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Summary: Haven't seen it yet
Review: It was delivered to my house while I was away for college, so I haven't seen this one yet. I first heard of this one, oddly enough from my English teacher in a lecture. Apparently it involves a trial in which a man is killed during a robbery or some crime; since the robber, an eyewitness, and the dead man's wife all relate conflicting stories, they actually bring the man's ghost to testify. Very interesting.
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Summary: My Favorite (& Artists') Kurosowa film
Review: One fact that isn't well known is that artists seized on this film, in the 1950s, as the most outstanding visual representation of perspective and point-of-view ever represented in the arts. Arguments raged in intellectual and arts circles about whether artists in every medium needed to address these two issues as well as Kurosowa did. No one argues about that any longer but it is fair to say that any art work that deals with those issues was influenced by this film. The initial set-up is very simple. A woman is raped and her husband is murdered. Four different characters then give their versions of what happened. Each believes in the total accuracy of his or her version but the differences from 4 sets of eyes and ears are remarkable to behold. Japanese filmmaking was unknown in America until this film opened and in the ensuing decades we have been exposed to the high art that exists in virtually every artistic medium in Japan. I certainly have learned an enormous amount of art just by exposure to Japanese art without ever having set foot in the country itself.
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Summary: What exacly IS truth?
Review: Rashomon is quite simply an amazing piece of filmmaking. Kurosawa was nothing less than a master at his craft. At a technical viewpoint it is an amazing film, the same story is told in 4 different ways by 4 different characters, each of them trying to paint themselves in the best possible light. The camerawork is also amazing, notice for example the shots when a character is walking through the woods in the beginning, there is no dialogue, the sequence is long, there are amazing shots of the sun through the trees, the camera movement is flawless. Notice also how he plants his camera in the prison sequences, a la 'Ozu' (low level steadishots) and how the camera can barely stay still in the woods sequences. The beginning of the film in the apocalyptic storm is overpowering in its effect. The dialogue and acting are also pitchperfect. Notice how actors in Kurosawa films always seem to be screaming their dialogue or laughing in an over the top manner, Kurosawa wasn't aiming for realism (like Ozu does), he's out to make a point and he does it so well, that it shows in how well his films have crossed over to western audiences. This is the first japanese film that was widely seen by american audiences and won the academy award for foreign film, not to mention introducing the great Toshiro Mifune to cinema and beginning arguably the best filmmaking pair ever (not counting Scorsese/DeNiro) with Kurosawa/Mifune, which would go on and make lots of films together. Also the tremendous impact this film has had on the film infustry alone is enough to consider it a classic. Even so, it's ability to move audiences of all nationalities and through the decades, speaks very well of how Kurosawa handled his themes. In it's 90 min. of running time, this film tells you more about human nature than most any film will, it has all the richness that reading a good book might give you, and it is cinematically amazing. If you like this film, I recommend 'Seven Samurai' for Kurosawa or 'Tokyo Story' for more great Japanese cinema. A solid 9.8 out of 10!
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Summary: Now I Know What the Hoopla was All About!
Review: "Rashomon" is one of those movies you hear allusions to at cocktail parties or see references made to in "The Village Voice", and you are chagrined because you don't know what everyone else seems to be carrying on about. Then I saw that NYC's Film Forum was showing "Rashomon" as part of a Kurasawa festival: I said to myself, TutorGal it's now or never! So I rounded up my friend Renee the psychotherapist and went.Wow! Yes, it's clear to see why this movie was such a revelation back in 1950-1 when it appeared on the scene. Compare it, for example, to 1950's Oscar winner, "All About Eve". At the outset of "Eve", we're introduced to a tableful of people at an award show, looking at the two-faced Eve accept her award. As we go round the table, we hear every character's thoughts about Eve, and then go back in time to that part of the story. The story, however, moves forward chronologically; we never revisit a scene, either, to see if somebody else perceived it differently. Well, that IS what the hoopla was about with "Rashomon". We start with three men meeting during a rainstorm in a deserted building. Two tell the third man about the murder trial where they've just given evidence. Then we go back in time to the trial, where we see the various witnesses and the defendant tell their versions of what happened. As they do, we return over and over to the scene of the crime, and each time the murder is enacted differently. The idea of presenting multiple perspectives of the same incident was ground-breaking for 1950, and has been imitated over the years, but rarely as well as in the original, "Rashomon". I felt I had to brace myself for seeing this movie, because I read it was about a murder AND a rape, and I balked at seeing a rape scene (yet how many murders would you say you and I have both seen in movies, huh?). However, I was relieved to see that the rape is never shown; that part of the story is always over by the time we revisit the scene. In fact, the woman doesn't even appear to be disheveled. The IDEA of the rape is the important thing, not its enactment on screen. Some have commented on the amount of apparent overacting and screaming going on with both the woman character and Mifune's bandit, but it didn't bother me too much. All in all, this was my first excursion into classic Japanese cinema (unless you would count all those Godzilla and Gidra movies as classics of a sort), and it was not only interesting anthropologically, but entertaining as well. "Rashomon" is an excellently made movie, and one which every serious movie-goer had ought to see.
