A noble experiment: export the ground-shaking work of a Japanese auteur director, set it in the southwest high desert; with cowboys, a shamanic Indian, a Mexican outlaw, a snake oil salesmen, a lapsing preacher, a restless and frustrated wife; acted by Hollwood's circa 1964 pedigree--how could it possibly work? And it doesn't. The reason is simple--Rashomen is a brilliant reckoning of Japan's social turmoil of the time, told by proxies of its own mythologies, in a way that it's marvelously universal, but it is a silly exercise to literally westernize the telling. Paul Newman almost makes it work. E. G. Robinson too. It would have worked better, and fully occidentally perfected, if instead of Claire Bloom and Barry Sullivan playing the husband and wife, it was Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, spitfiring their love and hatred as George and Martha. And if Rod Serling talked us an epilogue. But that would be silly too, right? As probably would any co-option of Rashoman, however told.
Review of The Outrage
