Ushered in from another medium, Akira Kurosawa started off as a painter, and it shows most in his use of the telephoto lens that flattens on-screen space into more abstracted compositions. His keen eye for visual elegance, coupled with his strict attention to detail and dictatorial perfectionism (his nickname being "Emperor") allowed him to attain a level of mastery yet unmatched in Japan's history. Indeed, he is not just the best known Japanese director, he continues to be praised and idolized as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time by fellow cinematic notables—from Bergman and Fellini to Spielberg and Scorsese.

His fame began in 1950, when Rashomon's surprise victory at the Venice Film Festival propelled him—and Japanese film in general—into the international spotlight. The film's title literally denotes a location in the film, but has come to signify the 'subjectivity of perception on recollection' owing to the way in which Rashomon's four main characters each give mutually contradictory yet equally plausible accounts of the very same event.

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, Rashomon is perhaps the finest film ever made about the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Akira Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the same story: the murder of a man and the rape of his wife. Starring Toshiro Mifune in a commanding performance, Rashomon revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema to the world.

About The Restoration

Rashomon was restored by the Academy Film Archive in association with the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation and The Film Foundation.
The project began with a survey of the world's film archives to discover what film elements still existed. The original camera negative and soundtrack—originating on highly flammable nitrate film stock—were known to have been destroyed when the storage of nitrate was prohibited in Japan in the 1970s.
The best surviving picture element was a 35mm release print, made from the original nitrate negative, held within the collection of the National Film Center (NFC) in Tokyo. The print was scanned at 4K resolution, and digital tools were used to clear the scratches, dirt, stains and other defects that existed in virtually every frame. The numerous pops, hisses, crackles and distortions on the print's audio track were also digitally removed.

Image Restoration

Several missing frames from the NFC print were found in alternate elements in Fine Grain Master Positive in the Kadokawa Foundation's library.

Nearly every shot contained a scratch, a dig, a scuff, a piece of dirt, an abrasion, stain, or artifact of some kind. As the majority of these age-induced artifacts were part of the print image, the only way to address them was through digital technology.

The images were processed at 2K resolution by Lowry Digital. Many of the procedures required hours of frame-by-frame correction by a team of digital artists using image processing and visual effects software.

After all of the artifacts had been removed and the picture completely restored, Rashomon was output back to film at 4K resolution onto two new polyester digital intermediate negatives—one which will reside in Japan and the other at the Academy Film Archive in the U.S.

Audio Restoration

Both the 1962 NFC print and the Fine Grain Master Positive were transferred into the digital realm at DJ Audio in Studio City, California. A large number of pops, hisses, crackles, and other audio distortions had been introduced into the track over the years while some anomalies may have been present at the time of the film's original release. At Audio Mechanics in Burbank, the defects were digitally removed and the audio continuity restored.

New elements were created of both the raw and restored files on digital tapes and drives as well as on new film and magnetic track elements. Sets of both elements will be stored in Japan and at the Academy Film Archive in the U.S.

Janus Films