Stephen Prince, "Willpower Can Cure All Human Ailments" from The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991) 67-113.

The chapter looked at in this example comes from a book dedicated to the analysis of Akira Kurosawa's filmmaking. Kurosawa is perhaps one of the most prominent and influential filmmakers to come out of Japan and has been a source of inspiration to such American film greats as George Lucas. The chapter, "Willpower Can Cure All Human Ailments," looks at the history surrounding many of Kurosawa's films and an in depth analysis of some of his most famous works. Kurosawa was strongly influenced by the despair and poverty inflicted upon the Japanese as a result of the war and used his films as "a mode of instruction" for helping the Japanese with a spiritual recovery from the war. The article seems to be intended for the studying film critic, who is familiar with the basics of cinema and is eager to learn more about symbolism and filming techniques from some of the masters.

I found the article to be interesting and indeed very helpful for the reader who was studying film and wanted more of a background and in-depth analysis of Kurosawa's films. I felt it also provides a larger context for someone who was studying postwar Japan as Kurosawa provided the public with plenty of commentaries and representations of the time period. Though it does deal little with the facts of the time, it does provide the reader with an insight into perhaps the feelings and dilemmas of the Japanese citizen as represented by Kurosawa. All in all, the article is one that is easy to read, as well as interesting, and provides the reader with a good insight into the film techniques of Kurosawa and his representation of the postwar period.

-Eloise Melzer