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Title: The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune by Stuart Galbraith, Stuart Galbraith IV ISBN: 0-571-21152-6 Publisher: Faber & Faber Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (17 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A great filmograpy but not biography
Comment: First of all, let me say, this is a well written and fascinating book that I would recommend to anyone interested in Japanese cinema. It is informative and easy to read for a book in which the main text is 650 pages and the Filmography is 100 pages.
Particularly with the Kurosawa films, Galbraith gives a good feel for the origins, problems and successes of the movies although sometimes, I feel, his obvious respect for the director causes him to praise too highly some of the flawed works. However, this book is a valuable addition to the already excellent "The Films of Akira Kurosawa" by Ritchie. Galbraith's discussion on the non-Kurosawa films that Mifune made is much more superficial, perhaps because of their greater volume.
So, why don't I rate it a 5 star book? The book is subtitled "The Lives and Films of" but this is a book largely about the films. Maybe for two men whose lives were obviously their work some of that is unavoidable. However, at the end, I was left with a feeling of frustration that I had learned so little about them as human beings. Even the famous rift between the two men is not handled in any satisfactory manner. Although it is refered to at a number of points in the book, Galbraith at some points makes it a relatively extended "drifting apart" and at others a major rift. This is such a major event in both individuals's careers,particularly Mifune's, that I would have expected a detailed and cohesive discussion on this issue.
Still, overall, definitely a book I would recommend but not one that I can call a definitive, or even satisfactory, biography of these two important artists.
Rating: 4
Summary: Its all about films....
Comment: I think many reviewers didn't read the subtitle of the book, "Lives and Films of....." I don't think this book was meant to be a complete kiss and tell biography of Kurosawa and Mifune, this is a book which chronicled their cooperative efforts together in making films that became great classics and their relationship with and against each other. This is a book on relationship between two giants of the Japanese film industry. It was not meant to be a total biography as so many reviewers seem to have wanted.
The book gives very good background material to both men but its always about the relationship between the two. After both men split up after Red Beard, the author took pains to how see each one of them dealt with their careers afterward. Kurosawa continued to have success while Mifune drifted into period films, TV shows and his achievements suffered greatly. The book also gives a great understanding on how Japanese film industry worked, how it declined and basically how it fell apart in the face of Hollywood. Even the author expressed mixed surprised how waves of American films in a foreign nation like Japan, completely converted the Japanese audience into their own as they abandoned their own film industries into Third World status.
I thought the book was well written, well researched and explained the relationship and the films made by both Kurosawa and Mifune. But for anyone looking for a true biography, look some place else, for film historians like myself, this book is a must read.
Rating: 1
Summary: Terrible as Biography
Comment: This book was quite disappointing. Most of my criticisms have already been mentioned by other reviewers, but I must emphasize that this book gives almost no sense of Kurosawa or Mifune as individuals and very, very little insight into their relationship. I was truly amazed that such a long book could fail to provide any nuanced sense of the personalities it is supposedly about. The book reads more like an annotated filmography, with endless details about minor actors and plot summaries of Japanese films that American fans will almost certainly never be able to see. I might refer to the book occasionally as a reference, but it is deadly dull reading. Not only is it not a good biography, it provides very little insight about Kurosawa's filmaking. There is some interesting historical stuff about the Japanese film industry, but that's about the only good thing I can think of to say about the book.
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Title: The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie, Joan Mellen ISBN: 0520220374 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Something Like An Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa ISBN: 0394714393 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 May, 1983 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title:Ikiru - Criterion Collection ASIN: B00005JLMU Publisher: Criterion Collection Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $39.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $29.96 |
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Title: The Warrior's Camera by Stephen Prince ISBN: 0691010463 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 25 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema (Asia-Pacific.) by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto ISBN: 0822325195 Publisher: Duke Univ Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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