Japanese Cinema: Rashomon - correct answer Summary: A bandit meets a nobleman and his wife in the forest, and somehow the nobleman ends up dead, and the
... [Show More] wife possibly raped. Although at the subsequent various other parties testify, the focus is on the accounts of the bandit, the wife, the dead man (through a spirit medium), and a woodcutter who apparently witnessed the whole thing. Not only does none of the stories jibe with the others, but they are COMPLETELY different and each is morally undercut by the others. Kurosawa frames the conundrum in a conversation between the woodcutter and two other men (one of them a priest, and the other peasant) who have ducked out under a ruined gateway to get out of a heavy rain.
Rashomon Syndrome - correct answer Ppl see the same thing, different perspectives. Can you ever be sure anything you see?
Cinematic Qualities of Rashomon - correct answer Great lighting, view, shadowing. The shadowing made the viewer feel like they are a part of.. **Rain effects.
Rashomon Article - correct answer 4 different stories, 4 different perspectives. No closure, no solution
No one is telling the truth. There is no objective truth. - Priest relates his observations. He is slow, somber, and depressed. Always the observer.
Priest is often at the background, just watching. Some say he represents Kurosawa's own viewpoint. He is the thoughtful one. He wants to distance himself but can't. The event hurts him.
The wife's story full of her expected emotions. She does the things expected from a woman. But she hates both. Full of hate. More insane than bandit. -
The wife's only real emotion shown during duel. She gets them fighting as she wants. She calculates what will happen to her. She is fascinating and frightening.
She is manipulative black widow or a woman held captive by society, but she is the most dangerous character.
Woodcutter's story supposed to be resolution, more truthful, but not. The final story ıs also a lie.
Extremely dark and pessimistic film.
Humans experience life only subjectively.
The priest and woodcutter disturbed by the story, even obsessed. Reminded them that a bandit, a noble samurai warrior, and a beautiful woman, all equally human, equally stained. We all have masks, we all lie. Discovery of the baby- restored hope for them.
Japanese Cinema: Battle Royale - correct answer 1. 42 9th graders are sent to a deserted island. They are given a map, food, and various weapons. An explosive collar is fitted around their neck. If they break a rule, the collar explodes. Their mission: kill each other and be the last one standing. The last survivor can leave the island. If there is more than one survivor, the collars explode and kill them all.
2. At the dawn of the new millennium, Japan is in a state of near-collapse. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and violence amongst the nation's youth is spiraling out of control. With school children boycotting their lessons and physically abusing their teachers, a beleaguered and near-defeated government decides to introduce a radical new measure: the Battle Royale Act. Overseen by a former teacher, Kitano ('Beat' Takeshi), and requiring that a randomly chosen school class be taken to a deserted island and forced to fight each other to the death, the Act dictates that only one pupil be allowed to survive the punishment. He or she will return, not as the victor, but as the ultimate proof of the lengths to which the government are prepared to go to curb the tide of juvenile disobedience. Likened to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange by many critics, this explosive film shocked a nation with its violent portrayal of a society in ruins.
Battle Royale Article - correct answer - The themes which are included in the film are very much realistic modern issues, youth crime is a very serious issue in Japan. It's not that I'm not concerned or not interested, but those simply form the basis of the fable.
- the film ends with a very strong message: "Run".
- many children couldn't see the film because of the R-15 rating it received from the ratings board.
- You call the film a fable, but I feel it's certainly a political fable. It's very interesting that the politics of the government in this film are very conservative or reactionary and that they are the ideological opposite of the politics you questioned in your films from the sixties and seventies. There the politics seemed to be more progressive, wanting to rebuild Japan and move forward.
- If you talk about the reconstruction of Japan after the war, the most important objective for the government at the time was to really rebuild Japan, so in that sense you may consider the attitude of that government progressive. However if you put the spotlight on the people, also the situation I went through, I could not help being very interested in the fact that people were actually going in the opposite direction, in the interest of the government's banner of reconstruction of Japan. Because the government was very keen on, and pre-occupied with, the reconstruction of Japan and rapid economic growth. - But I had doubts. Under that kind of situation where would the government be taking the whole nation? What direction were they taking us? Those were the questions I could never shake off and I even felt resistance to what was going on. That was very much clear in my films of the seventies.
- A strong theme in the film is the generation gap. the older generations feel that the younger generation no longer respect their elders. But in the film, many of t [Show Less]