Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)

[Smeraldina Rima]

Kinema Junpo film watch

Rashomon this month from the top twelve of the KJ 1999 critics' list:

1. The Seven Samurai (1954) (Dec)
2. Floating Clouds (1955) (Nov)
3. Straits of Hunger (1965) (Oct)
4. Tokyo Story (1953) (Sep)
5. The Sun Legend of the End of the Tokugawa Era (1957) (Aug)
6. Rashomon (1950) (Jul)
7. Intentions of Murder (1964) (Jun)
8. The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 1: Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973) (May)
9. Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) (Apr)
10. Ugetsu (1953) (Mar)
11. Ikiru (1952) (Feb)
12. Life of Oharu (1952) (Jan)

In the 2009 critics' list it was voted the seventh best Japanese film.

In the readers' list from 2009 it was voted the thirtieth best Japanese film.

In the 1950 KJ year-end list it was voted the fifth best Japanese film of the year:

1.    Till We Meet Again (1950)
2.    Kikyo (1950)
3.    Morning Escape (1950)
4.    Shikko Yuyo (1950)
5.    Rashomon (1950)
6.    Scandal (1950)
7.    The Munekata Sisters (1950)
8.    Boryoku No Machi (1950)
9.    Light Snowfall (1950)
10.    Nanairo no hana (1950)
11.    Kike wadatsumi no koe: Nippon senbotsu gakusei shuki (1950)
12.    Josei tai dansei (dir. Shin Saburi)
13.    A Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950)
14.    Yama no kanata ni - Dai ichi-bu: Ringo no hoo (1950)
15.    Tenya wanya (1950)
16.    The Bells of Nagasaki (1950)
17.    Tenno no boshi (dir. Torajiro Saito)
18.    Engage Ring (1950)
19.    Gunkan sudeni kemuri nasi (1950)

The thread is for watching and talking about the film or related films (by director, cinematographer, actors, 1950, genre etc.) but if you've seen it already then you could also contribute from memory. How old were you when you first saw it, what does it mean to you, did it leave you with any questions, did you find anything that helped you with the film, know any other films that make a good double bill, or any fun trivia?

If you plan to watch it or rewatch it this month then it might be good to post your initial notions or memories before posting what you make of it now.

I haven't seen it before and am annoyed to have missed some recent opportunities to watch it in a cinema. Seen a few other Kurosawa films this year for the first time. My favourite so far has been Drunken Angel, which also stars Toshiro Mifune. Last month I read Imamura said this about that film: 'I found the gangster played by Toshiro Mifune incredibly real; he reminded me of people I'd meet on the black market. I thought that Kurosawa must truly be a great director if he could make an actor as bad as Mifune look so real.' I also became a fan of the cinematographer Miyagawa through Mizoguchi's films so will be looking out for what he comes up with here. Will probably read the Akutagawa short story as well, not sure which way round. Has anyone read any stories by Akutagawa before?

One thing we haven't done but could have been doing with the other threads was comment on the posters, or at least post a favourite. If I've read Wikipedia carefully enough this is the original poster from 1950:



And this is a re-release poster from 1962 which has become a more famous image, and is probably my main idea of the film before seeing it:

[Crenners]

Not seen it for 25 years but keen to get involved with this one.

[neveragain]

It wasn't as I remembered it.

[phantom_power]

I liked it, but my friend sitting in another part of the cinema thought it was shit

[Dayraven]

Will probably read the Akutagawa short story as well, not sure which way round. Has anyone read any stories by Akutagawa before?

There are two Akutagawa stories adapted by the film — 'In a Grove' (or 'In a Bamboo Grove' depending on the translation), which supplies most of the plot and structure, and 'Rashomon', which only loosely inspires the frame story. They're both in the Penguins Classics 'Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories' collection.

Akutagawa is a canonical Japanese author. Something that's rather unusual about his work is the application of Modernism to stories in historical Japanese settings, as here.

