Rashomon (1950)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Massyuri Mori, Takashi Shimura
Honors:
Rashomon is a psychological thriller about the telling of a crime recounted by various contradicting perspectives. In feudal Japan during a torrential downpour three men find refuge under the dilapidated city gate of Rashomon. The distraught woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and a priest (Minoru Chiaki) recount to the commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) a trial they testified in consisting of a murder of a samurai (Masayuki Mori) and raping of his wife (Machiko Kyo) at the hands of a bandit (Toshiro Mifune). In flashback we experience the retelling of the events from the perspectives of the bandit, the wife, and the dead samurai by why of a spiritual medium, all with deeply conflicting accounts that bests serves them individually. Back at the city gate the distraught woodcutter divulges the untold truth he did not want to share at the trial, that he witnessed the crime, sharing the sloppy and fearful events between the three individuals. The conclusion of the picture sees the three men squabble about man’s innate drive to lie, cheat, and steal for their own selfish reasons as the commoner steals from a nearby abandoned baby while deducing that the woodcutter stole from the crime he refused to witness for at the trial. This shocks the priest, but the woodcutter’s decision to raise the baby as his own returns to the priest faith for humanity.
The compelling way that Rashomon plays with story structure and use of unreliable narrators would have been entirely different from any other type of films seen at that time. The heavy use of flashbacks is perhaps the best use of the plot device since Citizen Kane (1941). The unassuming acting in part of the cast surprises you as the story unfolds, hitting harder as the picture develops. Overall, the film is simple is production, complex in structure, and visually rich all considered from its minimalistic level where there are only three sets. All this comes together in a final product that is constructed to make the audience think about everything they have seen on screen.
Fallowing the stumbling result of the ambitious, yet disjointed The Scandal (1950) that was part courtroom drama, part social issue picture which failed with favor from critics, director Akira Kurosawa was looking to quickly jump into another project. He found interest in a script based on two Ryunosuke Akutagawa short stories, most notable “In the Grove” about varying accounts of an event, seeing it an opportunity to work with a small cast on minimal sets that would be affordable for his studio.
Production would be a remarkably short turnaround, beginning
principal photography the first week of July 1950, concluding in mid-August,
and after about a week of editing premiered the 25th of that month.
The cast consisted of many players Kurosawa would come to regularly work with during
his breathe of work. Regulars to included are Takashi Shimura as the troubled woodcutter,
Toshiro Mifune as the boisterous bandit, Masayuki Mori as the Samuri husband, and
Minoru Chiaki as the priest. With only three sets and Kurosawa’s use of
sunlight minimal needs were had for production as he worked swiftly with his cinematography,
Kazuo Miyagawaeven. Even though the cast failed to understand the script
Kurosawa knew the message was to be left to the interpretation of the audience leaving
his direction as the motivation for his cast to construct the final product of
the picture.
Upon initial release Japanese audiences and critics shared
mixed reviews of Rashomon. The mixed narrative and interpretive story
construction confused many while Kurosawa’s style leaned away for the more traditional
Japanese style of cinema, leaving many to feel he was too “western” for
Japanese tastes. The result was a film that made only a small profit as the
studio and filmmaker moved on to future projects. For Japan in 1950 Rashomon
was quickly pushed aside as just another one of Kurosawa’s films. Then came 1951,
when everything changed.
When considerations were being made by the 1951 Venice Film
Festival to find a Japanese picture to be an entrant Rashomon was the selected
by the insistence of a Japanese teacher in Italy at the behest of Japanese officials
who felt the film did not present the best of Japanese cinema or culture.
Despite objections and unbeknownst to Kurosawa of his film being entered Rashomon
was screened in Venice and won over the international film festival audience,
coming away with the Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize. For the first time
Japanese film was viewed in high regard outside of Japan, bridging the gap
between eastern and western cinema styles. RKO began distributing subtitled or English
dubbed prints of Rashomon opening up the Japanese market for eastern
film and introducing Kurosawa to American audiences.
For the first time Japanese film would be considered as a
viable source of motion pictures among western audiences as the two halves of
the world began to connect through movies. Rashomon was awarded in 1952
an honorary Academy Award of best foreign language film before it became an
official category. A year later it qualified for other awards, earning a
nomination for Best Art Direction. Akira Kurosawa in a short time became the
greatest known filmmaker out of Japan and continued to produce films that
inspired generation of filmmakers that continue to be seen today.
Once shortly considered a swiftly forgettable film of Kurosawa’s, Rashomon became a classic from his body of work, and considered one of, if not his very finest. It still finds itself on many of film’s all-time best pictures lists with its story structure, plot devices, and style continuing to impact the industry all these years later. It marked a beginning of East and West bridging a gap with cinema that would continue to evolve and inspire each other into the future.
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