Seriously, Guys...Rashomon?!?!

Photo by Flickr user RoninKengo

Who the fuck laughs at Rashomon?

This is the question rolling through my head right now thanks to a last-second work-schedule flop that, at the time, I thought was fortunate. You see, my place of business allows a flexible schedule. I take advantage of this privilege by only working four hours on Fridays. Since my employer gave us off on Friday, I moved the short day to Tuesday. But then, the company who prints the magazine I edit informed me that they would be sending out the pre-publishing review copy for arrival on Tuesday. Since an editor is, for some reason, required to be there on the day his magazine is proofed, I was forced to take my off-day Monday.

Suddenly, there I was, contemplating what I should do with my off-day. Should I just head home and sleep off the soreness that still hampered me after participating in the Philadelphia Marathon festivities? (I ran the 8K.) Go over to the Comcast building for four hours and practice my best Kubrickian psycho stare on their big video screen? Perhaps I could dirty up my clothes a little bit, sit on the corner looking crestfallen, and try to make some money for the upcoming holiday season?

No, instead, I decided to do something constructive for once. Having a chapter to write for my soon-to-be-published book, [title deleted by editor since only authors who post columns more than once per Olympiad can publish shameless plugs for their upcoming vanity projects], I decided I would trek to the closest Barnes & Noble and peck out some prose.

But then I quickly changed my mind. Since creating a masterwork is nowhere near as fun as blowing $300 recession-era dollars on shirts and pants, I stopped at Express. Once I blew an acceptable amount of money, it was time to go get some writing done. I convinced myself that this is why I was going to a bar. Yes, I figured I could get some decent work done at the Olde City establishment Fork. Unfortunately, once I got there, there were actual women there enjoying cocktails. Being that they were moderately attractive, I knew there was no way I would be able to concentrate, so I thumbed through a GQ instead.

Anyway, someplace between sipping my Dogfish Head 60 Minute and indulging in delusional fantasies regarding how these ladies would not be able to keep their hands off of me if I was not married, I remembered something I saw on Friday night: a movie poster at the Ritz at the Bourse. Apparently, Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece Rashomon was playing there for a 1-week engagement (which ends Thursday, if you are interested). Since classic art-house films rarely make appearances in the Philadelphia area, I knew then that I would have to find a way to see the movie. Being that I was now right around the corner, I realized that this was my chance. I eyed the ladies suavely, lifted the beer to my lips, spilled a decent percentage of the thing on my ill-fitting polo, and sprinted for the exit before hearing their amused laughter. I arrived at the theater just in time for a 3:20 showing.

It dawns on me that I should probably share something about Rashomon for the uninitiated. It tells the story of a confrontation that ensues when a bandit sees a man and his wife traveling through a forest in Japan. The rape and murder that takes place is retold from four perspectives, with the differences in the stories indicating the elusive nature of truth. It is tough to overestimate the effect this film would have on film history. Its non-linear structure helped create a new cinematic language, one that was hinted at by Citizen Kane nine years earlier, but was never fully embraced in great part because of Hollywood's distaste for its subject matter. It put Kurosawa on the map, opening the door to a career of future masterpieces, such as Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress, and Ran. It featured one of the all-time classic unhinged performances by Kurosawa staple Toshiro Mifune, who is electric and totally sexy in a platonic, bromantic way as the feral bandit. Heck, it is even supposed to be the first film to use shots into the sun, although I don't really know if that can be proved. Still, the cinematography is incredible, the performances are both raw and operatic, and the story as powerful and affecting as shotgunning a bottle of absinthe.

For proof of its reputation amongst film types, see the poll by respected British film publication Sight & Sound. In 2002, this prestigious query of directors and film critics named this film the ninth best film ever made. In other words, this is seriously great filmmaking. What it is not is a comedy. But don't tell that to the dudes sitting across from me at the movie.