[zomgmouse]

This is a 5/5 film for me, though I haven't revisited it since watching it many years ago. At the moment probably third-favourite Kurosawa behind Ran at #1 and Ikiru at #2. It's such a simple premise but the retelling of the stories and that ominous rainy frame is just incredibly done.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Kazuo Miyagawa and Akira Kurosawa on Rashomon

I think this ten minute clip is from the same documentary which had another interesting ten minute section about Miyagawa's work for Ugetsu). This clip covers Kurosawa asking Miyagawa to improvise and cut, shooting directly at the sun for the first time (?) (in another video Robert Altman mentions having immediately wanted to try this and using it ever since), some test pieces in the forest which I found interesting to compare with the final shots in the film, using mirrors to reflect light into dark parts of the forest (which seemed important for sweaty faced shots), getting better looking leafy shadows on the characters' faces and backs by holding foliage behind the camera, tinting the artificial rain to make it show up (wondered if the same thing was done for the rain scenes in Yojimbo and Floating Weeds, and how Kurosawa went about filming the snow - which I actually mistook for rain - in Ikiru), and the path-crossing tracking shot in the forest following the wood-cutter's walk, including this diagram.



In his interview, Kurosawa concentrates on how the tinted rain and the heightened shadows helped to create a more convincing appearance than they could get naturally. The direct and indirect uses of the sun and the way the shot of the woodcutter covers ground and shows moving shadows also make metaphors of seeing things in different lights and from different points of view part of the film's visual language from the woodcutter's walk. Having said that, the kind of relativism the film deals with is not really the same as what I had in mind - conflicting memories, perspectives, small revelations - being mainly about the different stories the characters are compelled to tell, or what makes them have to tell their stories. I found that if I was trying to piece together a puzzle, more than a picture of what might have really happened, it was for what each part of the separate stories said about the character telling it, and what motivated confusing details. And more complicatedly, whether it was possible to distinguish between visualisations of the stories being told and things within each version that might not come only from the known storyteller, but could be mixed in as a more 'objective' canvas or even some things that jumped out showing another character's perspective within the main character's version.

The way that Miyagawa filmed moving shadows in the forest reminded me of the more reserved shots of characters walking through a forest in the wind in Miss Oyu one year later in 1951.



I didn't know that besides having Miyagawa as the cameraman, two of the main actors from Ugetsu were in Rashomon. One of the most memorable lines in Ugetsu is about how the value of people ond things truly depends on their setting. This idea, some ghostly white images and the uses of marching music made the films seem closely connected, and made me want to watch Ugetsu for a third time with the relativist themes most in mind.
 
I'll come back to post about the film in closer detail. Don't know how to organise and normify my thoughts about it so having watched the film earlier in the month and now having read the two stories (thanks for giving the context, @Dayraven ) I'm going to go through the film/stories together, starting from "In a Bamboo Grove" and coming back to the "Rashomon" related frame narrative at the end.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Testimonies of the woodcutter, priest, policeman [and old woman]

In the Akutagawa story, the woodcutter says about the horse: 'How's that, Sir — a horse? No, a horse could never have gotten into that place. It's all bamboo thicket between there and the road.'

Then the priest and the policeman describe the horse in their testimonies:

'The horse was a dappled gray with a tinge of red, and I'm fairly sure it had a clipped mane. Was it a big horse? I'd say it was a few inches taller than most, but I'm a priest after all. I don't know much about horses.'

[...]

'And yes, as you say, Sir, the horse is a dappled gray with a touch of red, and it has a clipped mane.'

In the film the horse's appearance isn't part of the evidence but it looks more white and it has a longish mane. The colour of the horse is much better for the shots by the river and the stream, and having the forelock blowing in the wind in the former.




There's a nice symmetry between the horse and samurai.




a bit like when people start to look like their [horse] on TV Burp, because of the dark muzzle and the samurai's moustache and their big dark eyes.

The policeman's testimony about the horse throwing off the bandit is similar to the version in the film but the bandit is discovered on a stone bridge:

'It's only a dumb animal, but it gave that bandit just what he deserved, throwing him like that. It was a short way beyond the bridge, trailing its reins on the ground and eating plume grass by the road.'

