Throne of Blood

[Jun-Dai Bates-Kobashigawa]

> Is this a new Criterion disc for SHICHININ NO SAMURAI? I thought Criterion
> had already released one. The new 16mm print opened here last week and I was
> fortunate enough to write about it for our alt. weekly.

I think it is (I hope it is).  Criterion's not really talking about it,
but they are now working on their second rerelease (400 Blows, Beauty and
the Beast was the first one).  Of all their Kurosawa dvds, this one could
most use a new transfer (hopefully they'll put it on 2 or more discs).  In
any case, Linda Hoaglund mentioned that she had been commissioned by
Criterion to resubtitle 7 films (article here:
http://www.cgj.org/en/c/vol_10-4/title_01.html), and Seven Samurai is one
of them.  Can we hope for multiple subtitle translations on all of them?

I haven't posted before, but in this case I found myself unable to resist.
The idea of using dvd to examine the subtitling of a film is too
interesting, and subtitling in general is a much-overlooked craft (I think
we all tend to forget that we are seeing translations of the films, and
that the difference between a good subtitling and a bad one can be as
significant as the difference between seeing a film widescreen and seeing
it cropped).  It strikes me that examining the differences between
translators as well as their opinions on translating a film is a good way
to better understand what the characters are actually saying, even if you
don't know much about the language their speaking.  I hope dvd producers
will take this into consideration for other releases as well.

Jun-Dai Bates-Kobashigawa