Rashomon: Akira Kurosawa, Director (Rutgers Films in Print series) - Softcover

Kurosawa, Akira; Donald Richie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813511801 ISBN 13: 9780813511801

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1987

Synopsis

Rashomon is one of the greatest of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's films, the winner of the 1951 Venice Festival prize and the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1952. It features Toshiru Mifune, the best-known Japanese actor in the West, as the bandit, an accused rapist and murderer. At the beginning of the film, a woodcutter, priest, and commoner happen to meet at the ruined gate--Rashomon--outside the city of Kyoto. This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and the priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The cynical, detached commoner, "everyman," listens to and comments upon their stories. 

The central section of the film, a series of flashbacks and tales within tales, consists of the same events retold by the husband (speaking through a medium, from the grave), the wife, the bandit, and the woodcutter. Each tells what happened--or possibly, what should have happened. The film deals with multiple truths; Richie summarizes the director's point of view in the introduction: "the world is illusion, you yourself make reality, but this reality undoes you if you submit to being limited by what you have made."

The sixth title in the Rutgers Film in Print Series and the first Japanese film, this volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon; an introductory essay by Donald Richie; the Akutagawa stories upon which the film is based; critical reviews and commentaries on the film; a filmography; and a bibliography. 

About this title

About the Author

DONALD RICHIE is the author of the definitive books in English on Kurosawa and Ozu. In addition, he is the co-author of the standard English-language history of the Japanese film and author or editor of several other books on the subject. He has also served as film critic for the Japan Times and as Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 

From the Back Cover

This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and the priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The film deals with multiple truths. This volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813511801
• ISBN 13: 9780813511801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216