| Hands off Gorillaz songs, Albarn warns 'Glee' Damon Albarn has said he would not allow any Gorillaz songs to be used in 'Glee'. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
Rashomon: No 5 Akira Kurosawa, 1950A woman is raped in a forest by a bandit, and her samurai husband murdered. In court, the victim and her attacker give contradictory accounts of what happened, while the dead man, communicating through a medium, offers another differing interpretation. Finally, a fourth account is given by a woodcutter who claims to have witnessed the attack. But whose version can be believed? Rashomon, which won the Grand Prix at Venice as well as the Oscar for best foreign language film, is an example not only of the great Kurosawa at the height of his powers â working with his regular collaborator, the imposing Toshiro Mifune â but of cinematic storytelling at its most daring. With its multiple contradictory flashbacks conspiring to present truth as an amorphous entity, Rashomon has been hugely influential on film structure and vocabulary in the 60 years since it was made.But this formalist significance should not overshadow the picture's visual eloquence, and the extraordinary cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa, which uses the intricate woodland setting as a metaphor for the story's tangled emotions. "[The] strange impulses of the human heart would be expressed through the use of an elaborately fashioned play of light and shadow," wrote Kurosawa of his preparations for the film, which he adapted in part from the short story, Yabu no Naka (In a Grove), by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. "In the film, people going astray in the thicket of their hearts would wander into a wider wilderness âŠ" The bristling beauty of the film emerged from Kurosawa's quest to reconnect with the roots of the art form, which he worried were in danger of being eclipsed. "Since the advent of the talkies in the 30s," he said, "I felt we had misplaced and forgotten what was so wonderful about the old silent movies. I was aware of the aesthetic loss as a constant irritation. I sensed a need to go back to the origins of the motion picture to find this peculiar beauty again ..." There may be something a shade too reassuring about the final deference to truth and idealism. But this is easily offset by the rigorous psychological work-out to which Rashomon â arguably Kurosawa's greatest work â subjects its audience.CrimeAkira KurosawaWorld cinemaRyan Gilbeyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Our science-fiction and fantasy top 25: who's lost in space? Do you think we stepped into a parallel universe while making our choices for the best films of this genre? Wield your critical lightsaber belowSee the full list hereIn space, no one can hear you seethe. For our penultimate movie-wrangling exercise, we've tackled the biggest one of them all, the death star of genres: science fiction. Surely nowhere else within film fandom are opinions so strongly held, enthusiasms so passionate. It is surely no coincidence that Jedi is an officially recognised religion, while Lebowski-ism is not (though it may not be too far away).Read the list of our top 25 films across sci-fi and fantasy and you'll find all the iconic movies of the last 40 years are represented: Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien and, in the fantasy section, Lord of the Rings. The one film that rules them all, however, is Kubrick's 2001, a more intellectual take on science fiction that never sought to spawn a franchise.Andrew Pulver has blown the Guardian's entire special effects budget in making his case for the list on this video. This thread, meanwhile, is the place for you to take issue with the logic, our rankings, and also the selections themselves.There's room for ET and Pan's Labyrinth, for example, but only three films that predate 1965, with no Invasion of the Body Snatchers, no Forbidden Planet and certainly no Plan 9 from Outer Space. More recent omissions include Predator or Robocop (although there is Starship Troopers), Minority Report (even though there is the outdated Alphaville) and Wall-E (though there is the Wizard of Oz). Finally, two Terminator movies have been given one slot!There's lots to get your teeth, or, if you're an alien, Xenomorph your extendable mandibles into. Please post your comments below.Science fiction and fantasyPaul MacInnesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Africa United: "They obey me, however short I am" Video: Paul MacInnes talks to the director and cast of Africa United, a story about five kids journey from Rwanda to South Africa for the 2010 World CupPaul MacInnesHenry Barnes guardian.co.uk |
Rolling Stones Guitarist Keith Richards' 'Life' Autobiography In his honest reflections on one of rock's most debauched careers, Keith Richards leaves no stone unturned feedproxy.google.com |