Film Review
Rashomon was the film that
introduced Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema in general to western
audiences in the early 1950s. For all its apparent simplicity,
this would prove to be a landmark piece of cinema which would have a
profound and lasting impact on filmmakers across the world, from French
New Wave director Alain Resnais to the creator of
Star
Wars, George Lucas. A modest production (the
budget is estimated to be around 140, 000 dollars) that was intended
only for a Japanese market,
Rashomon
has enjoyed success and longevity way beyond the dreams of its producer
and director.
One of the reasons why
Rashomon
is held in high esteem is because it is credited with introducing the
idea of the subjective (and potentially misleading) flashback.
Interestingly (and this is often overlooked), Alfred Hitchcock employed
precisely the same device in his film
Stage
Fright (1950), without having seen Kurosawa's film.
The idea of an unreliable narrator certainly was not a complete
novelty. Agatha Christie created a storm of controversy when she
employed the device in her 1926 novel
The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Kurosawa was however the first
and, arguably, only person to date to use the subjective narrative
effectively in a film. Hitchcock himself admitted that his use of
the technique had been a mistake. Many other film directors
have since employed the same device, with varying degrees of
success. These include: Edward Zwick in
Courage Under Fire (1996), Yimou Zhang in
Hero (2002), Pete
Travis in
Vantage Point (2008).
Rashomon was itself remade as
the western
The Outrage
(1964) by Martin Ritt, a reworking of a Broadway play (also entitled
Rashomon)
which starred husband and wife
Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom.
The reason why the subjective flashback works so well in
Rashomon is because it is not a
stylistic gimmick but is in fact essential to both the plot and the
essence of the film. This is a work which explores the nature of
truth, in a bold and provocative manner that challenges our notion of
justice. Four characters are witness to a killing, but their
accounts of the same events are wildly different. We quickly
realise that all four witness are distorting the truth to present
themselves in the best light. If no one is capable of telling the
truth, how can a court of law arrive at an unbiased verdict?
Indeed, how can justice ever be done if everyone in the courtroom is a
liar?
Rashomon presents
some unpalatable truths about ourselves, showing that the facility for
misrepresenting the truth, either consciously or subconsciously, is
fundamental to the human psyche. To coin a phrase, I fib
therefore I am.
Rashomon's recognition as a
masterwork of Twentieth Century cinema owes absolutely nothing to its
producer, Masaichi Nagata (the head of Daiei, the company that
made it), and everything to Giuliana Stramigioli, a humble
representative at Italiafilm's office in Japan. It was Stramigioli who
coerced Nagata, against his will, into submitting Rashomon to the
Venice Film Festival in 1951. Nagata was not proud of the
film. In fact he had done his best to discourage Kurosawa from
making it and, when he saw it, he dislike it so much that he publicly
disowned it. He did not feel much warmer to the film when it
proved to be a commercial hit in Japan. As it turned out,
Rashomon was the most talked about
film at Venice that year. When it won the Golden Lion award, it
quickly gained the status as one of the most significant films in
years. RKO stepped in immediately to distribute the film in
America (not dubbed, as was their usual practice, but with subtitles),
and it enjoyed both critical and commercial success, even winning an
Honorary Award at the 1952 Oscars. By this stage, Nagata had
re-evaluated his appreciation of
Rashomon
and was happily taking all the credit for its success.
The two men who
do deserve
the lion's share of the credit for
Rashomon
are its director Akira Kurosawa and cinematographer Kazuo
Miyagawa. Together, they craft one of the most mesmerising works
in cinema, a potent exploration of human frailty captured on screen
with an extraordinary lyrical power and almost blinding lucidity.
The simplicity of the story and the minimalist elegance of the
mise-en-scène belie the complex philosophical and psychological
themes that underpin this film and which make it so intensely
compelling. This is cinema at its most basic and its most
effective - a simple story, simply told, but with the power to seize
the spectator's heart and intellect and provoke a deep and meaningful
reflection on the very nature of humanity. Watch this film if you
dare - it really will alter your perspective on life.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Akira Kurosawa film:
Scandal (1950)