Shang, Yunfei

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8/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTNOT EVEN PASTSearch the  si te ...Review of Aki ra Kurosawa andModern Japan (2022)Like 1 TweetReview of AkiraKurosah andModern JapahBy David AS pouNd by Yunfel ShangBy Yunfei ShangAkira Kurosawa (1910-1998) must be one of the most written about directors in film history. There areover 20 books in English exclusively devoted to Kurosawa. These include Donald Richie's The Films o fKurosawa (1965), David Desser's The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa, (1983), Stephen Prince's TheWarrior's Camera: The Cinema o f  Akira Kurosawa (1991), Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro's Kurosawa: Film Studiesand Japanese Cinema (2000), just to name a few—not to mention studies in which Kurosawa serves as acrucial point of reference.As the first Japanese director to win at an international film festival and the most well-known ouJapan, Kurosawa has attracted prolonged interest and extensive studies not only because of  his{_Privacy- Termshttps://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 1/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHSSPOTLIGHTTEXASABOUTWhile many existing studies strive to articulate the enticing form and aesthetics of this film master,historian David Conrad's Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan (2022) contributes to the large body ofKurosawa scholarship by putting the turmoil and transformation of Japanese society in the latter half ofthe 20  century under the spotlight when reading Kurosawa’s films.https://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 2/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTappreciation of Kurosawa, and he seamlessly interweaves biographical information, anecdotes, andsociopolitical context into his readings. Each one of Kurosawa's films, in their own way, provides a windowinto a specific moment of Japan's modern history and captures the zeitgeist of that moment. In this way,Conrad sees even the “historical dramas” (jidaigeki) of the director as “contemporary drama” (gendaigeki),and as he aptly puts it, all of Kurosawa’s films could be treated as “products of the jidai (meaning “period”or “era” in Japanese) that make up Japan's dramatic, painful, inspirational, contradictory 20™" century” (1).The author often opens a new chapter by laying out the social backdrop and historical events around theyear when the film was released, before diving into the film. Kurosawa’s career spanned the Showa era(1926-1989), the reign of emperor Hirohito, to the Heisei era (1989-2019), with the accession of his sonAkihito. Conrad divided the director's oeuvre into four periods: “The War Years” includes 3 films fromSanshiro Sugata (1943)to Sanshiré Sugata Part 11 (1945), “The Occupation Years” with 10 films from TheMen who Treaded on the Tiger's Tail (1945) to /kiru (1952), “The Miracle Years” includes 10 films fromSeven Samurai (1954) to Redbeard (1965), and “The Global Years” with 7 films from Dodesukaden (1970)to Madadayo (1993). This reminds us that this study is as much about Kurosawa the auteur as it is aboutmodern Japan.Each chapter deals with one film, and the author reads the scenes, images and dialogues closely toexcavate details in which history seeps through. Several recurring motifs come to the fore in Conrad'sstudy of the correlation between Kurosawa and modern Japan. First is the U.S.—Japan relationship. Therole played by the U.S. in shaping Japan's postwar domestic and foreign policies cannot beoveremphasized, and Conrad maps out a well-rounded picture of the changing power dynamic betweenthe two nations through Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948), The Bad Sleeps Well (1960), Yojimbo (1961),and Kagemusha (1980), among others.The second key issue is censorship, from the wartime military government (1940-1945) to the Occupationforces (1945-1952) and the post-Occupation Japanese government. Referencing both the productionrecords and interviews with the director, Conrad identifies the varying nature and logic of these differentcensorship regimes and the ways that Kurosawa navigated multiple transitions from one phase to anotheror within one dominant regime. For example, Conrad points out that despite the fact that “feudal themes”were prohibited after the beginning of the Occupation, Rashomon (1950), a film set in premodern Japanand containing obvious “feudalistic” content, was produced and made its way onto the big screen onlbecause the start of the Korean War (1950-1953) had rendered it imperative for American censofs tohttps://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 3/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTThe third topic central to Conrad's reading of Kurosawa is the shifting gender politics of modern Japan.From Taisho women's rights movements in the 1920s to women working in the military factories duringwartime, from the pan-pan phenomenon (i.e, street prostitutes who served mainly the Gls) during theOccupation to the emerging feminist activists since the 1960s, Conrad shows how Kurosawa engagesthrough his films with matters of women's rights and status in modern Japan.One of the merits of Conrad's approach is the ways in which he reads the social dynamics and history of20M-century Japan out of Kurosawa’s jidaigeki (films situated in premodern Japan before mid-19t"century). He argues persuasively that “jidaigekiimitate the past but tell us about their present.” (101) Forexample, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) takes place in 1586 Sengoku Japan and tells a story focusedon seven masterless samurai helping farmers repel a group of bandits who harass the village and loottheir crops. Despite the temporal distance between the story's setting (1586) and the time when the filmwas made (1954), Conrad thoughtfully demonstrates how the 16M-century peasants’ conundrum in thefilm mirrors that of Japanese farmers working under American's land reform policies after 1947. Moreover,the feudal caste structure between peasant and samurai in the film sheds light on the enduring socialinequalities and fixed class hierarchy in post-Occupation Japan when the nation as a whole got wealthier.The elaborate village defense plan and the ad  hoc soldiers in the film offer a political parallel to Japan's defacto army, the Self Defense Force, established with the help of the U.S. in 1950 as a reaction to KoreanWar.https://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 4/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTThree actors in period clothing pose for a photo in front o f  an American-madeJeep during the filming o f  Kurosawa's historical drama The Men Who Treadedon the Tiger's Tail (7945). Source: Wikimedia Commons.This kind of analysis is what makes this book distinct from both the conventional historical textbooks andeven film studies. It focuses on the contextual dimension of an auteur’s oeuvre without ever losing sight ofthe films themselves. It uses film as a portal leading its readers to an understanding oft he  entangled andlayered nature of wartime and postwar Japanese history. Readers learn both political and historical “hardfacts” but also aspects of Japanese culture including traditional wedding attire, garbage disposalregulations, folk monsters, evolving beauty standards, and even the Japanese obsession with cats.Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan is a historically- and culturally-grounded study of the director. It is bothan informative and enjoyable read for anyone who finds the director's works appealing and wish to knowmore about the historical and social condition that made them possible.https://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 5/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTand drama in mainland China since the late 1970s.The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of  the individual author(s) orpresenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at  Not Even Past, the UTDepartment of  History, the University of  Texas at  Austin, or the UT Systern Board o f  Regents. Not EvenPast is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we makeefforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past isnot responsible for any errors or omissions.Posted August 24, 2022More 1900s, Art/Architecture, Asia, Books, Cold War, Gender/sexuality, Pacific World, PoliticsRECENT POSTSIHS Workshop: “Whose Decolonization? The Collection ofAndean Ancestors and the Silences of American History”by Christopher Heaney, Pennsylvania State UniversityConverting “Latinos” during Salem's Witch Trials: A Reviewof Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language,Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas (2022) byKirsten Silva GrueszBreaking ChatGPT: Good Teaching Still Beats the Best AlRemembering Rio SpeedwayFear Not  the  Bot: ChatGPT as Jus t  One More  Screwdriverin the Tool Kithttps://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 6/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even PastFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS ~~ TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUTTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTINWe are supported by the College of Liberal ArtsAnd our READERSDONATECONTACTAll content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unlessotherwise notedFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILM BLOG IHS TEXASSPOTLIGHT ABOUThttps://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 7/88/25/23, 2:00 PM Review of Akira Kurosawa and Modem Japan (2022) - Not Even Pasthttps://notevenpast.org/review-of-akira-kurosawa-and-modern-japan-2022/ 8/8

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