aiff_program10_interior.xp 3/4/10 11:48 PM Page 49
The River Why Throne of Blood
101 minutes ■ 2009 ■ USA ■ In Competition 109 minutes ■ 1957 ■ Japan
Friday 12:00p
■
Saturday 6:00p Friday 3:00p
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Director: Matthew Leutwyler ■ Producer: Kristi Denton Cohen ■ Executive Producers: Director/Editor: Akira Kurosawa ■ Producers: Akira Kurosawa, Shojiro Motoki ■
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Miranda Bailey, Charles Mastropietro, David Quinney III, Shari Quinney, Jun Tan ■ Screenwriters: Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni ■
Screenwriters: Thomas Cohen, John Jay Osborn ■ Cinematographer: Karsten “Crash“ Cinematographer: Asakazu Nakai ■ Music/Composer: Masaru Sato ■ Principal Cast:
tures
Gopinath ■ Editors: Robert Dalva, Matthew Leutwyler ■ Music/Composers: Dominic Miller, Minoru Chiaki, Toshiro Mifune ■ criterion.com/films/735
Austin Wintory ■ Principal Cast: William Devane, Zach Gilford, Amber Heard, Alex Hurt,
William Hurt, Kathleen Quinlan, Dallas Roberts ■ theriverwhy.com
One of the most celebrated screen adaptations of Shakespeare,
this 1957 classic, directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa
Set and filmed in Portland and on the banks of a wild river near
(Rashomon, Seven Samurai), re-imagines Macbeth in feudal
the Oregon Coast, the film is based on the classic novel by David
Japan. The world premiere of the theatrical presentation of
James Duncan (The Brothers K). Twenty-year-old Gus Orviston
Throne of Blood, adapted by acclaimed director Ping Chong,
(Zach Gilford of the TV hit Friday Night Lights) is the Mozart of
will open at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in July. While work is
fly-fishing. His father, Henning Hale Orviston, (William Hurt,
underway to bring this classic to the stage, the AIFF will
The Big Chill) or “H2O” to Gus, is the Dean of American trout
celebrate with a screening of the celluloid version.
fishermen—tweedy, knowledgeable and confident. He represents
all that Gus is not. His mother is H2O’s polar opposite—down-
Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and
to-earth and feisty.
the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells
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the tale of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his
Gus leaves his parents’ home and the city for what he thinks is
ignominious fall. With this masterpiece, Kurosawa fuses one of
fly-fishing bliss—living in a cabin, fishing all day, and figuring
Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies with the formal elements of
out the meaning of life. He becomes increasingly lost and lonely
Japanese Noh Theater to make a Macbeth that is all his own—a
but eventually meets an assortment of eccentric characters that
classic tale of ambition and duplicity set against a ghostly
help him in his journey of self-discovery, including the
landscape of fog and inescapable doom. [subtitles, violence]
philosophical Titus and a fishing-obsessed woman named Eddy
with whom he falls hopelessly in love. This is a work-in-
Akira Kurosawa
progress screening as a thank you to Oregon. [adult content]
Director’s Statement
See Greenlit (p25) for a documentary on the efforts to film The
River Why in an environmentally-friendly way.
When I start on a film I always have a
number of ideas about my project. Then
Matthew Leutwyler
one of them begins to germinate, to sprout,
and it is this which I take and work with.
Director’s Statement
My films come from my need to say a
Upon high school graduation I left on a trek
particular thing at a particular time. It is to
to Australia and took along with me a
make it nurture and grow that I write my script—it is directing
softcover copy of The River Why. It was my
it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.
constant companion on an adventure that
It was a very hard film to make. We decided that the main castle
included working on a dairy farm and
set had to be built on the slope of Mount Fuji, not because I
fishing the various rivers and streams of
wanted to show this mountain but because it has precisely the
Victoria’s high country. I must have read the book four or five
stunted landscape that I wanted. Because we didn’t have
times over the course of my journey, identifying closely with
enough people and the location was so far from Tokyo.
Gus’s departure from his home in pursuit of happiness in the
Fortunately, there was a U.S. Marine Corps base nearby and
wilderness. The book remained a favorite of mine over the years
they helped a great deal; also a whole MP battalion helped us
since I returned so naturally when the opportunity came to direct
out. We all worked very hard indeed, clearing the ground,
the film version it was a dream come true.
building the set. Our labor on this steep fog-bound slope, I
remember, absolutely exhausted us.
Filmography: Dead and Breakfast, Road Kill, This Space Between Us, Unearthed
Selected Filmography: Dersu Uzala, Ran, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo
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