Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed 30 films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style, strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it; he was involved with all aspects of film production.
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior.
Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, it follows various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest. The plot and characters are based upon Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story "In a Grove", with the title and framing story taken from Akutagawa's "Rashōmon". Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic to the bandit in the forest, the monk, the assault of the wife, and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows their ideal self by lying.
In literature, film, and other such arts, an unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. While unreliable narrators are almost by definition first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable second- and third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television, but sometimes also in literature.
In a Grove, also translated as In a Bamboo Grove, is a Japanese short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1922. It was ranked as one of the "10 best Asian novels of all time" by The Telegraph in 2014. In a Grove has been adapted several times, most notably by Akira Kurosawa for his award-winning 1950 film Rashōmon.
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist ending or surprise ending. It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it, but it usually comes with some element of surprise. There are various methods used to execute a plot twist, such as withholding information from the audience, or misleading them with ambiguous or false information. Not every plot has a twist, but some have multiple lesser ones, and some are defined by a single major twist.
A flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward reveals events that will occur in the future. Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative.
An Instance of the Fingerpost is a 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears.
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia. However, in countries like the United States, it is often used to refer only to the cinema of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle Eastern cinema, along with the cinema of Egypt. The cinema of Central Asia is often grouped with the Middle East or, in the past, the cinema of the Soviet Union during the Soviet Central Asia era. North Asia is dominated by Siberian Russian cinema, and is thus considered part of European cinema.
"A Matter of Perspective" is the 14th episode of the third season of the American syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), and the 62nd episode of the series overall. It was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon. The 45-minute episode was broadcast on February 12, 1990 on television. It was written by Ed Zuckerman.
The Outrage is a 1964 American Western film directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson and William Shatner. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, based on stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Like Kurosawa's film, four people give contradictory accounts of a rape and murder. Ritt utilizes flashbacks to provide these contradictory accounts.
The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the animal's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true. The parable originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused.
Vantage Point is a 2008 American political action thriller film directed by Pete Travis and written by Barry L. Levy. The story focuses on an assassination attempt on the President of the United States in Salamanca, Spain, as seen from the various vantage points of different characters. Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver star.
Andha Naal is a 1954 Indian Tamil-language mystery-thriller film, produced by A. V. Meiyappan and directed by S. Balachander. It is the first film noir in Tamil cinema, and the first Tamil film to be made without songs, dance, or stunt sequences. Set in the milieu of World War II, the story is about the killing of a radio engineer Rajan. The suspects are Rajan's wife Usha, the neighbour Chinnaiya Pillai, Rajan's brother Pattabi, Rajan's sister-in-law Hema (Menaka), and Rajan's mistress Ambujam. Each one's account of the incident points to a new suspect.
The Woman in Question is a 1950 British murder mystery film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Jean Kent, Dirk Bogarde and John McCallum. After a woman is murdered, the complex and very different ways in which she is seen by several people are examined. It was loosely adapted into the 1954 Indian film Andha Naal.
Transnational cinema is a developing concept within film studies that encompasses a range of theories relating to the effects of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film. It incorporates the debates and influences of postnationalism, postcolonialism, consumerism and Third cinema, amongst many other topics.
Ulidavaru Kandante is a 2014 Indian Kannada-language neo-noir gangster film written and directed by debutant Rakshit Shetty. Shetty appears in the lead role, along with Kishore, Tara, Achyuth Kumar, Rishab Shetty, and Yagna Shetty playing supporting roles. The film revolves around five stories connected to an incident of a person's murder, with each character narrating it in his own perspective.
Talvar (transl. Sword), released internationally as Guilty, is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language crime-thriller drama film directed by Meghna Gulzar and written by Vishal Bhardwaj. Produced by Bhardwaj and Vineet Jain, the film is loosely based on the 2008 Noida double murder case involving a teenage girl and her family's servant. Starring Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Neeraj Kabi, the film follows the investigation of a case from three different perspectives in which her parents are either guilty or innocent of the murder charges by the police investigation, the first Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and an investigation by a different CBI team.
Uyarndha Manithan is a 1968 Indian Tamil-language drama film written by Javar Seetharaman and directed by Krishnan–Panju. The film was produced by A. V. Meiyappan, M. Saravanan, M. Kumaran and M. Murugan under AVM Productions. It stars Sivaji Ganesan and Sowcar Janaki, while S. A. Ashokan, Major Sundarrajan, Vanisri and Sivakumar play pivotal roles. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by M. S. Viswanathan, while the lyrics for the songs were written by Vaali.
Junglee Pictures is a film production and distribution company that was established by Vineet Jain of The Times Group in 2014. As of 2022, the company has produced nine Hindi films.
