Rashomon - Criterion Collection

Starring:Toshiro Mifune
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

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This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Its most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory points of view, suggesting the nature of truth is something less than absolute. The cast, headed by Kurosawa's favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is superb. --Tom Keogh

Description

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, Rashomon is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife. Toshiro Mifune gives another commanding performance in the eloquent masterwork that revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema to the world.

Customer Reviews:

"If men don't trust each other, this earth might as well be hell".......2007-06-05

I usually watch many kinds of different movies, but I wasn't a fan of old Asian movies, at least not until a friend lent me this beautiful classic, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Now I know what I was missing...

"Rashomon" (1950), shot in black and white, is nothing short of stunning. The first scenes show us a priest and a woodcutter taking refuge in an old temple, in order to escape from the heavy rain. A third man shows up, and they start talking about a recent crime that troubles them. Despite the fact that these men were at the trial in which those involved were judged, they don't have a clue regarding what happened, due to the fact that they hear very different versions of the events that took place that fateful day. Will the truth ever be found out? And is there such a thing as truth, or an objective point of view?

This is the first film by Kurosawa I have watched, but it won't be my last. Highly recommended ! And... thanks, Rubén :)

- Belen Alcat, June 2007 -

Not a "whodunnit".......2007-05-19

Kurosawa's use of multiple points of view allows him to highlight the interpretive agendas of the various "tellers" of the story. There is no one "true" version that the viewer is supposed to be able piece together from the narratives. Rather, the story is about the way in which no one interpretation will explain the events adequately. The meta-narrative of the story is what's at stake for each of the tellers that make them tell differently.

Tojomaru, the bandit. All at stake for him is his reputation as a bad guy. He knows he's doomed, and that he'll probably be executed, so his story embellishes his reputation. He says he fights, subdues and rapes the wife, then fights and kills the husband because the wife demands it. He fights fairly, and, in spite of the wife's role in urging him on, only because he wants to. In his version, he must kill the husband, but is then betrayed by the wife, so in some sense he has been wronged.

Masago, the wife. She has two interconnected motives: she needs revenge and appeasement of guilt. As a victim of a rape, she was shamed before both her husband and the bandit. She must try to exact revenge on the bandit, yet her husband spurns her as she tries to seek this revenge. In order to receive satisfaction, she must incite the fight (as she is reported doing in every version). It is important that in her version, the two men aren't actually seen fighting, because her agenda is to take the blame for the death of her husband away from herself. She deals with this by simply losing consciousness, then waking and finding her husband dead and the bandit gone.

Takehiro, the husband. This one is primarily driven by his culpability. He got himself tied up and then killed. He has to explain it somehow in honorable terms. It's very important that his story does not include a fight with the bandit. The husband was vain and proud, and losing the fight would be quite dishonorable. His version ends in suicide, as he owns up to his failures - but only after rejecting his wife (by not running after her), who "let herself get raped."

The woodcutter. Although his version is the most complex, having elements of all the others, his main motive is simple: to avoid being asked where the knife is (he denies having seen it at the inquest). Yet he is torn, repeatedly saying "That's a lie" to all the other stories. When he finally does tell his whole version, he describes the players as being full of pity, regret, fear and horror: all emotions that he must have gone through while watching the encounter. Further, his story must include a fight between the two men (which is disorganized and messy, concluding with "I don't want to die!"), because the husband must die by a sword wound and not a dagger. At the end, the wanderer gets the woodcutter to all but confess to having taken the dagger. Whether he took it from the husband's chest or picked it up from the ground is not known, but watch Takashi Shimura's face at the moment the medium speaks of having the dagger pulled out. The expression is one of horror, but is it horror over his own actions?

The woodcutter has both the most and the least to hide. His "crime" was being a witness, and then stealing evidence; he may be impeding justice by more or less corroborating the bandit's story - i.e., a "non-dagger death." Yet this impediment might not be that significant, considering Tajomaru's reputation and likely fate anyway. He must hide the fact that he's a thief, yet we can believe that he'd put the money gotten from the theft to good use. After all, he has six mouths to feed. I guess I distrust him the least, and believe that his lie hurts the fewest people. I suppose I'm highlighting what I value in the character (and in life) by making this interpretive decision. And that's why I also don't mind the ending (which some have felt is sentimental or out of step with the tenor of the film). In taking the abandoned child home, the woodcutter is compensating for his ill-gotten gains, and thus restoring balance to his karma.

