Sansho Dayu (Sansho the Bailiff)

by Dudley Andrew, Carole Cavanaugh

Overview

Kenji Mizoguchi's masterpiece Sanshô Dayû (1954) retells a classic Japanese folktale about an eleventh-century feudal official forced into exile by his political enemies. In his absence, his children fall under the corrupting influence of the malevolent bailiff Sansho. In their study of the film, film scholar Dudley Andrew and Japanese literature professor Carole Cavanaugh highlight the cultural, aesthetic and social contexts of this film which is at once rooted in folk legend and a modern artwork released in the aftermath of World War II. This edition includes a new foreword by the authors in which they consider the film's contemporary parallels in modern slavery and children torn from their families by malevolent authorities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781838719326
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/2020
Series:	BFI Film Classics
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.67(w) x 8.12(h) x 0.16(d)

About the Author

Dudley Andrew is the R. Selden Rose Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of Film Studies at Yale University, USA, and Carole Cavanaugh is Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, USA.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the 2020 Edition 7

Synopsis 11

Sansho Dayu and the Overthrow of History 15

Mizo Dayu 51

Notes 89

Credits 94

Bibliography 96