Last comment on the Rashoman. I wasn't disputing that Kurasawa was considered too Western, that was something I already knew, and since I admire Ford greatly I tend to really love all Kurasawa and not care about the influences. What frustrated me about the TA was that he was creating an atmosphere that the ideas and themes of the movies--and Kurasawa's stance and reasoning--wasn't nearly as important as the question of the Japaneseness of the film. When someone tried to argue against this (prefacing his argument by saying he didn't watch Japanese films [exclusively] to learn Japanese culture), the TA immediately cut him off with "I find that, personnally--as a film study major--really disheartening. Just that you'd be taking this class and think movies can't be more than cheap entertainment is really saddening."
While a discussion about Kurasawa's humanism and Western influences on them can be enlightening and interesting--just look at this thread for an awesome example--focusing solely on that aspect, and not really going beyond a surface engagement of the ideas in the movie is in my opinion wrong and vaguely racist. Because you're not giving the film equal treatment, your judging it on a whole different set of standards, and apparently a major criterion of those standards is how culturally pure that piece of artwork is.
It just occured to me that possibly one reason Kurasawa is so enduring is that his films--while Japanese by their own nature and deal with specific Japanese issues in their own way (Rashoman's time period and civic and moral unrest being similar to the questioning and searching going on in Japan post WWII)--are global. so Kurasawa's films resonate because they still apply to a global culture such as ours, where national boundaries and isolationism are not so clearly and explicity defined as they once were.
btw Lew, that last observation
is very nice, I wish I'd thought of it!
Adam
While a discussion about Kurasawa's humanism and Western influences on them can be enlightening and interesting--just look at this thread for an awesome example--focusing solely on that aspect, and not really going beyond a surface engagement of the ideas in the movie is in my opinion wrong and vaguely racist. Because you're not giving the film equal treatment, your judging it on a whole different set of standards, and apparently a major criterion of those standards is how culturally pure that piece of artwork is.
It just occured to me that possibly one reason Kurasawa is so enduring is that his films--while Japanese by their own nature and deal with specific Japanese issues in their own way (Rashoman's time period and civic and moral unrest being similar to the questioning and searching going on in Japan post WWII)--are global. so Kurasawa's films resonate because they still apply to a global culture such as ours, where national boundaries and isolationism are not so clearly and explicity defined as they once were.
btw Lew, that last observation
Quote:
| Right now I’m of the opinion that the ending was added to include a characteristically Kurowawan perspective, ‘that one man can and does make a societal difference’, decidedly a more optimistic view of human nature than the conclusion that he leads us to on the nature of truth. |
Adam
I do have a question though. Does Richard Basehart speak Italian, or was it dubbed? It didn't really sound like him to me, though I didn't notice any lip asynchronization.
