Director: Kurosawa Akira
Screenplay: Kurosawa Akira, Hashimoto Shinobu, based upon two Ryunosuke Akutagawa novels
Cinematographer: Miyagawa Kazuo
Editing: Kurosawa Akira
Art Direction: Matsuyama Takashi
Music: Hayasaka Fumio
Cast.: Mifune Toshirô, Mori Masayuki, Shimura Takashi, Kyô Machiko, Kato Daisuke, Honma Fumiko
Production: Daiei Motion Picture Company
Distribution:
Films sans Frontières
70 Bd de Sebastopol
75003 Paris
Tel: 0033-1.42.77.01.24
Fax: 0033-1.42.77.42.66
Mail: [email protected]
www.films-sans-frontieres.fr
Year: 1950
Screening: 2019, 2014
DCP, B & W, 88 min,
OV Japanese with French subtitles
Golden Lion - Venise 1951
Oscar 1951 for Best Foreign Film
Part of Japonism 2018
We are in Kyoto, in the 11th century. Three men shelter from the rain under the portico of Rashômon old dilapidated temple. Wars and famine are raging, yet a young monk and an old lumberjack are far more scared by the trial they just saw. They are so deeply disturbed that they force the third traveler to listen to the story of the trial: the case of a famous bandit accused of the rape of a young woman and of the murder of her husband, a samurai. The drama took place in the forest at the edge of which stands Rashômon portico. It is a simple story: who murdered the husband? Did bandit Tajomaru, the wife, or a lumberjack passing by do it, or did the husband commit suicide? There are many plausible hypotheses. But the witnesses appearing in Court keep changing statements giving new versions of the drama; truth only begins to dawn with new surprising revelations…
Awarded the Gold Lion at Venice festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign film, Rashômon is the film which revealed Kurosawa Akira as well as Japanese cinema to the world. It is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of world cinema.
