Tag Archive: Russian lit

A Month of Kurosawa: Dersu Uzala (1975)

November 25, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Dersu Uzala (1975) During a period in his career when Kurosawa had fallen out of favor and was no longer the influential icon he once was, he found himself deep in the Soviet Union making a film about nature, survival, civilization, and friendship. That film was Dersu Uzala, based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Vladimir Arsenyev. It’s also one of his…
Read more

Films

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Month of Kurosawa: The Lower Depths (1957)

November 17, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! The Lower Depths (1957) Kurosawa’s interest in exploring the plight of the underclasses did not end when his exploration of postwar Japan ended, nor did his interest in western literature ever wane. The Lower Depths, an adaption of the stage play by Maxim Gorky, combines those ideas into one compact film — and it’s a great one. The Lower Depths looks at the lives…
Read more

Films

, , , , , , , ,

A Month of Kurosawa: The Idiot (1951)

November 12, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! The Idiot (1951) Following Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa tackled something quite different: a faithful adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Much like the book, it’s a sprawling, sometimes glacial affair focused on a complex web of interpersonal relationships. His initial cut came in at an imposing four and a half hours. At the behest of the studio he cut it down to three hours, then a…
Read more

Films

, , , , , , ,