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Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa Starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura

Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa Starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura Released in 1950 High noon parts of the forest still too dark to shoot so they had to bounce light in. Used a full length mirror instead regular reflector. Tinted rain with black ink.

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Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa Starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura

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  1. Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa • Starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura • Released in 1950 • High noon parts of the forest still too dark to shoot so they had to bounce light in. • Used a full length mirror instead regular reflector. • Tinted rain with black ink. • Often given credit as the first time a camera was aimed at the sun.

  2. Kurosawa, “’Rashomon’ is a reflection of life, and life does not always have clear meanings. • Credited as reason the Academy created the Foreign Film category • Music for wife’s vision only available in post production. • All were amazed it synched up. • Tale by Akutagawa “In a Grove” • Mifune modeled his characters movements after a lion’s. • Influenced by a doc made by Martin E. Johnson and Osa Johnson.

  3. Rashomon provided the setting while the tale provided the story. • This introduced Kurosawa and Japanese cinema to the West. • Film is about the impossibility of obtaining the truth about an event when there are conflicting witness accounts. • Psychology, the film has lent its name to the ‘Rashomon effect’ • Production company didn’t understand the movie and were reluctant to support it. • That is why they gave the film a small budget. • They did end up giving a two week premiere.

  4. To Japanese citizens there were a few controversial scenes. • Ex.: When the woman begs the assailant to fill her husband and safeguard he own honor. (Self-preservation not a Japanese trait.) • Won a Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Fest • Camera acts or plays an active and important role in the story. • Modern film comparisons to Rashomon: • Hero, Courage Under Fire, Usual Suspects, Basic, and Hoodwinked. • In that they are all stories of different perspectives on one event.

  5. This is Kurosawa’s homage to silent film and modern art. • Made images simpler • There are only three settings in the film: • Rashomon gate • Woods • Courtyard • Actors and staff lived together throughout the shoot. • Notice how camera establishes the love triangle. • Closeups of Husband, Bandit, and Wife.

  6. Used many contrasting shots. • Calm husband in foreground with the crazed wife in the background. • Used several cameras at the same time. • Some say that the sunlight symbolizes evil and sin. • Wife gives in to bandit when she sees the sun. • While some say the sun symbolizes good and darkness symbolizes evil. • There is a strong emphasis on the subjectivity of truth and uncertainty of factual accuracy. • Some say it’s an allegory of Japan’s defeat in WWII

  7. Forest symbolizes the mystery of shrouding the actual details of the dramatic events. • A 2006 CSI episode mimicked the Rashomon storyline. • Compared to King Lear in it’s different interpretations of a single event. • Truth is relative, fragile, fleeting, and uncertain. • Analogies of the OJ Trial, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and others.

  8. Dramatic example of epistemology, philosophy of knowledge. • 54th in IMDB’s top 250 list.

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