The Tales of ‘Rashomon’

Akira Kurosawa’s powerful 1950 drama “Rashomon” was given an honorary Oscar for outstanding foreign language film, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was voted by the Village Voice Film Critics’ Poll as one of the 10 best films of the 20th century. Even the title has become synonymous for a story that is told from different points of view.

The Criterion Collection has treated “Rashomon” with the respect it deserves in a lovely new digital edition ($40) that features a stunning high-definition transfer with restored image and sound.

Frequent Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune gives one of his many electrifying performances, playing a bandit who rapes a woman and kills her samurai husband in the densely layered forest one afternoon.

Or did he? Kurosawa plays with audiences’ expectations of reality and truth in “Rashomon” as four different people, through flashbacks, offer their versions of what happened that fateful day in the forest.

Besides Kurosawa’s brilliant storytelling, “Rashomon” also features the incredible black-and-white cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa, whose remarkable use of light and shadows helps bring this compelling tale to life.

The DVD includes a video introduction by Robert Altman, who talks about the influence of the film on his craft; excerpts from the 1990 Japanese documentary “The World of Kazuo Miyagawa” and commentary from Donald Richie, an authority on Japanese film who discusses Kurosawa’s exploration of relative reality and using the triangle as a framing device for his characters.

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The 1995 mystery thriller “The Usual Suspects” arrives this week on DVD in a special edition from MGM ($25). Christopher McQuarrie won an Oscar for his clever screenplay, which keeps audiences asking the identity of the villain, Keyser Soze. Kevin Spacey also picked up his first Academy Award for his supporting performance as a small-time hood with cerebral palsy who knows more about the evil kingpin Soze than he is letting on. Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite and Benicio Del Toro also star. Bryan Singer directed.

The digital edition features both the wide- and full-screen version of the indie hit; a not-so-entertaining gag reel that had been originally done by Singer to amuse the cast just in case they didn’t like the final film; home video shot by Pollak’s wife, Linda, at the Cannes Film Festival; and numerous featurettes on the conception, casting and production. Included are interviews with the cast, Singer, McQuarrie and editor-composer John Ottman. The latter offers commentary on several deleted scenes.

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Kino’s fascinating new “Vamps, Vixens and Virgins” DVD collection ($30 each) features five silent films that challenged the limits of screen sexuality during the early days of cinema.

“A Fool There Was,” from 1915, stars Theda Bara, who was considered cinema’s first sex symbol and introduced the term “vamp.” She plays a “vampire,” a seductive woman who uses her charms to seduce, ruin and abandon a series of influential men. The DVD also features a scrapbook of photographs and the text of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Vampire.”

Two of Cecil B. DeMille’s early films, 1915’s “The Cheat” and 1922’s “Manslaughter,” are presented as a double feature on one disc.

Fannie Ward and Sessue Hayakawa star in “The Cheat,” a florid tale of a wealthy Burmese trader who exacts a high price from a society woman when he settles a debt for her. “Manslaughter,” which features an evocative new jazzy score by the Alloy Orchestra, stars Leatrice Joy as a spoiled debutante who is forced to change her ways after she causes the death of a traffic cop.

Rounding out the collection is a Clara Bow double bill: 1925’s “Parisian Love” and 1922’s “Down to the Sea in Ships.”

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On the surface, Anchor Bay’s new “The Three Stooges--Greatest Hits & Rarities” ($14) sounds like it will be a nyuk-nyuk-out for any Stooge fan because it features classic shorts starring the knuckleheads, TV commercials and other rarities. But the disc is a major disappointment.

The visual quality of the four shorts--”Malice in the Palace,” “Sing a Song of Six Pants,” “Disorder in the Court” and “Brideless Groom”--is muddy and dark. A 1950 “Camel Comedy Caravan” starring Ed Wynn features Moe, Larry and Shemp hamming it up as Wynn’s guests stars, but it isn’t very funny. And neither is “Knife of the Party,” a 1934 musical short starring Shemp and Three Stooge wannabes.

Curly makes his first appearance as a Stooge in a 1933 short, “Hollywood on Parade,” which also features Jimmy Durante and Ben Turpin.

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Also new from Anchor Bay this week on DVD is the cult 1980 Disney thriller, “Watcher in the Woods” ($20). Carroll Baker and David McCallum play an American couple who move into a big British country house with their two daughters (Lynn-Holly Johnson and Kyle Richards). The house is owned by the mysterious Mrs. Alywood (Bette Davis), who lives in the smaller house on the property and is still mourning the disappearance of her daughter 30 years earlier.

Both girls soon find unexplainable things happening: mirrors without reflections, circles of light, sudden lightning strikes, voices and visions of Davis’ daughter.

The film is entertaining and oozes atmosphere, but the scariest thing about it is Johnson’s over-the-top, tremulous acting style.

The special-edition DVD features the film’s original deleted ending and an alternate ending. Both include commentary by director John Hough.

There are also trailers, a TV spot and commentary from the British-born Hough, who is best known for directing the horror hit “The Legend of Hell House.”

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Though MGM describes its DVD of the Bruce Willis-Billy Bob Thornton-Cate Blanchett caper comedy “Bandits” as a special edition ($27), the disc doesn’t include any commentary from director Barry Levinson. But what it does feature is a decent behind-the-scenes featurette, an alternate ending with commentary from Blanchett, deleted scenes introduced by Levinson, and “Inside Scene 71,” a compelling look at how the scene in which Willis and Blanchett share a bed that’s divided by a blanket evolved from script to screen.

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Get out your hankies for “Life as a House” (New Line, $25), about a dying man who brings his estranged family together. It’s made palatable by the strong performances of Kevin Kline and Hayden Christensen (who will soon be seen as Anakin Skywalker in “Star Wars II”).

The passable digital edition features a lengthy documentary on the making of the film, four deleted scenes with optional commentary from director Irwin Winkler, another documentary on the design and construction of the house used in the film, the trailer and serviceable commentary from Winkler, co-producer Rob Cowen and writer Mark Andrus.