THE ESSENTIALS: "RASHOMON"
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Ava DuVernay is Ben Mackiewicz’s guest co-host for TCM’s The Essentials this month, and this week DuVernay selects some seminal films by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. His 1950 drama, Rashomon, has remained, ever since, the template for all movie dramas showing the same event from multiple perspectives, and it leads off tonight’s Essentials showcase. Toshiro Mifune (pictured), later to co-star in NBC’s Shogun, stars in this story of a samurai who is murdered, and his wife raped – a story retold from several points of view, including the samurai’s ghost. And that’s followed, at 9:45 p.m ET, by 1957’s Throne of Blood, Kurosawa’s moody and masterful interpretation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Toshiro Mifune also stars in that one.