Rashomon
Kurosawa Akira1951
Class Notes
Week 4
America Notices Japan
Rashomon
Kurosawa Akira
1951
This is probably Kurosawa's most discussed film
Rashomon is the name of the gate at the south entrance to the city of Kyooto. (Kyoto).
There is a kind of myth that the film did not do well in Japan. It was, in fact, the fourth highest grossing film that year.
Second: Japanese were surprised that a film NOT made for export. It won a number of prizes that year including an Oscar, and made the West aware of Japanese films.
Westerners however, often thoughtthat this was a "typical" Japanese film, which it is not - no moerso than 2001 A Space Odyssey is a "typical American film". (Remember we raised this question at the beginning of the term about chosing fimls which are typical and representative, or those that are "outstandning". The Japanese, like some Americans were somewhat puzzled by the film. More on that later.
The film is based on two short stories by a famous Japanese writer named Akutagawa Ryuunosuke "Rashomon" (1915, tr 1930) and "Yabu no Naka" 1922 tr as "In a Grove" 1952). The first deals with the gate itself and a discharged servant contemplating a life of crime man who climbs the gate and finds a woman pulling hair out of a corpse so she can sell the hair for wigs. The story deals with the ways people handle hard times.
The second "In a Bush" is the major part of the film, which deals with the Samurai, his wife and the thief.
The film is set at the end of the Heian period (12th Century - 1100's when the country's central government and court authority were being undermined by autonomous political and military powers in the provinces. The court aristocracy had been artistically oriented producing such works as the Tale of Genji saw this with foreboding. There were fires, earthquakes, pestilence, rebellions by warrior monks and violent crime in Kyooto, the capital city at the time. In Buddhism prophecy it seemed a period known as "the end of law" when everything falls into degeneracy The story talks about natural phenomenon as a cause, the film stress more the human problems of greed and so on. (Even the demons have fled because they are horrified by humans).
THINGS TO WATCH FOR IN THE FILM
1.In the Story
a. How is the story told? (That is, what is its structure)
b. Is anything or anyone "privileged" (a term used to mean is anyone considered more important than anyone
else).
c. How is gender discussed, if at all?
d. Symbolism
e. What do you know about the Heian Period
II In the film techniques
a. What kind of shots are there and how are they used?
Long, two shots, three shots, pans etc.
b. How are scenes changed? Cuts, dissolves, wipes
c. How is the films lit?
d. What kind of sets are there and how do they appear visually?
III. In class we have discussed major themes such as nature, past vs. present, city vs. country; nino vs. giri. Obviously not all of these occur in all films. In this film there is little discussion about ninjo and giri . This is largely because the film is set in the late Heian period (late 12th Century), and these concepts are not yet there at that time. They are associated with later periods like Tokugawa. This is one of he reasons that some knowledge of history is needed here.
Remember the question at the beginning of the term about universal vs. cultural vs. individual aspects of the film. This film has aspects at all levels. There is a universal question, a cultural answer and an individual handling of the answer.
Nature:
Opening shots in torrential rain
Appearance of the Roshomon itself. What does it represent
The nature of the times - when is the film set? What was happening then?
Wood cutter's walk through the woods.
Effect of sinlight and shadow - what is obscured?
Compare the look of the gate, the woods and the starkness of the court scenes.
Past and Present
Does this film comment on the present (ie the time when it was made)?
Gender:
What things can we say about gender here?
Music composed by Hayasaka Fumio :
Bolero like. Kurosawa specifically asked the composer to compose something like Ravel's Bolero
TECHNIQUES
Acting
A question of style. Like silent movies (not a bad comparison here) a style requires some work on the part of the audience to understand it. If you are used to it it is not a problem. One can laugh at silent screen performances, but only often if you don't try to follow them. How would you describe the acting style here?
Photography by Miyagawa Kazuo:
What kind of shots does the director use?
Cuts, wipes, dissolves when are they used what do they mean?
Examine the first shot of the wood cutter going into the woods. Can you work out the details of it?
Watch the scene when the bandit Tajomaru first sees the woman. How much is expressed visually?
What do the woods have to do with it?
In what ways does the music help or hinder the atmosphere. (Compare perhaps with Kubrick and his use of music)
Dialog
Often non synchronous. Watch for relationship between sound and image as in Kwaidan
Sets;
Horizontals, verticals and diagonals - how used to indicate things?
AFTER THE FILM
The film takes its atmosphere from the story Rashomon which interestingly enough is the title of the film. Known for its questioning of reality, the film discusses the same event told from different perspectives. Although clearly the story of the rape/murder is where the major points of conflict occur and are remembered by the audience there are several stories in the film that have ambiguous problems:
(a) the capture of the thief told by the police and the bandit. Was he thrown? Was he sick
(b) the major story with the 4 verisions of the rape/murder
(c) the argument about the behavior of the parents of the baby left at the gate. Did they just have fun and leave it, or were they unable to keep it and left it with an amulet and so on to protect it
(d) the question of the woodcutter's taking of the baby and his purpose in doing so. The priest thinks he will sell it and the woodcutter says he has six others what does one more matter.