I liked this sequence in the film, moved from the stone bridge to having the bandit and horse together at the river bank. Nice slapstick cut as the policeman is still falling backwards into the water after being kicked away. I initially thought that the bandit had arrows deep in his back and was more badly hurt (but that's wrong isn't it?). 





It's only in the film that Tajomaru contradicts the policeman with his food poisoning and stop for a poo alternative story which is there the first example of the bandit's repeated proud/exculpatory lack of self-mastery. In the film I wasn't sure what to make of Tajomaru spending most of the policeman's testimony looking up at the floating clouds.




It seemed like there was a meaning of the clouds I was missing here. I took it as they looked ominous of either good or bad to the bandit and that in his story-telling brain contemplating the clouds helped him envisage these other clouds nicely when he set the scene at the beginning of his own testimony:



This shot reminded me of similar in-between episode bits of Barry Lyndon, but there are probably loads of examples like this (are there any similar from the first half of the 20th century?).

I remember that in filming Ugetsu, Miyagawa liked to just very slightly adjust the camera position, in that case to create an imperceptible ghostly feeling. Here I was wondering what he was going for with the moving camera positions of the court scenes, initially looking from below the judge, a bit more left or right or tilted and zooming in and out, then there's an obvious effect when coming back in the heat of Tajomaru's testimony and he's looking at the camera for the first time. Later I think the medium also looks straight at us, so we sort of become drawn in as the judge or perhaps something else with the medium in the more intense parts.







In the story, between the policeman's and Tajomaru's testimonies there's another one from Masag/ko's mother, absent in the film. It seemed notable here that the mother doesn't try to disguise Masag/ko's bold character:

'My daughter, Sir? Her name is Masago, and she is nineteen years old. She's as bold as any man, but the only man she has ever known is Takehiro. Her complexion is a little on the dark side, and she has a mole by the outside corner of her left eye, but her face is a tiny, perfect oval.'

[Smeraldina Rima]

Tajomaru's confession (content warning: sexual violence)

From other films I had been getting a rough idea of the ethical codes that influence the samurai and the idea of the self-sacrificing woman (eg. expectation of suicide after being the victim of a rape, which the later episodes approach in a similar way to Imamura) but was less confident about recognising the values motivating the bandit if they differ from the samurai. In the end, apart from his laughter and his rape fantasy the thing that stood out was that he proudly draws attention to having no self-control and acting suddenly in response to various stimulation and chance happenings of weather, beauty, attitudes. The film adds the brief story about his sudden loss of physical control before his confession:

I was riding the horse and was suddenly very thirsty so around Osaka I drank from a spring. Snake poisoned water... stomach ache... couldn't hold it in... by the river got off horse and crouched in field.

It also takes on a Mersault-type dimension through sun, sweat and itching. His view of himself as a sudden spontaneous reactor also gives him his excuses. He reacts to four different idealised versions of the woman, three of which are found in the source text - the extra one of frozen eyes making for a further contrast - attributing to the four attractive forms his responses of initial attraction, envy, lust and finally wanting to make her his wife while repeatedly justifying his killing of the samurai: 1) glimpsed as goddess, 2) pale, childlike intensity with frozen eyes 3) fierceness 4) crazy sobbing with burning eyes. This requires four different convincing expressions from both actors to make the episode effective.

1. Goddess




Source text: the second I saw them, a puff of wind lifted her veil and I caught a peek at her. Just a peek: that's maybe why she looked so perfect to me—an absolute bodhisattva of a woman. I made up my mind right then to take her even if I had to kill the man.

Film: Suddenly a cool breeze rustled the leaves. If it hadn't been for that wind I wouldn't have killed him. I caught a glimpse and then she was gone. Maybe that's why I thought she was a goddess. At that moment I decided to capture her, even if I had to kill her man.

Comment: This part has some good music conveying the bandit's dreamy feelings. I think here you also see one example of the close-up improved shadows on his face.

