... and a much better film

[learnedax]

At tonight's Lear rehearsal we watched Ran. I hadn't seen it in a long time, and I think the first time I must have missed quite a bit of it, because I only remembered it as being quite good. It's actually stunningly good. It uses a lot of Shakespeare's themes better than Will does. It's a moving painting. Kurosawa uses color as well as just about any other director could use black and white. It's ending may be the most tragic in film history.

Comments

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

I first saw Ran in high school, humanities class. The other film we saw that year was Raise the Red Lantern (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0792899741/qid=1078122722//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl27/102-5352837-8150511?v=glance&s=video&n=507846), which is also really tragic. Have you seen it?

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Nope, haven't seen it. Looking at the IMDB page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101640/), I am ambivalent about needing to rush out and see it. It looks decently good, but unlike Ran it's not the culminating work of, IMHO, last century's best director.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I've seen quite a few Kurosawa movies but not that one. I'll make a mental note to check it out sometime.