WHAT IS THE OPENING OF THE FILM ABOUT?
The film opens with the priest discussing his loss of faith because of the trial. This poses the real question of the film - not what happened, but the question of the conflict of what happened. Why are there different conflicting stories (largely in the murder/rape story). The other story of the trial - the capture of the bandit by the police officer is also conflicted but little is made of it WHY? Do these things happen regularly but they are insignificant and not noticed or does the reason for the conflict seem obvious (BRAVADO by the bandit). Is it significant why he fell off the horse - probably not.
The Major problem lies in the main story. Who did the murder?
| Wife | ? |
| Bandit | He himself did it |
| Samurai | suicide |
| Woodcutter | bandit did it |
The question here is one of the nature of the question, the nature of causality and the nature of perception. AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES when asked about how babies are "made" give answers that imply supernatural cause and have nothing to do with sex. Little children there however, give sexual reason not supernatural. The problem here is one of causality - adults believe everyone knows how babies are physically conceived, but the nature of their social status is something which comes only with esoteric knowledge that children don't have. Hence children give simplistic obvious reasons, but adults give far more complex ones that children, lacking the esoteric knowledge can not know.
In the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby" the question is asked "All the lonely people, where do they all come from? " What is a reasonable answer to the question? How would you feel about "Chicago". The question is not taken as a physical location , but rather as a philosophical or social one. "What is the cause of people's loneliness?"
What is the cause of death? Do you mean physical? When someone says "Why did this person have to die" do we want the medical report?
For the bandit and the wood cutter, there is no question - the bandit stabbed him. The samurai ckais he commited suicide. Probably because he couldn't admit to being defeated by the bandit.The other possibility is that he sees the cause of his death being his inability to prevent things from happening. In part his greed for the swords and the mirrors offered by the bandit; in part in being caught off guard; in part for his inability to stop the attackon his wife. In this sense he is the cause, in the same way the bandit says the wind or the breeze taht blew the veil away from the woman's face is the cause.
The bandit and the samurai both agree on the nature of the battle. It was very well fought. The bandit was impressed with the samurai's swordsmanship. Why does the wood cutter make the look so ridiculous? What does a wood cutter know about sword fighting? Try to find someone who knows nothing about foot ball and let them watch a game and explain the rules!
The story about the baby and the question of the behavior of the parents brings the question of conflicting stories closer to home. The priest is now involved in the event, albeit tangentially.
The last conflict is between the priest and the wood cutter over the taking of the child. The priest says "Thank you for restoring my faith in humans". Can it be that this one's person generosity did that? Unlikely. How then do we explain the final ending
RELIGION REVISITED
Miko: Originally a shamanistic character. A female "medicine woman" Later a female in Shinto. The rice sets up a sacred space with shimenawa (closing rope). Remember the torii. Miko in this film can contact the deceased who can then testify. The translation as "medium" is a bit off in that mediums are often thought of as fakes and charlatans.
Notice, the interesting flash of lightening at Roshomon just before we enter into the supernatural version with the deceased samrai tells his story through the medium. Notice too the way the samurai's voice and words, come through the Miko's mouth. How much can we trust words?
Buddhism:
One of the tenets of Buddhism is that experience is the only real learning. Verbalization means little. We mentioned this before when we talk about the fact that Kurosawa does not trusting the word. The image is all important and he often evidenced a feeling that something was lost once the films developed synchronous sound. Although Buddhism may use words, they are often for the purposes of bringing about an event that yields understanding or enlightenment.
Hence the priests involvement in the story is now complete HE has experienced the misunderstanding and realizes this is not necessarily deception and lies, but a question of perception. This is a very nearly "post modern" approach about 45 years ahead of its time. It is also an "culturally relative approach" indicating that perceptions are what people report, not necessarily what happened. The people here are not evil, but rather have specific perceptions. This is the revelation or epiphany at the end of the film for the priest.
Kurosawa has said that he is interested in the question of why people aren't happier. His films often answer with "greed" and so on. One might argue that in this film the cause lies outside of people and certainly outside of their willfulness. The lack of contentment comes from different ways of seeing the world (perhaps not only like those from different social levels in the film, but perhaps from different periods of time like pre and post contact.
The idea of a "perfect: or utopian state is common in many places. It may be elsewhere (as in ethnic groups who perceive their point of origin in this way; or "elsewhen" that is in a different time as the West has often done in looking for things like "Atlantis". Or many people have done with Revitalization (nativeistic) movements like the Ghost Dance or Cargo Cults where the Europeans will disappear and the "good old days" will come back again or possibly even in people who want to preserve the past. One author once said people don't preserve things that aren't already dead.
