OPINION: How to spark a revolution

Let me take you back in time for a moment. It’s 1951. Actually, let’s go farther back. It’s 1946.

Europe is still reeling from the effects of World War II. Still, that hasn’t stopped the artistic pursuits in the movies. The Cannes Film Festival is holding their first event, with 21 countries present across the 43 feature films in the main competition. You might have heard of two directors in the ring: Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock.

This was the age of noir and post-war anxiety. Hitchcock wasn’t quite in his suspense bones yet, but film buffs know his gothic noirs of the time were forming his own brand of dreamy atmosphere. Before Cary Grant starred in “North by Northwest,” there was “Notorious.”

The same is true for Billy Wilder, a decade away from the comedies “Some Like It Hot” and “The Apartment.” Of course, Wilder has had his own evolutions. In four years, he’d direct “Sunset Boulevard” whose legacy still defines noir and Hollywood’s ability to poke itself full of holes.

While festivals at this time were grand, they were also wildly chaotic. Eleven films from 1946 would win the top prize of the festival (including Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend.”)

Cannes has a smaller but older brother, and one heavily influenced by the wartime. The Venice International Film Festival hadn’t had an official edition of their festival since 1939-1942, where the National Fascism Party of Italy had full control over the content and awards, and often awarded the propoganda films from Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy with the top honors.

But in 1947, the festival ballooned back to its festive size, 42 films from about 25 countries in the main competition.

The appeal of Venice compared to Cannes came in festivities. It’s hard to imagine considering how different celebrity culture is today, but Cannes was a truly glamorous occasion while Venice stayed quietly focused on the art. Cannes sometimes had money troubles due to the spectacle it often attracted, but Venice quietly was rebuilding its way up.

But, in 1951, Venice wasn’t really kicking anything up. The United States, United Kingdom and France supplied 11 of the 13 films shown in the main competition of the 12th year of the festival, with one each from Italy (the home turf, quite disappointing) and Japan.

The age of the film noir was now growing stagnant, as escapism returned with fantasy and comedies. Yet, the noir hadn’t escaped just yet at Venice.

The U.S. presented two films which would fit this category. Although Wilder was at the point of distancing himself from the genre, his drama “Ace in the Hole” depicting a cynical reporter who finds a big break when a man gets trapped in a cave was heavy in noir influence.

So was the festival’s closing film in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” by far the favorite to win the top prize. With a screenplay written by Tennessee Williams himself and Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando and Karl Malden on screen, this was positioned to be the highlight of the three-week festival.

The festival opened on a dry note with the Walt Disney-produced “Alice in Wonderland.” Reviews were lukewarm (an Americanized Lewis Carroll adaptation in the heart of European culture didn’t sit right with many contemporary critics. Oh, how things can change).

Other films were shown. “Born Yesterday” and “The River” surprised and Best Italian Film was given to the sole nominee of “Four Ways Out.” But one film stood out. Across the slate of Euro-centric and American films, Japan, unknowingly, had submitted Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon.”

Japan’s film industry was heavily against appearing in foreign markets. The cost of producing film prints with subtitles at the time was much too high, but the industry was experiencing a cultural boom.

Noir had even infected Japan, with Kurosawa a year prior directing “Stray Dog,” a film about a police officer who has his firearm stolen and goes on a rampage to track it down before it’s used to harm others.

Kurosawa had no idea “Rashomon” was being screened halfway across the world. It was the work of Italifilm president Giuliana Stramigioli, who had seen the film while stationed in Japan and fought for its inclusion in Venice.

Japan itself wasn’t a fan of “Rashomon.” Increasingly disappointed in what they saw as Western influences on Kurosawa’s films, they fought to have another director as their representative. The film’s distributor Daiei, and their president Masaichi Nagata, hated the movie, with Nagata saying he “didn’t really get it” and called it “incomprehensible.”

“Rashomon” tells the story of a samurai’s murder and rape of his wife from four different perspectives, which conflict and contradict each other. It’s a radical storytelling approach. This was 1951, where the world was still heavy in the linearly paced noir.

Distinct with the Japanese culture and holding a strange mode of storytelling, “Rashomon” was snuck in early in the festival without Kurosawa’s knowledge. The birth of the “Rashomon effect” was seen firsthand by international film critics anyways.

Within “Rashomon” and its contradictory method of storytelling was a question. Can truth be subjective? It’s a challenge to a world still reeling from WWII and its effects, and Venice witnessed it first.

“Rashomon” would be awarded the top prize in a surprising move over “Streetcar.” Nagata would later keep the original Golden Lion statuette for himself, with replicas produced for the film’s crew, including Kurosawa.

The effect of the film’s success led to Japanese cinema being taken seriously for the first time. Kurosawa would go on to direct “Ikiru,” “Seven Samurai,” “High and Low” and “Ran,” among others. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas would credit Kurosawa as an essential influence.

But the biggest lesson which might come from “Rashomon” and the Venice Film Festival comes from how culture has a way to get tunnel-visioned. All it takes is something fundamentally different and challenging to spark a most exciting revolution.