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run joe, run wrote:To cut the guy a bit of slack, he was making a point in his first post about something other than simply who's best: why certain "foreign" directors are canonised into America's cinematic culture and others aren't.

yeah, that's my main point. it's rather suspect to me that a very limited selection of foreign films is often chosen from a vast world of what's out there. unwittingly or not, this creates what is arguably a false alternative to the dominant cinema. as far as widely well known foreign stuff goes, kurosawa or bergman are the cream of the crop, but then you have TONS of sentimental crap like Cinema Paradisio that would never receive two thirds of the attention it does if it didn't have italians in it.

i've recently relocated back to my parents house for a few months, and the nearby videostore has an exceedingly clueless selection of foreign films (barring the occasional great title like Tarkovsky's Solaris, etc.). and i noticed they have Godard's recent In Praise of Love, and it occurred to me that perhaps the only reason they've stocked this blatantly marxist film is that it's by that one Godard guy we've all heard about and it has the word "LOVE" in the title. (this seems particularly evident given the absence of any of his other, often better films.)

the reason i brought up Bresson is that i think it's terribly unfortunate that an artist of his magnitude (and fame -- he's incredibly well known elsewhere) isn't even part of the cultural dialog here. irealize his films are "ascetic" at times, and certianly challenging, but i've shown stuff like A Man Escaped and L'Argent to friends who could boast no particular knowledge of film history, etc., and they didn't need a shred of schooling to realize how awesome they were. the proof's in the pudding. if i sound liek a cranky pedant, i'm sorry. i just hope that when Criterion finally puts out Pickpocket it finds its way into the hearts and minds of new viewers in the same way many Kurosawa films have.

IPL wrote:

anyone here check out the recent japanese film Nobody Knows by Hirokazu Kore-Eda? it's gotta be one of the greatest movies of our time. fucking brilliant on so many levels. i'd trade that movie alone for a whole shelf full of Kurosawa. it's deeply moving.

I loved this movie...so beautiful...not sure if i'd hold it up to Seven Samurai et al...not really in the same park. They have dramatically different styles. I will be on the look out for more Hirokazu Kore-Eda films tho....he's definitely talented.

yeah, i mostly brought it up as an example of really stellar Japanese cinema. i'm just very excited that a film like this came out recently and was unaminously well-received (not a single person walked out at the screening i attended in Minneapolis, and it's a logn movie).

as far as other stuff by Kore-Eda goes, i'd check out Maborosi -- very Ozu-esque in its compositions (lots of perceptually dense geometrical shots and graceful editing). Distance is pretty good too, a nice meditation on the effects "revolutionary"/cult activity can have on the revolutionary's loved ones. After Life i only saw once, in the theatre, and thought it was ultimately skippable.

good to hear you liekd Nobody Knows.

If you liked Rashomon, do yourself a favor and read In A Grove and Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (sp?). These two stories were combined for the screenplay.

yes, i did just that and found both stories excellent. korusawa did a great job adapting them into the screenplay

Kurosawa is great. Period. I understand being puzzled or annoyed by the imbalance of attention that is paid to his films as opposed to those of other great Japanese directors (hell, any foreign directors), but trying to 1) drag Bresson into this thread and 2) making ridiculous and largely indefensible statements like one is better than the other is more irritating and misguided than the overall ignorance of your basic Blockbuster Video rental hound. It's just goofy and strident and off topic all at once.

Anyway, for those who really get into the Mifune-Kurosawa chemistry, check out Mifune with Inagaki in the Samurai Trilogy or Chushingura, all of which are supposedly more 'Japanese' in that the action is clearly secondary to the cultural trappings of the samurai lifestyle or the political gamesmanship of the era being portrayed. Chushingura especially will require a bit more attentiveness, but the payoff is grand.

Finally, in an anal stroke of tidying up, John Sturges rather than John Ford was responsible for directing the Magnificent Seven.

so maybe the more culture you understand, the better understanding of the film. i grew up in japan watching all of this, now being 29 and finally being able to understand my own differences of identity, i am questioning how people are "put on" by certain cultural propoganda. some of which, can be seen in film today.

'so maybe the more culture you understand, the better understanding of the film'

I think this is especially the case where cultural commentary is at the heart of the narrative.

Still, it is hard to pinpoint how much my enjoyment of It's a Wonderful Life or The Searchers or Fight Club, say, is based on being American. The films both fit into and create culture.

On the other side of the coin, while I like French Noirish films from the 50s and Japanese cinema in general, I can't say that I feel I really understand these cultures much more than if I had not seen the aforementioned filmographies. It would be hard to really put into words what I believe I have learned about japanese culture as the result of watching all types of yakuza or samurai or pink films. When one considers how 'western' the influences on these great 'foreign' directors have been, it gets even more difficult to parse what is familiar and what is being learned as new. If one were to compare, say, Giants and Toys and 1,2,3 or, say , Point Blank with Youth of the Beast, there would be many points of cross cutting cultural indicators from which one might learn of differing cultures and eras. I suppose. Further, how many perceived differences are superficial and how many are substantively deep? I don't pretend to know.

I have heard people suggest that subtitles lead one astray, and I guess that can be true depending on the quality and faithfulness of the translation. These people have argued that you can't really 'get' what's going on because intricacies of culture get 'lost in translation.' I have never really felt that I missed too much because of such gaps in my perception or knowledge. Film is its own language, of course, and humanity as a launching pad for narrative is surprisingly elastic and universal.

Ranxerox,

I assume you are aware of Criterion's forth coming Samurai set due out in October?

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/connections.asp?id=63

punch

I was aware of that box set. Criterion is going to broke me out one day.

Thanks

Ranxerox wrote:It's just goofy and strident and off topic all at once.

okay, okay, okay: i'll be sure never to bring up Garbage Pail Kids in your Micro Machines appreciation thread.

What I find most fascinating about Kurosawa's films, as well as in Japanese culture, is the emphasis of the visuals rather than the less potent words. From what I understand the Japanese don't trust words as much.

The lessons Kurosawa illustrates in his movie can really apply to everyone because we're all human and deal with many of the same issues. This is fairly obvious but some don't see it like that.