OFF: That one obscure album.. Conan

[Doug Pearson]

On Sun, 28 Mar 1999 21:25:10 +0100, Carl Edlund Anderson
<cea20 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK> wrote:

>     Is that Japanese?  I thought it was Chinese ...  Most
>of the Japanese fantasy-oriented films I know are animated.
>... The fantasy stuff draws on
>a rich tradition of folk-belief and historical legend which
>really transcends anything probably _possible_ in the West.
>The average Westerner simply don't have access to the
>equivalent kind of tradition anymore.  We end up having to
>synthesize entirely new traditions (Star Wars, etc.) because
>the old ones aren't well-known enough to be productive--even
>Robin Hood and Arthurian stuff, even Westerns (our closest
>equivalents) don't match up.

Carl successfully mentions the main areas of cross-fertilization between
Japanese and American films, only failing to mention the most important
name: Akira Kurosawa.  The man's films have influenced both American
Westerns ('Seven Samurai' -> 'The Magnificent Seven') AND American sci-fi
('Hidden Fortress' -> 'Star Wars').  I look forward to seeing some battle
set-piece sequences in the upcoming Star Wars movie influenced by
Kurosawa's 'Ran' (which, in turn, borrows from 'King Lear', just as
Kurosawa borrowed from other western influences that I can't name off the
top of my head).  Not to mention that some of those Jedi knights portrayed
in the preview look quite a bit like Samurai warriors ...

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com