Where does Kurosawa stand relative to the past? In terms of being an individualist and not following rules he is at the opposite end from Ozu who seems to revel in following them. Mizoguchi is sort of in the middle.
| Kurosawa | Mizoguchi | Ozu |
Things are never quite that simple since in Yojimbo Kurosawa was old enough to like certain old values and dislike the merchant class.
This film refuses to validate any particular story and any attempt to claim primacy for any one narrative is doomed from the start
TECHNIQUES
Generally, Kurosawa has a very high shooting ratio for his films, about 3 times that of other directors (3:1 and opposed to his 10:1) This is caused by his using multiple cameras shooting simultaneously. This makes editing a lot simpler, since continuity errors are less likely. However it also produces a problem of not having individual set ups for each shot. One the one hand this makes for a kind of realism - e.g. the light is always from the same source whether the person is in shadow or not, but it also inhibits lighting for a specific effect. This is not so much the case with Rashomon as it is for his other films.
Narrative = Flashback: Non linear aspect to the film. Produces stress on "memory". (compare previously made Kane, Hiroshima Mon Amour and also Sunset Blvd. And other noir films) Does narrative flashback always have the same meaning? How do we know what to interpret it as? Rest of film is crucial. Film is interpreted as a whole. Parts must be integrated to give final meaning. With Kurosawa there is never any doubt as to whose narrative it is. IT IS WHAT IS BEING RECALLED THAT IS THE PROBLEM.. What is at the human heart of darkness Conrad explored, Kurosawa said it was a mystery to him)
One of the great complexities of the films is the visual nature of the flashback. When we see the events, the immediate feeling is we are seeing what the narrator of those events saw. That is, when the bandit testifies, one suspects that the images on the screen are what the Bandit feels and thinks and how HE perceived the event. The problem, of course is that it is the wood cutter who is relating what the bandit said. At a second level then, what we see is what the wood cutter claims the bandit said, it is not what the bandit said. Worse still, at a thrd level, we are not hearing this directly from the wood cutter, but from Kurosawa who is tellling us what he thinks the wood cutter said about what the bandit said! Similarly the priest recounts what the wife said, and the Miko recounts what the husband said. With the exception of the wood cutter (and possibly the priest) there is always an intervening narrator in the film. And on the top is Kurosawa narrating the entire film!
Text vs. subtext
plot vs. theme
In the above list, there is a relationship between the two terms. The first is the onlgoing story line, the second is the meaning of the story
For this film at each level of narration one can claim that there is plot/theme or text/subtext analysis to be made.
There are different techniques used as well. At some level, Kurosawa is using very sterotypic and rather trite conventions in order to lok at the nature of film itself. One of the great dificulties in the acting styles in the film is that the performers have to be aware of when they are "acting" stereotypes and when they are not.
At the most abstract level, we see in the courtyard seen that the characters address the judges, whom we never see. Yet the actors loko directly at the audience, as though we are being asked to judge not only the story of the murder/rape, but also of the nature of reality and percieved reality; and the nature of film as depicting reality. Does the film question its own etiology and the etiology of all films? Can we believe Kurosawa anuy moe than we can the characters in the film?
PURE FILM; Little dialogue. 19 shots without speaking that make up Tajomaru's first view of the woman. The film experience must generate the emotion. The heat of the day, the attractiveness of the veiled woman, the cool breeze (which the bandit blames for the cause of the problems which follow). Tajomaru's boredom which masks his desire are all handled photographically in those 19 frames, not through dialog.
Virtually everything is through visual - actors expressions etc..
Past vs. Present
As in most period films that Kurosawa made the past is made to comment on the present. The collapse of the Heian period government and the collapse of the Japanese government at the end of WWII are parallel here.
Times are hard, and in hard times people do "bad" things just to keep going. Kurosawa said he wanted to open the film with many people at the gate dealing in "black market goods" when the rain arrives and they all scatter. The hard times of post WWII Japan, and Heian are linked. The stealing of the baby's clothes parallel the theft of the woman's clothes in the Rashomon story. Why do you think that Kurosawa choose to call the film Rashomon rather than In a Grove?
Handling of NATURE
The woods - deep and mysterious. The long walk into the woods leads us further into the mystery. The film is a spiritual and emotional labrynth. The bolero like music seems to weave as torturously as the path. Note the weaving camera, which travels on an "S" shaped train track weaving back and forth before and behind the wood cutter. 15 different tracking shots.
The dappled look of the leaves on the ground and on the faces camouflages people and things and obscures and hides things and makes them look different.
Formal elements: 3s
Three sets - Gate, courtyard and woods
Three people in event - Samurai, wife and bandit
Three people at gate woodcutter priest and commoner
Three day interval in testimony
Three characters in Roshomon
So what? Is this cultural or what? What do we make of three wishes, three bears and so on?
