RASHOMON

JAPAN | 1950 | B&W | DCP | 88’ | JAPANESE

In his first international success, Kurosawa unfolds skillfully and innovatively through the use of flashbacks the fateful encounter between a samurai, his wife and a notorious bandit - an encounter that will end in murder and rape. But when the unreliable testimonies of the witnesses in court present dramatically different versions of events, the film becomes a chimerical search for truth, a tale about our inherent tendency to interpret it as we see fit, and an ode to the subjectivity of cinematic storytelling. Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for a title that not only led to the establishment of the Foreign Language Film Oscar, but became synonymous in cinematic lexicons with conflicting accounts of an event.

DIRECTOR: Akira Kurosawa
SCREENWRITERS: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto
DoP: Kazuo Miyagawa
MUSIC: Fumio Hayasaka
EDITOR: Shigeo Nishida
PRINCIPAL CAST: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyō, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki

AKIRA KUROSAWA
Japanese filmmaker, legend of world cinema. He was recognized more than any of his Asian counterparts and had an overall and profound influence on Western film culture. 30 films, a multi-award winning body of work (Oscar, Golden Lion, Golden Palm, among others), a legendary 16-film collaboration with Toshiro Mifune, a life and work that marked globally the artistry of the 20th century.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTED)
1990 Dreams 
1985 Ran 
1970 Dodes’ka-den 
1965 Red Beard 
1963 High and Low 
1961 Yojimbo 
1960 The Bad Sleep Well 
1958 The Hidden Fortress 
1957 Throne of Blood 
1954 Seven Samurai 
1952 Ikiru 
1951 The Idiot 
1950 Rashomon