ABSTRACT
Within a year after the conclusion to World War 2, Akira Kurosawa began to write and direct a succession of gendai-mono, or contemporary story films, that address social issues that rose out of Japan’s defeat, reconstruction, and the Allied Occupation. The gendai-mono he released over the ensuing six years – One Won-derful Sunday (Subarashiki Nichiyobi, 1947), Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenshi, 1948), The Quite Duel (Shizukanaru Ketto, 1949), Stray Dog (Nora Inu, 1949), Scandal (Shubun, 1950), The Idiot (Hakuchi, 1951), and Ikiru (Ikiru, 1952) – engage concerns such as the continued physical and psychological effects of wartime traumas, postwar corruption, urban decay, and the impotence of civil bureaucracy. Kurosawa has explained his motive in creating these films as one of investigative journalism – not to achieve any topical or sensational effect, but rather to explore the forces that underlie contemporary experience.
