Rashomon

                                                                           Rashomon 

Rashomon is a Japanese film that was directed and written by Akira Kurosawa. It is a psychological thriller about a samurai who was murdered in the woods. Various people are describing how he was murdered, and they are all lying and telling it differently to make themselves look good. Akira Kurosawa does a great job telling this story from the cinematography to the different perspectives used when storytelling. 

One thing about Rashomon that makes it stand out is the cinematography. This is important in this film because he is trying to bring the feeling of a silent film into Rashomon. Many scenes in the film are silent, relying only on the filming and the action to get across what they are trying to convey. One of the best sequences is the long series of moving camera shots that follow the woodcutter into the forest, before he finds the evidence of the crime. These shots, in Kurosawa’s words, lead the viewer “into a world where the human heart loses its way.” Movement of the camera, the character, and the forest’s foliage become the very point and subject of the scene. 

Another important aspect of the movie is how he tells the story with multiple perspectives of the same event. Rashomon is a film that is centered around one event that is being told in a different way by multiple people. Kurosawa remarked that human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. In Rashomon, each character tells a different version of the story, embellishing the truth to make themselves feel like better or stronger people than they actually are. Storytelling itself is one of the most important parts of the film. In the film, each act of storytelling tends to reveal more about the speaker than about the story's content, in a way that only becomes apparent when piecing the various accounts together to form a grand understanding. 

The use of natural light was also an important aspect of the film. A lot of films were using big stage lights, so the use of natural light in Rashomon gave the film a unique perspective. One important use of this is in a flashback that shows the case from the woodcutter’s point of view, the protagonist enters and walks through the woods carrying an axe. The scene shows both the woodcutter and the sun through dense trees. In the first aspect, his movement is depicted as both from left to right and right to left. This is a metaphor for the case the film deals with, where nothing is predetermined and certain. As the woodcutter’s movement differs according to the point of view, the same applies to the case. The second aspect, the shooting of the sun, was considered taboo up to that point, and cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa is credited with the “first” use of the effect. The sun is shown through thick branches, with the camera turned upside down. The way the sun is depicted is as obscure as the way truth is presented in the film.

Akira Kurosawa used the equipment many people and films had used prior, but he used it in a way that not many people had before. Rashomon made many advancements in the film industry with the use of cinematography and the feel of a silent film, the use of natural light, and the storytelling from multiple perspectives. 

Kotzathanasis, Panos. “5 Reasons Why ‘Rashomon’ Is a Masterpiece of World Cinema.” Taste of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists, 19 Mar. 2017, https://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/5-reasons-why-rashomon-is-a-masterpiece-of-world-cinema/.

Prince, Stephen. “The Rashomon Effect.” The Criterion Collection, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/195-the-rashomon-effect.