Do you or your work or university have access to online archives of Literature/Film Quarterly or Shakespeare Bulletin, at all? (aka what can I read about Ran?)

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I am trying to read stuff, for an adaptations essay I would like to write, maybe with Forbidden Planet etc? I've tried all other recourses - the main library system doesn't stock either *at all* (because, I mean, films), and LION only have recent issues of the former and the latter not at all. I mean, plausibly they just haven't been digitized yet, but a quick google suggests they have and I am going vaguely spare, etc. Might you help?

(Also if you can suggest anything else on Ran/FP, that'd be even better - all I've found is the Yoko Takakuwa essay which is, yknow, alright-but-not-revelatory...)

(Sorry! I never normally do this, honest.)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Hm, I found this, but it's a bit specific:

Blood visibility/invisibility in Kurosawa's Ran

Zvika Serper. Literature/Film Quarterly. Salisbury: 2000.Vol. 28, Iss. 2; pg. 149, 6 pgs

One of the most striking impression in Akira Kurosawa's "Ran," which has a similar plot design to William Shakespeare's "King Lear," is that of the massive presence of blood in the film. The blood in this film is justified in that it reveals a unique manifestation of a dialectical depiction of the visibility or invisibility of the main character's blood.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

There's also this, which given the 'beast' in Forbidden Planet could be interesting:

Author: Kane, Julie.
Title: From the baroque to Wabi: translating animal imagery from Shakespeare's King Lear to Kurosawa's Ran.
Publication Details: Literature / Film Quarterly (25:2) 1997, 146-51.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

Wow. Er wow. Wow.

I'm at home today and just as the credits were rolling on Ran I spot this thread.

Anyway, er, I've just watched it.

― Masked Gazza, Monday, 25 April 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

Quick, Masked Gazza! Write an essay for GP!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

It's Good!

― Masked Gazza, Monday, 25 April 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

It's got clouds!

― Rufus 3000 (Mr Noodles), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

The last scene. Crikey. Is it the most, ah, "loaded-with-meaning" scene in all of cinema?

I can't think of anything else which expresses it all like that scene.
From an existential stance.

― Masked Gazza, Monday, 25 April 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

Lear from study to stage : essays in criticism / edited by James Ogden and Arthur H. Scouten
Publisher: Madison : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; London ; Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, c1997.
(A book, but may be helpful)

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?index=29&did=11682285&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1114442405&clientId=31343

http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2048/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=58618368&sid=3&Fmt=4&clientId=31343&RQT=309&VName=PQD

http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2048/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=6145298&sid=3&Fmt=2&clientId=31343&RQT=309&VName=PQD

http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2048/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=6145299&sid=3&Fmt=2&clientId=31343&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Kinda long URLs, sorry, but links to bib. info/abstracts/first one is full text.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

That last scene! Oh, my!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

Jocelyn, that first one looks good, but I get a
"This document is not available due to either:
- the document is outside of your library's subscription
- the document is very recent and is currently being loaded - please try again later. "

on it - the rest just come up as access denieds :(

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

Ned, that's ace! Would you mind mailing me that, at all, or would there be job trouble? The blood one is on LION, but their coverage starts the issue after the animals one :(

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

Is that your real e-mail?

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

x-post yep!

Also, talk about Ran, y'all! It really made me feel that I don't understand film at all - I mean, I know how to write about it as "Shakespeare" for whatever that's worth, but as film it baffles and amazes me, I need to watch more of these things.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

(The book look totally good, thanks, also!)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

Would you mind mailing me that, at all, or would there be job trouble?

Alas, can't get you the animals one -- all I have access to is the abstract. We're both using the LION database, so there ya are. Sorry!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

No worries Ned!

Jocelyn, I still get "You have requested a resource that is limited to Purdue University West Lafayette Campus Community. You must be a current West Lafayette Campus staff member or student to use this resource" when I try on click on yr mail" :( Thanks loads for trying, though, it is totally kind of you.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 25 April 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

For all the emphasis on battle scenes/visuals in reviews, it's the one-on-one scenes, eg Kyoami and Hidetora, Kurogane and Kaede,
Kaede and Jiro, which make the film. I've only seen a couple of other
Kurosawas but I think this is his forte...the tension, ambiguity of emotion in human relationships, summed up at the end of Ran "the gods cannot help men, men like to kill eachother, they prefer sorrow to joy"
(substitute emotionally torture for kill in many examples and you have Kurosawa's mesage, perhaps).

― Masked Gazza, Monday, 25 April 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, that's a typical restriction (and also why I'd indeed be looked at askance should I try to send the whole article anyway, also why I only posted the details and abstract).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 April 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

This guy on the imdb has an *interesting* pov; last para = balls obv.

Ran: A Feat of Effeteness

Ran is a second-rate retelling of the Lear story, so the flaws in the plot are easiest to explain with reference to King Lear. These are some of the important differences: the subplot is dropped; Goneril and Regan are turned into effete men; an injured and vengeful daughter-in-law is introduced; the Lear-figure (Hidetora) is a warlord rather than a king; the mad Lear scene is weakened to insignificance; the sons try to kill old Hidetora by having a few thousand men fire at him as he sits in a castle; and the additional character of Tsurumaru, a boy who was blinded by Hidetora at some point in his murderous career, is introduced.

Hidetora is a smaller man than Lear; he has the stubbornness without the nobility. His abdication is also a lot sillier. Lear errs by trusting that people will treat him decently: Hidetora errs by supposing that they will forget that they hate him. This is also much more implausible. After all, there is nothing monstrous or unnatural about the daughter-in-law’s attitude towards Hidetora; she just wants her back, and with reason. This diminishes her, and in spite of Kurosawa’s attempt to make her a sex maniac, she is not as large or as interesting as Goneril/Regan.

Unlike Lear, Ran does not give us a sense of the insignificance of Man in nature. The “majestic” (read pompous) scenery shots don’t make us feel that Man in general is helpless—these are no giants to be dwarfed by Nature, just a murderer and an injured woman and several wimps.

The strong stoical undertone of Lear is lost for obvious reasons. Samurai cannot be stoics; they are people who are trained to kill themselves whenever the going gets inglorious. It is amusing but not profound that Hidetora cannot find a dagger to kill himself with when the need arises.

So what’s left of Lear? Only this: People in the world are evil. If you hurt them they’ll hurt you when they can. You should be good even if you suffer (like the blind boy), because general goodness and suffering are the only way to avoid family feuds and make the world a better place. Which is all very edifying, but also very trite.

It must also be noted that because of the lingering, ponderous, “epic” pacing of this film, it goes on for twice as long as it should.

What to expect: 160 minutes of intense tedium as this misshapen hulk of a film drags itself laboriously towards its predictable close. Watching Ran is like running for your life for 2 hours and 40 minutes, but with none of the excitement

― Masked Gazza, Monday, 25 April 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

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