Why is it that, when it comes to going to the movies, you can always tell who the douchebags are going to be? Having nestled into my seat about 10 minutes early, I had plenty of time to soak in my surroundings. There was a rather serious-looking couple in the back row. A professional type in the middle area who, much like myself, looked like he cut out of work early to catch the movie. Some kids who probably enjoy Animal Collective. That was pretty much it. But then as the preview for the new Viggo Mortensen flick, The Road, played, here came two dudes walking down the aisle, chatting without a care in the world. If there is a film-going truism that can be trusted, it is that those who don't respect the previews won't respect the movie, because seeing the previews is half the reason to go to the movie. Sure enough, not five minutes after the movie began, the pair was chuckling at Kurosawa's sparse, philosophical dialogue. When Kurosawa sped up the film to accentuate the frantic reaction of the peasant (another Kurosawa regular Takeshi Shimura) who comes upon the aftermath of the murders, the clowns suppressed laughter as if they were watching an episode of Benny Hill. When the score used an abrupt note emanating from an instrument that sounded not unlike a tuba, the two knuckleheads guffawed as if Shimura had decided to let off a fart mid-take. The wife, descending into madness, cries uncontrollably. NYUK NYUK NYUK!!! Close-up of Shimura, whose lips are kind of big. HARDY-HAR!!! The two men fight to the death at the film's conclusion in an erratic, terrified fashion meant to destroy the myth of the stoic, fearless samurai. CUE THE LAUGH TRACK!!! Part of me wondered what would happen if they played Schindler's List next. Would the two buffoons mistake it for an Al Jolson-era vaudeville act?

I know how I sound here: grumpy as an old age home resident who didn't get his peach cup and out-of-date as a motherfucker. In actuality, I realize that the movie experience was ruined a long time ago. Someplace around the time when some theaters started allowing you to lift the armrests to engage in some mid-movie missionary if you so desired, behavior at the movies began to get a little hinky. Recently, it has devolved to the point where, when I went to see Passion of the Christ a few years ago, some religious zealot actually answered her phone mid-beatdown to tell her friend she was watching "the part where our savior is whipped." At this point, I pretty much expect every movie to be torture since the audience consists mostly of grown-up babies for whom a Blackberry is a pacifier stand-in and kids who can't go five seconds without updating their status on Facebook.

But seriously, Rashomon? I was in an art house at 3:20 in the middle of a workweek watching a subtitled Japanese film that was released 60 years ago. What were those guys even doing there if they weren't prepared to treat the film with the reverence it deserved? Wouldn't they have had to have seen it previously to even step in the door? Wouldn't that have desensitized them to the parts that had them chuckling like a couple of drugged-up mental patients? Did they see the movie poster out front and think Jet Li and Jackie Chan had decided to make the movie that nobody in their right mind is really waiting for them to make together? Were there other purposes? Were they betrothed men who thought the place would be empty so they chose the spot as a place to have secret extramarital gay sex, but once they realized there were other people they decided to just ruin the movie for me instead?

I wish I had answers to these questions, but I don't. So instead, I am simply making a vow I never thought I would make: I am done going to the theater to see movies. Everything will have to "wait for video." I am a person who could tell you every Best Picture Oscar winner since 1938 off the top of his head. I am a person who cried just watching the Titanic trailer. I am a person who spent his young days not going to parties and chasing women, but studying the films of men like Hitchcock, Fellini, and Godard (I chased the women, too, but they all turned me down). I tell you this not to let you know that I am intellectually superior to you in every way. The fact that I have communicated this is a fortunate byproduct of what I am really trying to say: Not going to the movies any more is a big deal for me! But I am going to do it. Because the idiots who surround me have ruined the movie-going experience.

Now I don't want to rag on all of Philadelphia here. I'm sure the two Statler-and-Waldorf impersonators who ruined Rashomon for me are present in another form in other cities. But I will say this: There is a Kurosawa Film Festival coming to the Film Forum in Greenwich Village in January. I'm rolling up there on the 15th to see the master's interpretation of Macbeth, the glorious Throne of Blood. Why do I feel like it probably won't get ruined by two schmucks with nothing better to do on a rainy day than wander into a movie theater and act like assholes?

I love this city. I hate when it looks second-rate. I wonder why it is so rare to see a classic film playing in one of our art houses. I want to know why most of the country looks at us as uneducated buffoons who can only get jazzed about something if it involves a football and a dude who enjoys killing dogs for fun. I run into these guys. I kind of understand now.