The films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa have had wide ranging influence over contemporary films, with his ronin films Seven Samurai and Yojimbo influencing countless westerns and mob movies. Arguably, however, Rashomon has been the most instrumental of all Kurosawa’s films because it asks a question that lies near the heart of all cinema: what is reality? Today, any consumer of television or cinema has seen various permutations of the plot of Rashomon numerous times, probably without realizing. In the film, a rape and consequent murder are told five different times, by a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who seems to have witnessed the event, a bandit (Toshiro Mifune) who committed the rape, the wife of a samurai (Machiko Kyo) who was raped, and the ghost of the samurai (Masayuki Mori), who is channeled by a medium after his murder. In each telling, the viewer is presented with five realities that, through the use of various frame stories, are totally incompatible with one another. Throughout, Rashomon is a study in simplicity. The beautiful yet frugal cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa and the minimalist plot, skillfully directed by Kurosawa, force the viewer to contend with two dissonant notions: that everything they have seen is real, but that none of it can be true.
The movie opens with rain pouring down onto the ruins of the ancient, eponymous Rashomon, a formerly grand structure was once a city gate, but now lies in an unsavory and derelict district. The gate serves as the principle setting of the frame story, wherein, while waiting for the rain to subside, a woodcutter, a priest, and a peasant discuss the strange murder of the samurai. The gate is also symbolic, representing the decline of Japan immediately fo...
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...s the movie ends with the sun coming out over the rainy gate, one cannot help but to feel as confused and lost as the characters at the opening lines of the film when they intoned their total incomprehension of the situation. Although the woodcutter seems to redeem himself of the perfidy of (possibly) stealing the dagger by adopting a baby left under the gate, the movie is never resolved. While faith is restored that men can also be good (a central question throughout the film) we are never any the wiser as to what was real. That is the whole point of the movie; we are never shown what is real because we will never know.
Works Cited
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Rashomon. Akira Kurasawa. 1950. The Criterion Collection, 2002. DVD
While analyzing Kurosawa Akira’s Rashomon in the essay, “Irreconcilable Realities”, Aaron M. Kerner writes, “The substance of the film hinges on what is irreconcilable, and “resolving” the narrative would run contrary to the film’s central concern.” In this quote, Kerner is addressing the fact that the film does not have a conclusion where the audience knows the truth about the characters in the film. Rashomon instead addresses the natures of reality and real life through his filming of this unusual mystery story. He addresses storytelling through the eyes of different characters and shows how the different points of view can have a major impact on the telling of the story. By telling the story this way the film creates a commentary on society, but also comments on cinema. By showing that each character can participate in the same story, but retell the story differently with different outcomes, Kurosawa acknowledges that cinema is also a way of storytelling. Each member of the audience reads the characters differently due to their different backgrounds. The audience member is always participating and making meaning of the film, but they come to different conclusions based on their personalities. Therefore, the film’s “central concern” is acknowledging that stories are affected by the background of the storyteller. By “’resolving’ the narrative” Kurosawa would not only contradict the film’s main point, it would completely destroy it. To resolve the story, Kurosawa would have to give the audience a conclusive answer at the end of the film and instead of showing that each character created a different reality, the audience would conclude that the characters that did not tell the truth were merely liars instead of constructing their o...
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The most prominent resemblance between Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and the infamous Apocalypse Now (1979) is the glimmer sense of realism thorough the movie. The director, Francis Ford Coppola has been known for his verisimilitude; effortlessly creating and directing each setting in the film looks schematized and deliberately natural. Innately, the one of the most apparent functions of a setting is to create an impression of reality that presents the viewer a sense of a real place and time and the sensation of being there. His consciousness of realism admits the great importance of an authentic setting play in making his films overwhelmingly imaginable. With a judiciously supervision from the director, numerous factors such as location and setting, costume and visual design contribute to a successful plausible film.
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
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“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
Movies take us inside the skin of people quite different from ourselves and to places different from our routine surroundings. As humans, we always seek enlargement of our being and wanted to be more than ourselves. Each one of us, by nature, sees the world with a perspective and selectivity different from others. But, we want to see the world through other’s eyes; imagine with other’s imaginations; feel with other’s hearts, at a same time as with our own. Movies offer us a window onto the wider world, broadening our perspective and opening our eyes to new wonders.