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Summary: Dynamics of Rashomon Gate
Review: Throughout the film you will be amazed at how far ahead of it's time it's film making experience was. The extra material on this dvd fills you in on that. It's almost as if it set the new standards of film-making and furthered the process of film-watching itself. While the film is decidely Japanese, it allows you to experience the story from several seperate views (including the views of the camera itself)- this is classic film-making at it's zenith. The characters also play a vital role in the dynamics of the film (and audience perspectives) by representing all aspects of society itself. It also underlines the fact of "what is truth?" and "who is right?" in modern society. Without overstating the facts, it draws you in to understand the characters themselves. It's ending is also a desperate attempt for truth in the individual and hope in man accepting his own confused existance. And so the setting of a court case is most fitting and its dynamics allow you to see all of it's seperate parts (including the jury and witnesses and audience within the court room). It's almost as if your watching a play about a play. The camera work is also the second director in the movie. This movie is a must for any serious film-watcher.
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Summary: Dead men do tell tales
Review: Rashomon is the story of a crime as seen by various people. Like The Catcher in the Rye ...this movie by Akira Kurosawa was released in 1951. And, like the Catcher, it's a classic. It examines the nature of Truth and how humans are prone to embellish it so that they appear better. A bandit commits a crime in the forest and the same is narrated by the involved parties. They say dead men tell no tales. But this movie has an exception. The samurai who dies in the movie narrates his story through a medium! But is his version true? Do dead people still have an agenda in the after-life? Rashomon dovetailed beautifully with one of my favorite quotes: Truth has many faces, and any one of them alone is a lie. Thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the strange things about the movie is the tendency of the bad guys to cackle in a spooky way. The worse their nature, the weirder their laugh.
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Summary: Another masterpiece!
Review: The Criterion DVD is well worth the price. THe commentary alone is worth it.
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Summary: A Film About Relativism, Or About DisHonesty?
Review: Akira Kurosawa's film "Rashomon" is brilliant (whether you're willing to spend the $[money] for the sometimes-jittery Criterion version is up to you), but is often used as fodder to all sorts of slippery arguments about the "relativity of truth." Baloney. I think Akira would have called these arguments baloney, too. The concepts of "relativity" and "dishonesty" are very different things. The "hell" that the characters refer to in the story is not the impossibility of there being any sort of final truth...that is NOT what they are saying. Reality doesn't actually shift to accomodate different perspectives...when an event takes place, it only takes place ONE way. There is only one course of events...and the characters who took part in it KNOW what really happened. I disagree with the (slightly pompous) commentator on the DVD who says the characters fully believe in their own stories...if so, why does the wood cutter act so guilty? Instead, the film is about Dishonesty...it is about people's inability to be completely honest with themselves and with others. THAT is the hell they refer to. Each character's ego interferes as he (or she) recounts the storyline. It has to do with self-interest and deceit, not some wacky notion of existential subjectivity. Don't let the armchair philosophers ruin this movie for you! It is a suspenseful, well-acted, beautifully shot film with unexpected plot twists and a lot of great atmosphere. If you can find it, I highly recommend another Kurosawa gem entitled "Ikiru."
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Summary: To say this was a groudbeaking film is an understatement
Review: I love Kurosawa and I love Mifune. This was their first major success together, and catapulted them both to worldwide fame. If you're like me, you will need to watch Rashomon at least several times to digest the basic story and characters' personalities; then the fun begins! There is so much in this film that was revolutionary at the time, yet is now standard and widely-used in films around the world. Kurosawa doesn't include anything without a purpose, and it's especially ineresting to watch with a copy of Donald Richie's "The Films of Akira Kurosawa" open in front of you. From small gestures, to camera angles, to what seem like throw-away scene shots, everything has a meaning and a purpose. The more I watch, the more I understand. Mifune's performance seems a little "overacted," as another reviewer noted, but each time I watch it I think the emotion and animation are really the correct way to play the part. The priest character also fascinates me, and I go back and forth on him: sometimes I find myself revolted by his obvious human flaws, while other times I marvel at his resilience of spirit and character. I most highly recommend this DVD. The extra features are excellent; the commentary by Donald Richie (the pre-eminent Kurosawa authority) and the printed text of the stories upon which the screenplay were based make for a wonderful overall experience.
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Summary: Who was lying?
Review: I recently launched my quest to watch classic movies by Kurosawa by watching first, Seven Samurai, then Yojimbo and finally Rashomon. Of the three, Rashomon is my favorite with it's presentation of four contradictory accounts of a murder. The perspectives are from a bandit, the dead man's wife, the dead man himself(through a medium) and finally a humble peasant. All the stories have a grain of truth but all the stories also contradict each other. As I was watching the movie, the peasant's story seemed to tie up the loose ends except that for the fact that a notorious bandit like Tajomaru does not get that way by being a snivelling coward. He had surely killed many people before and dispatching the noble man in cold blood would not be as difficult for him as the peasant seems to suggest. Then it turns out that the peasant had a reason of his own for fabricating the story.
Who is telling the truth? Personally, I believe the dead man. Watch Rashomon and make up your own mind.
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