A Dash of Mifune: Rashomon and More (Part I)

THE IDIOT

Japan, 1951
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Toshirō Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori
35mm print courtesy of The Japan Foundation. Approx. 146 min.

Introduction by Aaron Gerow, A. Whitney Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages & Literatures and Film & Media Studies

AK’s powerful adaptation of favorite author Dostoevsky. The triangle: Masayuki Mori the holy innocent “Myshkin;” Mifune the homicidal “Rogozin;” and Ozu’s loveable Setsuko Hara as the vicious “Natasha.” When the producers asked him to cut his 4½ hour original, Kurosawa famously replied “If you want to cut it in half, you’d better cut it lengthwise.”