RAN d: Akira Kurosawa
Ran (1985)
Direction: Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Masato Ide, and Hideo Oguni
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Hisashi Igawa
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (Winstar Cinema)
Critical cribbing is a term I coined re: the tendency of critics, in all fields, to not engage a work of art directly, but rather to fall back on lazily repeating claims that have been made by others about the thing they are reviewing. Sometimes, these are positive blurbs; other times, these are bits of misinformation repeated endlessly — such as the characters’ names in films like Last Year in Marienbad or Blowup.
A typical example of critical cribbing comes in reviews of Akira Kurosawa’s 27th (of 30) films, [...]
by Dan Schneider | January 22, 2010
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Tags: Akira Kurosawa, Akira Terao, Classic Movies, Daisuke Ryû, Film Reviews, Jinpachi Nezu, Mieko Harada, Oscar 1985, Oscar Movies, Ran, Tatsuya Nakadai, William Shakespeare
THE HUMAN CONDITION Review II
THE HUMAN CONDITION Review: Part I
The Human Condition is often referred to short-handily as an anti-war or anti-military film. That’s a fair characterization as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. What Kobayashi’s film does is deflate any and all of the ideologies bequeathed to us by the modern world, showing them up as pernicious myths. Kaji’s belief that labor can be managed humanely and rationally is swept away by his time in the work camps; his patriotism, by the conduct of the Japanese military; his sympathy for socialism, by his encounter with the tender mercies of the Red Army. Even his [...]
by Dan Erdman | October 15, 2009
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Tags: Classic Movies, DVDs, Film Reviews, Masaki Kobayashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, The Criterion Collection, The Human Condition
THE HUMAN CONDITION d: Masaki Kobayashi
The Human Condition Trilogy
No Greater Love (1959), The Road to Eternity (1959), A Soldier’s Prayer (1961)
Direction: Masaki Kobayashi
Screenplay: Zenzo Matsuyama and Masaki Kobayashi; from Jumpei Gomikawa’s novel
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama
Michiyo Aratama, Tatsuya Nakadai in The Human Condition
Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition, based on Jumpei Gomikawa’s novel, is probably as well known for its scope and scale as for any other reason. Originally released as three films — No Greater Love (1959), The Road to Eternity (1959), and A Soldier’s Prayer (1961) — Criterion has packaged everything together as one massive, nine-and-a-half-hour opus chronicling the adventures of Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), a young Japanese unwillingly participating in the Imperial Army in World War II. The film’s [...]
by Dan Erdman | October 15, 2009
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Tags: A Soldier's Prayer, Classic Movies, DVDs, Film Reviews, Masaki Kobayashi, Michiyo Aratama, No Greater Love, Tatsuya Nakadai, The Criterion Collection, The Human Condition, The Road to Eternity, War Movies