Still from Akira Kurosawa's RAN.
I was thumbing through the video collection at the library the other day, and I spotted a copy of Ran. I checked it out and I have thus far watched about 45 minutes of it. It's pretty engrossing so far, and I had to force myself to shut it off last night (my plan is to watch it in installments after the kid has gone to bed), so as to not stay up until 2:30 watching the thing. The film is inspired by King Lear, and is directed by Akira Kurosawa, whose films I have never seen -- despite my love of George Lucas and the fact that Kurosawa is one of Lucas's main influences.
Unfortunately, the video copy I'm watching is an old VHS issue, with cruddy sound and pan-and-scan video. I'd forgotten how much I hate P&S. There's one scene that really demonstrates how bad P&S is, and it's not even one of Kurosawa's legendary battle scenes (none of which I've come to yet). There is a scene where a nobleman and his wife are sitting side by side in their "throne room" (although they kneel on mats, instead of sitting on thrones -- the term's a descriptor of purpose more than of furnishing), and clearly they are occupying a single shot, which would be fine in a letterboxed format but in P&S requires annoying switching back and forth between the two. Ugh.
(Images courtesy the Japanese Cinema Studies Home Page at Cornell University.)
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