2. Pale, childlike intensity with frozen eyes



Source text: Once I finished with the man, I went and told the woman that her husband had suddenly been taken ill and she should come and have a look at him. This was another bull's-eye, of course. She took off her hat and let me lead her by the hand into the grove.

Film: Her face turned pale, she stared at me with frozen eyes, her expression intense like a child's. When I saw that, I envied the man and I suddenly hated him. I wanted to show her how pathetic he looked tied to that pine tree. These thoughts that weren't there before filled my head.

Comment: This expression/reaction is added in along with the bits of the bandit spying on her from above and her recognising being observed. This also means that he's attracted to frozen eyes before her burning eyes later. The taking off of the hat is shown across this and the next stage, here being lowered behind her, next being dropped while running. Here we go back to the court and see the bandit facing us for the first time I think. That works well but I found it a bit of an annoying interruption going from the cinematic forest to theatrical court.

3. Fierceness




Source text continued: She took off her hat and let me lead her by the hand into the grove. As soon as she saw the man tied to the tree, though, she whipped a dagger out of her breast. I never saw a woman with such fire! If I'd been on my guard, she'd have stuck that thing in my gut. And the way she kept coming, she would have done me some damage eventually no matter how much I dodged. Still, I am Tajōmaru. One way or another, I managed to knock the knife out of her hand without drawing my sword. Even the most spirited woman is going to be helpless if she hasn't got a weapon. And so I was able to make the woman mine without taking her husband's life. Yes, you heard me: without taking her husband's life. I wasn't planning to kill him on top of everything else. The woman was on the ground, crying, and I was getting ready to run out of the grove and leave her there when all of a sudden she grabbed my arm like some kind of crazy person.

Film: I had never seen such fierceness in a woman.

Comment: The taking off of her hat and veil marks the transition from a goddess to a new stage of the bandit's attraction, shown in two stages in the film, here most dramatically. Initially, during the bandit's tricking of the samurai, their scuffle preceding the samurai being tied up is cut short by an abrupt screen wipe which brings the bandit immediately back on to the screen from left to right in a blur before he laughs at the samurai and continues running in a blur through the leaves from left to right.





(Is that remaining line on the right a technical wiping issue that couldn't be avoided?)

Then, after he's gone to find the woman and she's lowered her hat, they run back to the scene from right to left in a similar leafy blur. The panning shot (or is it tracking?) stops suddenly with her hat and veil which have come off.




The rape or rape fantasy follows this:









Test pieces from the Miyagawa film show different gentler looking shots of their embrace:




4. Some kind of crazy person sobbing with burning eyes



Source text continued: The woman was on the ground, crying, and I was getting ready to run out of the grove and leave her there when all of a sudden she grabbed my arm like some kind of crazy person. And then I heard what she was shouting between sobs. She could hardly catch her breath: "Either you die or my husband dies. It has to be one of you. It's worse than death for me to have two men see my shame. I want to stay with the one left alive, whether it's you or him." That gave me a wild desire to kill her husband. (Sullen excitement.)

When I say this, you probably think I'm crueler than you are. But that's because you didn't see the look on her face—and especially, you never saw the way her eyes were burning at that moment. When those eyes met mine, I knew I wanted to make her my wife. Let the thunder god kill me, I'd make her my wife—that was the only thought in my head. And no, not just from lust. I know that's what you gentlemen are thinking. If lust was all I felt for her, I'd already taken care of that. I could've just kicked her down and gotten out of there.

Film: I still had no intention of killing him, but then...

