Akira Kurosawa

This book means to show that Kurosawa's humanism draws on a sense of individual experience resting upon specific family and social backgrounds as well as the observations of the surrounding social, political and cultural contexts. Kurosawa has often been libelled as a humanist and a citizen of the world, but he also constantly asserted that he was a typical Japanese man of his time. Born in 1910, at the end of the Taisho era, he made his thirty films in the Showa period, during a long twentieth-century that saw Japan tossed by major social, economic and political changes, definitely entering modernity and asserting itself as one of the greatest nations in the world.

Contemporary cinema’s foremost chronicler of American dreamers and schemers hustling on the margins of capitalist promise, Sean Baker, reaches new heights of mastery with this audacious anti–Cinderella story—a whirlwind neorealist screwball comedy with an aching heart. In an electric, star-is-born performance, Mikey Madison soars as Anora, an enterprising, ferociously foulmouthed Brooklyn erotic dancer and sex worker whose Prince Not-So-Charming comes along in the form of a Russian oligarch’s wild-child son (Mark Eydelshteyn). Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Anora confirms Baker as one of our preeminent auteurs.

Contemporary cinema’s foremost chronicler of American dreamers and schemers hustling on the margins of capitalist promise, Sean Baker, reaches new heights of mastery with this audacious anti–Cinderella story—a whirlwind neorealist screwball comedy with an aching heart. In an electric, star-is-born performance, Mikey Madison soars as Anora, an enterprising, ferociously foulmouthed Brooklyn erotic dancer and sex worker whose Prince Not-So-Charming comes along in the form of a Russian oligarch’s wild-child son (Mark Eydelshteyn). Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Anora confirms Baker as one of our preeminent auteurs.

Se déployant en une série de huit vignettes mythiques, cette œuvre tardive d'Akira Kurosawa s'inspire des propres visions nocturnes du réalisateur bien-aimé, ainsi que d'histoires du folklore japonais. Dans un voyage visuellement somptueux à travers l'imagination du maître, les contes d'émerveillement enfantin cèdent la place à des apparitions apocalyptiques : un jeune garçon tombe sur un mariage de renard dans une forêt ; un soldat affronte les fantômes des morts à la guerre ; la fusion d'une centrale électrique étouffe un paysage balnéaire sous des vapeurs radioactives.

Directed by the remarkable Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998), ‘Rashomon’ was the first Japanese film to receive significant international attention. It was released in 1950 and won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, while its visionary artistic ambitions became a symbol of Japan’s post-war reconstruction. Now, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, this volume presents an in-depth look at what the film’s notable production staff accomplished. Filled with original storyboards, screenwriting fragments, production photographs, scripts, posters, and other ephemera, it is a fascinating tribute to one of the greatest, most impactful films ever made.

 The Masterworks In Posters From The Collection Of Toshifumi Makita

Cette publication fait suite à une exposition antérieure commémorant l'héritage du réalisateur et scénariste japonais Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998), organisée à l'occasion de l'ouverture de la National Film Archive of Japan. Avec le succès de 'Rashomon', Kurosawa a ouvert le monde du cinéma japonais aux marchés occidentaux, et il a depuis influencé d'innombrables réalisateurs. L'exposition présentait un éventail impressionnant de 84 affiches de ses films provenant de 30 pays. Les affiches, preuves de la large diffusion, de l'immense popularité et de la haute qualité artistique du travail du réalisateur, ont toutes été sélectionnées dans la collection du chercheur et expert de Kurosawa, Toshifumi Makita.