Rashomon – Frame by Frame

The Modern School of Film’s founder, Robert Milazzo, leads an in-depth, active deconstruction and group-discussion. This screening was created with the cinephile in mind, to delve deeper in the art and craft of film. The active deconstruction format will allow for the instructor to stop the film at points and lead in depth discussions about the techniques being used in the film, as you watch it. Explore the depth and breadth of film as an art form and see films you love in a new way! Not Rated: Rashomon Directed by Akira Kurosawa (1951) For his feature-film debut, This landmark film is a brilliant exploration of truth and human weakness. It opens with a priest, a woodcutter, and a peasant taking refuge from a downpour beneath a ruined gate in 12th-century Japan. The priest and the woodcutter, each looking stricken, discuss the trial of a notorious bandit for rape and murder. As the retelling of the trial unfolds, the participants in the crime ̶ the bandit, the rape victim, and the murdered man ̶ tell their plausible though completely incompatible versions of the story. In the bandit’s version, he and the man wage a spirited duel after the rape, resulting in the man’s death. In the woman’s testimony, she is spurned by her husband after being raped. Hysterical with grief, she kills him. In the man’s version, speaking through the lips of a medium, the bandit beseeches the woman after the rape to go away with him. She insists that the bandit kill her husband first, which angers the bandit. He spurns her and leaves. The man kills himself. Seized with guilt, the woodcutter admits to the shocked priest and the commoner that he too witnessed the crime. His version is equally feasible, although his veracity is questioned when it is revealed that he stole a dagger from the crime scene. Just as all seems bleak and hopeless, a baby appears behind the gate. The commoner seizes the moment and steals the child’s clothes, while the woodcutter redeems himself and humanity in the eyes of the troubled priest, by adopting the infant. (credit: allmovie.com) Will call tickets may be picked up at The Cary Box Office beginning one hour prior to the movie.