Kurosawa, A. (1950). Rashomon. Tokyo, Japan: Daiei Motion Picture Company.
Akira Kurosawa’s (1950) Rashomon shows a conversation between a woodcutter, a priest and a commoner who discuss a crime “so horrible” the priest “may finally lose [his] faith in the human soul” (ibid.). A man and his wife travelled through the woods and encountered the bandit Tajōmaru. The unfolding events left the husband dead. The events leading to the death are described as a series of flashbacks that retell the testimony of four witnesses: the bandit, the wife, her dead husband who speaks through a medium and the woodcutter. Each of the four tells the story in a different yet plausible way claiming an honourable duel, a possible accident, suicide and murder as the cause of death. The actual events are never revealed. The film ends with an epilogue about an abandoned baby that the woodcutter, the priest and the commoner discover. The woodcutter’s altruistic offer to care for the child restores the priest’s faith in man.
Kurosawa’s film is relevant to my project on many levels: the existential theme, its audiovisual representation and the narrative approach deserve deeper study.
The premise of the story advocates that “truth is just as relative as anything else and reality is a matter of interpretation” (Richie, 1971, pp. 227-228). This theme that “represents the limitations of intellect” (ibid., p. 232) relates to questions I asked myself very early on in my project: What is reality? What is illusion? Is there a clear cut distinction between the two? My choice of words of a “borderland between reality and illusion” suggests that I tend to believe in a blurred frontier which describes a subjective realm. If the border to reality is vague one may question to what degree reality can be seen as an objective fact. The opinion of a majority may imply that what is perceived as reality is the norm. This, however, does not suggest that it is in fact real. I argue that the reality cannot be defined as something objective. Its perception differs from individual to individual. A person’s respective society constitutes the framework that defines if her sense of reality or illusion is regarded as “normal” or “abnormal”, two terms which bear strong positive and negative connotations. In Kurosawa’s film the woodcutter’s description of events seems to be the most convincing one, yet it is far from evident if his version represents reality. To me all four accounts represent part of the truth but are distorted by a strong personal angle and subjective identity of self.
It is particularly noteworthy how Kurosawa uses the camera and the environment to capture visuals that function as narrative devices. The setting of the major story thread in a forest serves so that “these strange impulses of the human heart would be expressed through the use of an elaborately fashioned play of light and shadow” (Kurosawa, 1983, p. 182). At the same time this “leads the viewer through the light and shadow of the forest into a world where the human heart loses its way” (ibid., p. 185). The composition of the scenes that show the husband, the wife and the bandit in one shot visually dramatise the triangle of the three (Richie, 1971, p. 230). I see these very consciously chosen yet non-obtrusive settings as a very valuable influence on my project. Visuals that function as narrative devices may greatly support the communication of a protagonist’s subjective world while setting the overall mood of a film that transports the audience into the story.
Kurosawa’s narrative style is intriguing. His nonlinear approach with unreliable narrators (Prince, 2002) and the refusal to expose the truth leaves the audience with no option other than active participation to discover their own version of truth. In the wider context of Barthes’ The Death of the Author “refusing to assign a ‘secret’, an ultimate meaning, to the text (and to the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity” (Barthes, 1996, p. 122). Or more specifically: “There can be no bright future for those who are ready to explain everything about their own film” (Kurosawa, n.d.). As a filmmaker it is my strong intention to create a story that does not prescribe with domineering intent what the audience has to think or believe. It is desirable to invite the viewers to participate in the process and to become the co-creators of meaning.
References
Barthes, R. (1996). The death of the author. In P. Rice & P. Waugh (Eds.), Modern literary theory. London, United Kingdom: Arnold.
Kurosawa, A. (1950). Rashomon. Tokyo, Japan: Daiei Motion Picture Company.
Kurosawa, A. (1983). Something like an autobiography. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Kurosawa, A. (n.d.). Kurosawa’s “Tarkovsky and Solaris”. (S. Kimitoshi, Tran.) Nostalghia.com. Retrieved April 26, 2010, from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Kurosawa_on_Solaris.html
Prince, S. (2002, March 25). Rashomon. The Criterion Collection. Retrieved April 26, 2010, from http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/195-rashomon
Richie, D. (1971). Japanese cinema. London, United Kingdom: Martin Secker & Warburg Limited.
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