Comment: The bandit's reaction described in detail in the story is mainly shown and not explained in the film. Partly because of the later testimony from the samurai where the bandit turns against her at a similar point, when I was thinking back to this bit I wasn't sure of the bandit's own feelings. You might interpret him losing interest here, in that case already feeling what he later says when she escapes: 'I was attracted to her fierce spirit. But after all she was just like all other women.' But having read the story, I think it's supposed to be a faithful representation of the progress of the text above. So he is attracted to her again in this stage of her crazy burning eyes and wants to fight the samurai and win her as his own wife but is disappointed after she escapes, then claiming she lost her fierceness during their fight. As mentioned before the film introduces the comparison of her 2. frozen eyes with 3. fire. 4. burning eyes.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Rashomon gate in-between section and Masako's testimony



The last part of the policeman's testimony in the story gets reworked as the commoner's response to the bandit's confession in the film, preceding Masako's testimony. This is the end of the policeman's testimony in the story:

Of all the bandits prowling around Kyoto, this Tajōmaru is known as a fellow who likes the women. Last fall, people at Toribe Temple found a pair of worshippers murdered—a woman and a child—on the hill behind the statue of Binzuru. Everybody said Tajōmaru must have done it. If it turns out he killed the man, there's no telling what he might have done to the woman who was on the horse. I don't mean to meddle, Sir, but I do think you ought to question him about that.

This is the commoner's similar response to the bandit's testimony in the film:

(Yawns) Even amongst the bandits, Tajomaru is famous for being a womanizer. Why, last fall, a young wife went to the temple and she and her maid were found dead in the mountains. That must have been him too. Who knows what really happened to that woman who left her horse?

Priest: Well, the woman showed up at the courthouse, she was hiding in the temple when the police found her.

The child becomes a maid in the film. Masako having been found 'hiding in the temple' before being brought to court connects to the title of section in the story: 'Penitent Confession of a Woman in the Kiyomizu Temple'.

The woodcutter calls both the bandit's and Masako's versions lies, the commoner says that everyone lies, it's human to lie, and the priest says 'that may be, but it's because men are weak that they lie, even to themselves' which implies that he might have more faith in Masako's version. The commoner says he doesn't want another sermon, only an entertaining story, lie or not, which he asks for more eagerly after a pause, looking worried that he might have deterred the priest by rejecting a sermon. The priest says the woman's story is so different that she didn't even show the fierceness on her face that the bandit spoke of, despite the bandit having spoken of her fierceness as her reaction to his bringing her to see her husband tied up (and claiming that she was really like all other women). In the film, we don't get her mother calling Masako as 'bold as any man', and the priest's logic seems slightly flawed.

Masako's testimony in the film differs from the story:

"This is the end, then. Please be so good as to allow me to take your life. I will quickly follow you in death."

When he heard this, my husband finally began moving his lips. Of course his mouth was stuffed with bamboo leaves, so he couldn't make a sound, but I knew immediately what he was saying. With total contempt for me, he said only, "Do it." Drifting somewhere between dream and reality, I thrust the dagger through the chest of his pale blue robe.

In the film, she first unties her husband and tells him to kill her instead of asking for his permission to kill him and then follow, then she's not shown killing him in the dream state either. It's implied that she did kill him but it leaves ambiguity and the viewer might think he killed himself when she fainted.

What looks like a continuity error with different lengths of Masako's hair made me think that Kurosawa might have been unsatisfied with the husband's mocking look at the end of a take that circles around and then refilmed other shots with him looking more blankly contemptuous:





Masako now replicates the experience of the bandit, being sent into a trance by her husband's cold look. The three main characters responding in a zigzag of looks and reactions is reflected by the three secondary characters back at the Rashomon gate:


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

The failed suicide attempts reminded me of Intentions of Murder, where another victim of rape is distracted from suicide attempts by hunger and makes a snack. Since even Life of Oharu has one scene with Oharu showing a sarcastic animalistic side of her personality near the end, it seems like some of the films I was seeing as old-fashioned points of contrast with Imamura's representation of surviving and animal-compared women were also involved in some deconstruction of ideas of docile and self-sacrificing women, in this case especially with the way that Masako takes control in the second and seemingly truest woodcutter's version, which was added in the film and makes a big difference. But is that version meant to reflect worse or better on Masako than her own docile testimony, and do we see the last version more enthusiastically now than viewers at the time would? Where the bandit lies for his self-image, does Masako have to lie only to protect herself, or has she also internalised the responsibilities and shame that she appeals to in her testimony?

