Kurosawa

“Kurosawa offers a valuable framework for an extended critical analysis of a single director—an analysis that moves beyond the confines of an auteurial study or of an examination of a director’s role in a single cultural tradition. Yoshimoto’s detailed film-by-film analysis reminds us of the resonance of this director’s massive body of work. Throughout this thought-provoking study, Yoshimoto invites us to ‘rethink Japanese cinema, modern Japanese history, and film as the art of the twentieth century’ through the films of Kurosawa.” - Linda C. Ehrlich , Journal of Asian Studies

“[An] erudite and near-comprehensive book. . . . [T]he best part of Yoshimoto’s book is his fascinating account of the effects of the occupation.” - Mamoun Hassan , Times Higher Education

“Fresh in its approach, streaked with veins of insight, bent under the sheer weight of the information it contains, Yoshimoto’s book is unquestionably successful as a study of Kurosawa’s films. . . . [S]omething more than deconstruction emerges from his study. Insisting (often polemically) on culturally informed critique, Yoshimoto fashions an alternative to the broadly humanistic approach common in film classes.” - Jack Granath , Rain Taxi

“Shed[s] remarkable new light and often [goes] against the critical current. Full of extraordinary knowledge.” - M. Yacowar , Choice

This is a rich and thought-provoking text that should generate considerable and productive debate in Japanese film studies, cinema studies, and Japanese studies.” - Joanne Izbicki , Journal of Japanese Studies

“A tour-de-force reading of Kurosawa’s films. Yoshimoto adds greatly to current Kurasawa scholarship and to situating the construct ‘Japanese Cinema’ in a way that it has not been situated before.” - E. Ann Kaplan, author of Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film, and the Imperial Gaze

“Yoshimoto’s Kurosawa is destined to take its place along with the most important achievements of cinema studies, which is to say that it is a book about something more than cinema itself. Yet it offers a stimulating, running commentary on the films that makes one want to see them all over again, while also offering a new theory of auteurship as collective negotiation. This is a grand performance sustained by a voice of rare authority.” - Fredric Jameson