But just maybe the woodcutter saw nothing (as in his first telling), and his second version was a fantasy of his own creation, made to appease the enormous guilt he feels at stealing the dagger. As the wanderer says, "We all want to forget something, so we create stories. It's easier that way."

A movie that truly belongs to world cinema's history.......2007-04-11

Sometime during the 12th century in Japan, three men, a woodcutter, a commoner and a priest, find themselves under the ruin of the Rashomon as they seek shelter from the heavy rain. As they wait for a break in the weather, they discuss the trial of the bandit Tajomaru, accused of killing the samurai Takehiro after having raped his wife. But was it what truely happened? The more we listen to the witnesses, the further we seem to drift away from the truth....

As I read reviews here and there, I quickly realized that there were basically two sides: the enthusiasts (the majority), some of which almost implying that there just can't be anything to complain about since this movie is widely considered as one of the most important in cinema history. And then there are those who are quick to argue that this movie is overrated, even boring. So, are the former just name-droppers in select parties, hoping to pass for the artsy-witsy type? Or are the latter either ignorant or trying to be hipper than hip by going against the greater number's judgement?

I think the main issue here is that those two sides just aren't talking about the same aspects of the movie. If there's one thing that's undeniable about Rashomon, the movie that truely revealed its director to the world, earning him a Golden Lion in 1951 at the Venice Film Festial and a honorary award at the Oscars, is that at the time of its release, this movie broke grounds both technically and in terms of story-telling. Maybe the most famous of those technical "innovations" is the pointing of the camera directly at the sun: to us now, it may comes as completely anticlimatic, but this was breaking one of the biggest taboos at the time

But maybe the one aspect of this movie that immediatly impressed the most was the storytelling, this presentation of several perceptions on what happened that fateful day, leading us only to accept in the end that the factual truth, because we couldn't experience the events first hand but only through the eyes of the various witnesses who all played a part in them, is forever lost to us. Such use of subjectivity to present a singular fact to the audience, therefore shaking their confidence in what they have actually seen, continues to this day to influence movies. Surely, if Rashomon hadn't been made, another director would have done just the same, but the first happens to be Kurosawa, and whatever one's appreciation of this movie is, the fact remains that, for those reasons alone, it deserves our utmost respect

But does it deserve our love? Now that's the hard one. It is certainly not an emotionally engaging movie: you're never really brought to care for the characters, which is probably the one reason why I couldn't give it 5 stars, no matter how much of a piece of history that movie is: I just need to emotionally connect with a movie at some level to be fully engrossed in it, and Rashomon just doesn't do that for me. However, it definitely is an intellectually engaging movie, and relatively short. The multiple layers in the visual, the acting, the philosophical statements all almost make up completely for it, and it ends before the lack of emotional ties leads you to lose interest in the story

Also, if you are after a Kurosawa movie which will entertain you from the word go, you would be far better off watching "Seven Samurai" or even "The Hidden Fortress". Rashomon lacks this fun factor - on the surface: dwelve on it some and the irony of the woodcutter's second tale, between Tajomaru's child-like glances and the swordfight's parody, which come in direct contrast with the others' tales, and in particular Tajomaru's own, can definitely qualify as funny, although it is much more likely to bring a soft chuckle rather than an outright loud laugh out of you

You may be put off by other details: the lack of dialogues for one. I would however argue that more dialogues wouldn't have been necessary, nor would they have shed anymore light on the case. What the director wants us to know without being put into words transpires through clever camera work, precise use of space and of the elements the environment provides (weather conditions, light, shadows of the foliage, etc). What may also grate on your nerves is what may pass as overacting (in particular in Mifune's and Machiko Kyo's cases): that being said, for one, acting standards in Japan are slightly different from those in the West. What I mean by that is that what they consider good acting may often be considered as unnatural and overacting by us. There's also another explanation: we aren't witnessing the facts as they actually happened. In a sense, the characters involved in this deadly affair are all, as they testify, performing, hoping to convincingly present the events in a way that will best serve their interests and, in the words of the others, they are but mere puppets who are made acting to suit their needs. No wonder therefore that a sense of surreality permeates these performances

Another point that may be annoying is the lack of resolution: sure, the image the woodcutter walking away with the baby under sun that is at last shining forth provides for a hopeful note. But the movie, through the camera angle during the testimony scenes at the court, puts you in the position of the judge, of the person who is there to seek out the truth. Yet you are forced to admit in the end that you'll never find it