Here we can raise the question of how do we know what is significant in the film and what is not.In this film we are involved with a triangle of relationships. The three part structure of the relationship, the sets, the people echos that.
Gate seen is full of verticals - the gate the falling rain; three bands of steps
Courtyard is horizontals: three lines of light and shadow where the witness testify, the white sand with the people in the back, and the wall divided in three and above the clouds in the sky
Generally Kurosawa uses either cuts or wipes. Wipes indicate a change in he narratives. When rain stops, two major signals of change - dissolves for the first time in the film (time passing in "real time" - that is the time of the telling of the stories at the gate) and appearance of first diagonals heavily obvious in the sets.
Kurosawa often uses distant shots to indicate detachment from the character, close ups cause the viewer to become more involed with the characters.
Three shots are common with the samurai, his wife and the bandit in the same frame, and then two shots indicating various groupings of the people in the action
Sound
Dialog occurs but often frames memory which is without dialog. The police officer and the bandit both talk about the capture, but the long sequence with Tajomaru drinking is basically without synchronous dialog. They are almost like title cards in a silent film
Script is in fact rather minimal. We see the woodcutter walk through the woods responding to things in his environment subconsciously - streams jumped over, branches avoided, They are as second nature as will be the "slant" put on the stories.
As the woodcutter begins to discover out of place things - the hat, the veil, etc., the tracking shots cease. There is a shift from a sensuous fluid instinctive movement to one of fixed narrowed perspective of attention, focus and interest. A replica of the difference between the Buddhist intuitive response state to the divided and rigid perspective of a rational state. (Compare with Murnau's "Sunrise" and the George O'Brien transformation when contemplating the murder)
Acting
Very expansive. Words very unimportant in many ways. Language is made unfamiliar and non natural It is both excessive and scant. It is asynchronous. The acting stresses the visual nature of the film. For a narrative film (even with flashbacks) language is remarkably unimportant
Worse there are:
(a) conflicts between word and event. The world is reconstructed verbally but the words are unreliable
(b) the stories do not match
(c) gaps and contradictions between words and events
(d) relationship between word and reality is denied
There is a failure of language to grasp reality. The disjunct is a space whre sin and evil originate.
The visual and the verbal point at each other FOREGROUND each other.
(Compare Hitchcock's Stage Fright and some people's upsetness over the fact that the flashback which is seen is no true)
Only the scenes at the gate might be called "normal"
Kurosawa claimed that people are unable to be honest about themselves and must embellish things, but the film seems to go well beyond that statement and we can with some effort see how each persons background affects the story they tell.
UNIVERSAL APPLICATION
Does the film has universal application? Is it as relevant anywhere any time in theme? Possibly. The specifics may not be always clear, but the question of misunderstandings or different interpretations may be.
JAPANESE ASPECTS
Can we in some way equate the collapse of the Heian period with the collapse of Japan in post war occupation? There is evidence that Kurosawa wanted the link clearer and had thought to have a black market with a large crowd in front of Rashomon when a rainstorm comes and everyone flees except the few people left at the gate.
Is the film "non Japanese"? Why is it called his least Japanese film (which accounts perhaps for it always having been more popular outside Japan than inside it). Japanese are also puzzled by no real resolution to the problem and want to know "What really happened" but that is to lose track of the fact that that is what the film is about: "reality" vs. "perceived reality"
IS THIS FILM CLEARLY A KUROSAWA FILM?
Certainly it is interested in a specific question about people and their personalities, and why they are not happier. It is certainly a film which is remarkably visual in it's approach - "pure film" as it were.
Kurosawa had great belief in "faith" and this is strong in this film as well. In this case the faith than human nature can be restored through understanding. The symbols of the baby and the sun shine at the end are almost trite but very well handled. There is a question about whether or not Kurosawa invented the baby at the end. Yes and no. The scene is at the gate and hence has more in common with the Rashomon story in which the would be thief steals the old woman's clothes.
The question is really in what is faith restored? (After all the priest is probably the closest one gets to a spokesperson for Kurosawa). Some argue that it is faith in human nature and we recognize it is human to lie, but still one can overcome this. Kurosawa certainly was optimistic through much of his film career, and claimed that his big question dealt with why people aren't happier - and they could be. Although the problem here is since even the wood cutter's story is indicative of his lying, can we believe what he says about raising the baby? Perhaps yes, but his facial expression (watch him when the miko starts to talk about the dagger being removed - his expression reveals his concern about whether he will be unmasked as the thied).
Another argument could be made that his faith is restored when the priest comes to understand that what people say may be lies, but also may be a believed truth. The lie, in effect is not deliberate. Human frailty may make people construct an perception of an "reality" which is not quite accurate, but reflects both our cultural and personal upbringing.
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