This section features a type of cutting that I was interested by in Kinoshita's Twenty-Four Eyes, getting closer and changing the angle. These shots last 7, 4 and 7 seconds:





This is used again in the two-shot at the Rashomon gate at the end.

[Dayraven]

the priest says 'that may be, but it's because men are weak that they lie, even to themselves' which implies that he might have more faith in Masako's version.

That does assume that using 'men' instead of 'people' is true to the original, rather than introduced by the translation. Specifically saying 'men' would be quite pointed in Japanese, while in older-fashioned English (I don't know when the subtitles you're watching are from), it wouldn't be.

[Smeraldina Rima]

That does assume that using 'men' instead of 'people' is true to the original, rather than introduced by the translation. Specifically saying 'men' would be quite pointed in Japanese, while in older-fashioned English (I don't know when the subtitles you're watching are from), it wouldn't be.

Ah, it wasn't meant to assume that but you're right. I should have written 'might imply' instead of 'implies he might'. Would you be able to understand the Japanese (at around 38 minutes)? Going back to that part, it looks like he probably does mean people in general, echoing the commoner's meaning and emphasising weakness as the cause of all lies; I had thought he could be turning to emphasise difference of gender since he's introducing Masako's version and her different appearance (increasingly doubting this now, partly because I'm recognising weakness as a meaningful addition to what the commoner says).

I was reading Mubi's English translation. Here's another English translation for reference (I'll see if I can find the Japanese film text):

WOODCUTTER
It's a lie. They're all lies!
Tajomaru's confession, the woman's story - they're lies!

COMMONER
Well, men are only men. That's why they lie.
They can't tell the truth, not even to themselves.

PRIEST
That may be true. But it's because men are so weak. That's why they lie. That's why they must deceive themselves.

COMMONER
Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie. Not if it's interesting. What kind of story did she tell?

PRIEST
Hers was a completely different story from the bandit's. Everything was different. Tajomaru talked about her temper, her strength. I saw nothing like that at all. I found her very pitiful. I felt great compassion for her.

This translation takes away the small issue I had with how the priest comments on the difference between Tajomaru's testimony and Masako's appearance.

Mubi translation: "Well it's completely different from Tajomaru's story. So different that her face didn't even show the fierceness he spoke of. She was so docile she was almost pitiful"

Which is rhetorically leading compared with this more conscientious version:

"Everything was different. Tajomaru talked about her temper, her strength. I saw nothing like that at all. I found her very pitiful. I felt great compassion for her."

[Smeraldina Rima]

The samurai's testimony through the medium



This looked like it could have been a scene from a horror film with the medium in a strong wind dressed in white, crouching down and looking at the camera, maybe specifically making me think of Ringu. Apparently Onibaba is usually seen as the first Japanese horror film, 14 years later in 1964. I couldn't tell if the action was sped up in places or if it's just Noriko Honma's movements, and if something was done to the sound of the voice.

There's another one of these sequences, with the same long shadow that was shown before and other shadows swaying around on the ground and on the samurai's face in the three shots as a long time passes:





In the Akutagawa story the samurai's testimony through the medium is the last of three versions of the samurai's death. All three witnesses claim to have murdered the samurai: the bandit in an impressive sword fight, the wife by stabbing him with the dagger in a trance (made vaguer in the film), and the samurai by stabbing himself before feeling the dagger removed by someone. This could lead readers of the story to disregard the sword fight as a lie told by the bandit and concentrate more on the relationship between the next two accounts of death by dagger. In the film, you might be more inclined to put faith in the woodcutter's outline with the subverted cowardly sword fight between the bandit and the dying samurai, and consequently view the bandit's description as being based on a real event at least.

This is how the story ends:

Then stealthy footsteps came up to me. I tried to see who it was, but the darkness had closed in all around me. Someone—that someone gently pulled the dagger from my chest with an invisible hand. Again a rush of blood filled my mouth, but then I sank once and for all into the darkness between lives.

