John Winkler
10/18/11
Title: Rashomon
Language: Japanese
Runtime: 88min
Release Date: 1950
Awards/ Nominations: Academy Award: Best Foreign Film
Rashomon
“Rashomon” is a Japanese language film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa. It was released in Japan in 1950 and then in the United States in 1951. Although this film has not won many awards, it has been highly influential for both films and television made after it.
The film begins with two men, one younger and one older, hiding out under shelter trying to stay dry in a downpour. A third man joins them and notices that the two men look very upset. They tell him that they've witnessed something horrible, and begin recounting the story to him. One man, the older one, claims he found the body of a murdered man in the woods. The other, younger man said that he witnessed the murdered man and his wife walking together just before he was found dead. Both men were summoned to testify in court, where they heard the stories of multiple people who encountered the murder, including the spirit of the murdered man himself. Every single story is told from a different viewpoint, and in turn is a completely different story all together.
Eisenstein said, “I regard the inception of new concepts and view points…as dynamic.” He claimed that different perspectives and inputs that caused conflict is what made gave a film or story “Dynamism.” Rashomon’s use of many different perspectives from the murder witnesses is a great example of what Eisenstein was referring to. This use of different perspectives to tell the same story is the reason this film is as influential and dynamic as it is. “The quantity of interval determines the pressure of the tension.”(Eisenstein, 47)
One article by Roger Ebert I read that referenced this film both explained the premise of the film and gave a backstory to its creation. The main point this article touched upon that was important is “When it was released… nobody had ever seen anything like it. It was the first use of flashbacks that disagreed about the action they were flashing back to. It supplied first-person eyewitness accounts that differed radically--one of them coming from beyond the grave. It ended with three self-confessed killers and no solution.” This is important because Eisenstein stated that the interaction of these different bases, “the logic of organic form vs. the logic of rational form” (Eisenstein, 46) produce conflict which causes “Dynamism.”
The other article I read by Braingle.com, gives a synopsis of what is called the “Rashomon Effect.” It is explained as “the phenomenon by which observers of an event can produce very different but entirely plausible accounts of what happened.” This article gives a great example of how influential this film is. Also, it gives a good explanation as to why the stories were different, maybe not because they were lies but because “every person has a unique set of life experiences that cause him to pay attention to things in his own way. Physical position and personal relationship to the event, as well as psychological makeup, determine how a person will perceive it. This is one reason why eyewitness testimony can be so unreliable.”
When I first began to watch the film I became disinterested and thought poorly of it. Honestly, by the end of the movie my perception didn’t change much from when it began. This reason I believe is because this use of multiple perspectives to tell the same story is nothing new to me. Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Crash, and Talk To Her are just some of the many films today that have used this technique. However, after reading about this technique and this film’s importance in an influential sense I have gained a certain kind of respect and liking for this film.
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