kurosawa plots (like Rashomon and Ikiru) feature a modernist competition between texts to argue a version of what 'really' happened.
Journal of Asian Studies
Goodwin's analysis is most interesting in this account of how many Kurosawa plots (like Rashomon and Ikiru) feature a modernist competition between texts to argue a version of what 'really' happened.