Quadrant

The article explores the manifestly allegorical nature of Kurosawa's controversial 1950 film Rashomon, and how it was directly responding to the dishonesty of individuals called before recent war crimes trials (1946-48). After noting the overt symbolism of the film's opening setting, which manifestly alludes to the plight of Japan, the trials which dominated the nation's media in the late 1940s are also discussed (it notes 29 employees of the film company had been purged). As is stated at the film's onset, the community was distressed because it was evident that lies were being told and the truth concealed: similarly, in post-war Japan no one knew who to believe about war atrocities. Testimony is compromised, Rashomon shows, because the guilty seek to hide their misdeeds. A direct comparison is made with Clouzot's film from the Nazi-Occupation Period, Le Corbeau of 1943, which told a story of village life to likewise highlight dishonesty and betrayal in time of war. As with Rashomon, there was a local backlash against the film due to the plain, if uncomfortable contemporary message it delivered. Kurosawa's use of a medieval setting/story to moralise, again, about post-war Japan in his later samurai films, 'Seven Samurai' and 'Yojimbo', is considered; although, as is pointed out, his allegorical purpose was completely lacking in the popular Western versions of these films, 'The Magnificent Seven' and 'A Fistful of Dollars'. (Another cowboy film, 'High Noon', is praised in passing and likened to Kurosawa's approach.) Rashomon's seeming influence on Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal', another allegorical tale of ethics and personal conduct against a medieval war setting, is also highlighted. 5pp

Secularity is not a canvas for an impressive civic display of religion; it is a substantive value, the freedom to choose beyond the limitations of religious loyalties. This, importantly, also marks the limits for any religiously-based civic activism.

The article examines the Still Life paintings of the major Australian artist John Brack (1920-1999), specifically his "battle" series. It explains how we can understand these strange modernist pictures - which depict groups of pencils, pens and playing cards gathered on table tops - as signifying battles. Several specific paintings are analysed. Noting Brack's reference in conversation to Tolstoy, the discussion sets the paintings against the Russian novelist's explanation (in an article on "War & Peace") of how an artist or writer can represent something as complex as a battle. Especial attention is focussed on the still life painting based on a diagram of the Battle of Waterloo. The last part of the discussion probes the potential meaning of the later "Battle" still-life paintings, where the playing cards spell out words. A potential allusion here to Richard Hoggart's "The Uses of Literacy" is tested. pp8.

In December 1873 the Victorian goldmining town of Clunes, about thirty kilometres north of Ballarat, was the scene for what is remembered as a major uprising against Chinese miners. This event is cited in assorted histories of Australian society in the nineteenth century, often being placed in terms of size and violence close behind the riots at Lambing Flat in 1861 and Buckland River in 1857.

... the dating of the instruments, confirming the marked and calculated dates.8 In addition, Ackermann and Cherry have used the solar altitude tables in ... pasche qui nunquam in bisexto preterit, nec sine bisexto.” e list of dates reads: 1. post nonas aprilis prima dominica fiet pascha ...

... An interesting career to follow: Les Hiatt, 1931-2008 (Obituary). Gray, Geoffrey (2008) An interesting career to follow: Les Hiatt, 1931-2008 (Obituary). ... Author(s), Gray, Geoffrey. Title, An interesting career to follow: Les Hiatt, 1931-2008 (Obituary). Journal name, Quadrant. ...

With the outcome of the June 23 Brexit referendum eliciting reactions of surprise, delight, angst and despair across Britain, Europe and indeed the world, it is timely to take the long historical perspective to understand some of the reasons why a majority of British voters chose to leave the EU. Some of the roots of the British public's present discontent with the European juggernaut were identified by Sir Robert Menzies in 1970. His prescient insights will be explored in detail later.

The moment of creative transition for Fred Williams is signalled by a painting he completed after he had been in London nearly four years. Tree Loppers, a large oil of 1955, marks that step where the promising youngster metamorphoses into a mature artist.