There's something about this part of the samurai's testimony that comes across as a truthful detail in the short story and film even if the rest of his testimony is as doubtful as everything else, perhaps because he's claiming not to know something, but to have felt something. Although he/she could be pointing a finger at the theft indirectly. The woodcutter then tells his added version in the film which includes a sword fight death, contradicting the two deaths by dagger in the testimonies of the samurai and his wife. But Kurosawa still draws on the detail of the stolen dagger as something the woodcutter might have concealed (the commoner's accusation). If the dagger was taken away by the woodcutter, then was it from the ground after the fight he describes having watched, or directly from the samurai's chest (which would put the woodcutter's story into greater doubt)? And are all the conflicts carefully worked out by Kurosawa or are some only ramifications of the addition of the fourth version to the original three parts?

The woodcutter looks shifty at this point in the samurai's/medium's testimony and takes in a deep breath:





The priest wants to believe that the dead don't lie, Donald Richie suggests dismissing the samurai's testimony because ghosts don't exist (iirc), and Kurosawa in his autobiography mentions that even the dead samurai can't stop lying to himself.

The woodcutter's last version

The first time of watching the woodcutter's last version, I thought it was meant to be taken as the closest version to the truth, while also being an exaggerated personal view: ie. the woodcutter's guilt and anxiety about his own lack of courage in court distorts the real fight between the samurai and the bandit, exaggerating their timidity into a pantomime, while the fight had still taken place and been more fearful than the bandit had made out. The film's final version undermines the self-images in the three testimonies that went before, while the woodcutter conceals his own guilty secret: the woodcutter's apparent theft of the valuable dagger. After reading the short story, I thought that some of the things I was worrying about with the contradictory dagger scenarios were the loose ends from adding a fourth version including the sword fight, and that Kurosawa did want us to see the most truth in the last version (with the dagger theft implied). But rewatching it now, I think there's just as much done to show that the woodcutter would be lying about the sword fight taking place as there is doubt about everything else. So while the main thing is not being able to know what happened, it seems possible that there was no sword fight, that the samurai died from the dagger, and the woodcutter took it from his chest, before watching the three testimonies and making up alternative versions that excuse him practically and psychologically. That combination hadn't occurred to me before.

Another translation issue related to this: he says 'there was no dagger!' in my subtitles but I think the visuals ostensibly representing what he says then do show the dagger, for cutting the samurai loose, just not being used to kill him. Maybe that's all he had meant by that.

There's a last one of these sequences, here using dissolves in the transitions and coming back out at the end:






The other source story by Akutugawa is quite different from the film's frame narrative which has the main theme worked in with the other characters.


In Kurosawa's few pages about making this film in his autobiography he says that he went back to watch silent films for inspiration before directing it. Miyagawa said a similar thing in the Mizoguchi documentary, recommending learning from silent films when asked for advice he would give to directors.

I'll stop starting these Kinema Junpo film threads unless anyone particularly wants to watch/talk about any of the remaining five films. Thanks for joining in and especially Herbert Ashe for sharing a lot of recommendations and stuff.

[zomgmouse]

I am keen for the remaining films!!!

I don't have as much in-depth stuff to post but I appreciate your findings and observations and discussion.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Cool, will keep going then and open another thread for Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate. It's nice to be appreciated but it's more appreciated to be nice. (Bruce Forsyth)

[zomgmouse]

Hooray!

[chuckles]

Is anyone seeing the rerelease of Rashomon?  As the GFT screening ended, mutters of "that hasn't aged well" came from a couple of directions.  I feel sort of bitter that Rashomon is still famous to the exclusion of other Japanese films, more because of historical stuff than the content itself.
Tezuka explains it best in Japanese Cinema Goes Global.  Its submission to the Venice festival was not supported by the Japanese industry: a white person submitted it independently, calling it "strange" and "typically Japanese", which is a bit fucked.  Since penniless Toho was unable to submit Til We Meet Again to that same festival, the notion of the success of Rashomon being an "accident" was common among Japanese critics; in 1999 those critics said "I didn't like it, but I had to go along with it," in Japanese.

The film's alright, Columbo would've sorted the cunts out imo