The Idiot (1951 film)
| The Idiot | |
|---|---|
 Original Japanese poster showing Toshirō Mifune (left), Masayuki Mori (centre) and Setsuko Hara (right) | |
| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Written by | Akira Kurosawa Eijirō Hisaita |
| Produced by | Takashi Koide |
| Starring | Setsuko Hara Yoshiko Kuga Toshiro Mifune Masayuki Mori Takashi Shimura Noriko Sengoku |
| Cinematography | Toshio Ubukata |
| Edited by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Music by | Fumio Hayasaka |
| Distributed by | Shochiku |
Release dates | 23 May 1951 (Japan) 30 April 1963 (US) |
Running time | 166 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
The Idiot (白痴, Hakuchi) is a 1951 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Production background
The film is based on the novel The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and was filmed in black and white at an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. This was Kurosawa's second film for the Shochiku studio, after the previous year's Scandal.
Originally intended to be a two-part film with a running time of 265 minutes, the film was severely cut at the request of the studio, against Kurosawa's wishes, after a single poorly-received screening of the full-length version. When the re-edited version was also deemed too long by the studio, Kurosawa sardonically suggested the film be cut lengthwise instead.[1] According to Japanese film scholar Donald Richie, there are no existing prints of the original 265-minute version. Kurosawa would return to Shochiku forty years later to make Rhapsody in August, and, according to Alex Cox, is said to have searched the Shochiku archives for the original cut of the film to no avail.
"Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one... ...I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favourite author, and he is the one — I still think — who writes most honestly about human existence."
— Akira Kurosawa[2]
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Cast
- Masayuki Mori as Kinji Kameda, the idiot
- Toshiro Mifune as Denkichi Akama
- Setsuko Hara as Taeko Nasu
- Yoshiko Kuga as Ayako
References
- ^ Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto. "The Idiot essay". Masters of Cinema. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
- ^ "The Idiot". Masters of Cinema. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
See also
External links
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