But then the next question should be: do we need to know? Tajomaru, whatever the role he played, has, from what we are told, killed other women already: even if his role in this affair remains unclear, his fate, now that he is in the hands of justice, shouldn't. The samurai's wife, whether she has encouraged this violent act or not, will live a life of shame, a fate maybe worse than death. The samurai will cannot be brought back to life anyway. As for the woodcutter, even if he has taken the dagger to resale it, his generosity towards the child certainly more than redeems the theft

Interestingly enough, Kurosawa, it seems, never thought of Rashomon as of one of his best movies. And as for myself, I tend to agree with that statement, if only because it isn't too engaging on an emotional level. Still, Rashomon remains a movie that should be watched by any aspiring film-maker as well as any person more or less interested in the art of film-making in general. But I would also definitely recommend it to anyone not afraid of rather depressing yet tinted with hope, philosophical statements, and willing to spend the necessary time to reflect on it afterwards and possibly treat themselves to more than one viewing

A last word on the DVD itself: I've only watched the Criterion Collection edition of this movie, and I don't think I'll ever need another one. The restored transfer's quality is absolutely superb, even though I am tempted to say that the image faired better than the sound. The translation, from what little I can judge, is adequate; I have, however, only listened to the English dubbing for a hanful of scenes, so I can't say much, apart that it seemed terribly out of sync sometimes. The extras are all insightful, be it Robert Altman's introduction, the documentary extract on Kazuo Miyagawa, the cinematographer, or the audio commentary by Donald Richie. Also, the booklet that accompanies the single disc contains the two short stories on which the script was based, which is a most welcome addition

Required viewing at most film schools.......2007-04-10

In the Bible, Pilate asks, "What is truth?" and, as Roger Bacon puts it, "would not stay for an answer."

I felt a bit the same way after seeing this remarkable film by Japan's celebrated film maker, Akira Kurosawa. It is set in 12th century Japan, and while most viewers would say it examines the nature of truth and finds it slippery, I think it more properly examines the nature of the feudal Japanese society.

We have as representatives of that society, a priest (Minuru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) sitting out a rain storm in a place called Rashomon. It might pass for a ruined Greek temple except that its pillars and roof are made of wood. The priest and the woodcutter declare that they just can't understand it. They shake their heads and stare at the ground. Along comes a commoner (Kichijiro Uedo), a cynical man who asks what it is that they cannot understand.

They have witnessed an investigation into the death of a samurai, Takehiro (Masayuki Mori). He is in some ways the equivalent of a medieval knight. He has a horse and lady, Masako (Machiko Kyo). The accused is an infamous outlaw named Tajomaru (played brilliantly by Toshiro Mifune, who obviously had a lot of fun with the part). He tells his story. He admits to having his way with the lady, but lets the court know that she liked it so much that she began to embrace him while her husband was tied up watching. Afterwards he says that she insisted that they fight over her. Tajomaru obliges. He cuts the rope holding Takehiro and they sword fight. Tajomaru wins.

Next the wife tells her story. It is different of course. This causes the court to get a medium (Fumiko Honma) to tell the story from the point of view of the dead Takehiro. His story is different yet again. Finally the woodcutter reveals to the priest and the commoner that he saw the whole thing, and he then gives his version, again different of course.

The commoner has some terrifically cynical lines. Here are three:

"It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves."

(To the priest:) "Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie if it's interesting."

"Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way."

He speaks for the natural or animalistic man.

His counterpoint, the priest, opines, "If men don't trust each other, this earth might as well be hell."

He speaks for moral man.

Near the end of the film a baby is discovered crying. The woodcutter, who has five or six children of his own, takes the baby home.

He represents civilized man.

Masako represents the samurai's view of the nature of women when she is heard to say, "A man has to make a woman his by his sword."

What impressed me most about this film is the way Kurosawa was able to create an emotional atmosphere in each of the sittings. "In the Grove" we feel the trees and the light that sparkles through the leaves, and the disturbed serenity. At Rashomon in the rain we feel the men isolated and waiting, and in the sterile court scene we feel the severity of the tragedy.

The Worst Movie I've Ever Seen.......2007-04-04

The Bandit is so obinoxious, it's not even funny, the movie hardly mean't be laughable anyway

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