Rashomon - Not The Way You Remember It*

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]ArtDaily: Kadokawa Pictures Digitally Restores Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon
It has been ten years since the legendary director Akira Kurosawa passed away. Kadokawa Pictures has begun the task of digitally restoring Kurosawa's Rashomon with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Considering Rashomon's arts and cultural values, Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation, The Academy Motion Pictures Arts and Science in the US, and The Film Foundation decided to support the restoration project. Rashomon is the first Japanese film to be restored by the Academy and the Film Foundation. Also for this project, the digital restoration will be done at 4K for the first trial in Japanese film history. The project is supervised by Michael Pogorzelski, the director of the Academy Film Archive and a renowned film archivist. From Japan, the National Film Center joins the project to provide technical and academic advice. The restored film will be shown on September 18th at the Samuel Goldwin Theater.

[SIZE="1"]*© The Simpsons[/SIZE]

[amdg]

Marge: Oh Rashomon, you really liked that film.
Homer: That's not how I remember it!

[Charles]

Marge: Oh Rashomon, you really liked that film.
Homer: That's not how I remember it!

Ha! I never heard that one.

I was just arguing with my GF tonight, it was he said/she said situation and finally I said in exasperation, "This is just like Rashomon." She never heard of it. Nekulturny! So I had to explain it. In the process, I came to a new insight into the film's central question, what really happened. I concluded that by the time you go through all the versions to get to the truth, you just don't give a damn anymore.

Anyway, I'd love to see a really good print of this film, it really deserves it. I can tell the cinematography is way better than is visible in the poor prints I've seen.

[amdg]

by the time you go through all the versions to get to the truth, you just don't give a damn anymore.

He! Yeah there's some truth to that. Many Japanese critics originally said the same thing - it's too long, boring and complicated.

[Charles]

He! Yeah there's some truth to that. Many Japanese critics originally said the same thing - it's too long, boring and complicated.

Oh it's not that. The plot is quite simple, viewed in the classical kishotenketsu format. It's just that by the end of the process, the truth has lost all meaning. And you don't care.

Now you want to see a similar use of kishotenketsu in film, see Oshima's Nihon no yoru to kiri. I thought I would go insane, seeing the same long drawn out political events repeated over and over from different perspectives, it was torture. I checked the film databases and my recollection is different, they say it was 107 minutes long, I remember it being about 107 hours long. By the time it's over, all you want to know is where is the exit.

[halfnip]

I just watched this a few weeks ago. I really don't get what all the talk is all about, saying this was one of the greatest films ever made, blah, blah. Can someone enlighten me, please?

[Charles]

[quote="halfnip"]I just watched this a few weeks ago. I really don't get what all the talk is all about, saying this was one of the greatest films ever made, blah, blah. Can someone enlighten me, please? ]
If you need an explanation, it would obviously be lost on you.

For me, the major significance inside the film is the kishotenketsu format, which is common in Japanese literature but had not come to the world's attention before this film. The retelling of the story from different angles, coming to no conclusion, was a totally alien concept in filmmaking outside Japan. It blew peoples minds. It was so strongly associated with that plot device that the use of the word Rashomon to describe conflicting points of view is more widely known than the film itself.

The film is considered the most significant Japanese film because it was the first Japanese film to receive a major award at the Cannes film festival and brought worldwide attention to Japanese filmmakers. It also transformed the world of Film Criticism, as it started an argument over whether a film speaks its own language that is accessible to all, or whether it would be necessary to know the language and culture to appreciate it properly. One of my professors wrote a book about Kurosawa and this particular Film Crit argument, I've heard this in infinite variations so it would be hard to condense it into a brief description.